Addams, Jane

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Jane Laura Addams, b. Cedarville, Ill., Sept. 6, 1860, d. May 21, 1935, was an American social reformer, pacifist, and women's rights advocate. In 1889, influenced by British precedents, she founded Hull House, an institution in Chicago where she and other social reformers lived and worked to improve conditions in the city's slums. Hull House became a model for many other settlement houses in the United States. Jane Addams became president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919. Together with Nicholas Murray Butler, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Her books include Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) and Twenty Years at Hull House (1910).

John Robinson

Bibliography: Addams, Jane, The Social Thought of Jane Addams, ed. by Christopher Lasch (1965); Davis, A. F., American Heroine (1973; repr. 1983); Deegan, M. J., Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892 1918 (1986); Diliberto, Gioia, A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams (1999); Farrell, J. C., Beloved Lady (1967); McPherson, S. S., Peace and Bread (1993).