Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935)

Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois in 1860. Her mother died when she was two and she was raised by her father and, later, a stepmother. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, among the first students to take a course of study equivalent to that of men at other institutions. Her father, whom she admired tremendously, died that same year, 1881. Jane Addams attended Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania but she left the college, probably due to her ill health and her chronic back pain. She toured Europe from 1883 to 1885 and then lived in Baltimore until 1887. In 1888, on a visit to England with her Rockford classmate Ellen Gates Starr, Jane Addams visited Toynbee Settlement Hall and London's East End. Jane Addams and Ellen Starr planned to start an American equivalent of that settlement house. After their return they chose Hull Mansion in Chicago, a building which, though originally built at the edge of the city, had become surrounded by an immigrant neighborhood and was by then being used as a warehouse. Using an experimental model of reform and committed to full and part-time residents to keep in touch with the neighborhood's real needs, Jane Addams built Hull House into an institution known worldwide. Addams wrote articles, lectured widely, and did most of the fund-raising personally and served on many social work, social welfare, and settlement house boards and commissions. Jane Addams also became involved in wider efforts for social reform, including housing and sanitation issues, factory inspection, rights of immigrants, women and children, pacifism, and the 8-hour day. She served as a Vice President of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1911 to 1914. In 1912, Jane Addams campaigned for the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate, Teddy Roosevelt. She worked with the Peace Party, helped found and served as president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1931 Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Nicholas Murray Butler, but her health was too fragile to attend the European ceremonies to accept the prize. She was only the second woman to be awarded that honor. Jane Addams died of cancer in 1935. Her death sparked a public outpouring of grief; telegrams arrived by the hundreds, offering condolences from all over the world. In 1963, most of the buildings which had come to be included in what was called Hull House were torn down to make room for the University of Illinois, Chicago campus. All that is left today is the original mansion and one more building.