1. The Mother of Social Work
Jane Addams
The Mother of Social Work

2. Born September 6, 1860 Cedarville, Illinois

3. Mother: Sarah Weber Addams
Died in childbirth when Jane was 2. Jane not allowed to go the funeral.
Was forty-six years old and carrying her ninth baby.
Was called over to help in the delivery of the wagonmaker's wife (doctor was somewhere out in the country)
She fell on the icy hill and when the doctor arrived Sarah collapsed and had to be carried home.
The exertion brought her own baby prematurely. It was stillborn and a week later Sarah Addams died. 
They tried to keep her from her dying mother, but she protested and was allowed into the room.
Four other children had died in infancy.

4. Left 5 children – Mary (17), Martha (13), John (Wee-ber, 11), Alice (10), Jane (2)
Mary would take over the mothering of Jane.
Martha would die of Typhoid fever at age 16 while away at boarding school.
The family had a servant Marry (Polly) Beers. She had been a baby nurse to Sarah and her siblings, and to their children as well. Polly likely came to the household when Sarah died to help. Polly would have been 61 at the time. Jane was close to Polly and when Jane was 16 Polly went to visit family (Sarah’s sibling) and took ill. Jane went to her (Four miles away) and nursed her and was alone with her when she died. Jan Polly was 75 at her death.
Jane later recalled having dreams as a child that Mary would die and then there would be no one to love her.

5. Father: John Huey Addams
Self-made man, Miller, Banker and Illinois State Senator. Became the wealthiest family in town.
Sarah and John moved to Cedarville in 1844 as newlyweds.
Using capital from John’s father purchased a flour mill, a sawmill and then grew his fortune. Founded a Bank in 1864.
Was state senator from 1854 to 1870.
Jane adored her father.
“My own vivid recollection of John H Adams is the fact that he was a man of purest and sternest integrity and that bad men feared him He was the uncompromising enemy of wrong and wrong doing. He was a leader as well as a safe and fearless advocate of right things in public life.
Addams served for sixteen years in the Illinois Senate, where he acquired a reputation for integrity; as one historian phrased it, "he became famous as a man who not only had never taken a bribe, but had never been offered one.[6] He participated in the founding of theRepublican Party and was a friend of Abraham Lincoln's.[6]
During the Civil War, Addams helped to raise and equip a regiment that became known as "the Addams Guard."

6. She watched her father cry at the news of Lincolns death
She watched her father cry at the news of Lincolns death. Gave her a sense of “a genuine relationship which may exist between men who share large hopes and like desires”
The men whom her father admired were principles, believed in abolishment of slavery, democracy.
John was a friend of Abraham Lincoln who addressed him as “Double-D Addams.”

7. Rippon Wisconson
It began in a little schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854. A small group of dedicated abolitionists gathered to fight the expansion of slavery, and they gave birth to a Party dedicated to freedom and equal opportunity. The name “Republican” was chosen, alluding to Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party and conveying a commitment to the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
John believed government should be used for good – to protect the vulnerable and to strengthen the economic infrastructure.
Opposed slavery – acted as a conductor on the Underground railway.
Did not like immigrants (except German’s). Was kind to those he did not consider his equal – but still thought himself better than most.

8. Drawing of the Addams family compound, with mill and home (from The Combination Atlas Map of Stephenson County, Illinois, Geneva, Ill.: Thompson and Everts, 1871, p. 28).

9. Religion
Did not formally belong to any Protestant churches because John could not agree with ALL of the doctrinal tenets of any of the denominations. Attended Cedarville Presbyterian Jane attended the “Union” nondenominational Sunday school
Household was evangelical Christian

10. Predestination?
He father taught her that actions, good or bad had moral consequences. At five thought that reading the bible aloud would to save her neighbors.
Predestination – God had already determined who would go to heaven when they die.
He father taught her that actions, good or bad had moral consequences.
When she asked her father about this, he told her that neither of them had the type of mind that could grasp that teaching, and that she should not worry about it.
He told her the important thing was to “ not pretend to understand what you did not understand, and that you must always be honest with yourself inside, whatever happened”. She called this a valuable lesson.
John was a Perfectionist Christian – believe that upon being saved a person becomes “perfect”. John Hicks considered 'obedience to the light within', the Inner Light, to be the most important principle of worship and the foundational principle of the Religious Society of Friends.
From revivalists who passed through town she learned that those who did not repent for their sins would burn in hell. She thought the bible must contain a magic word that could save all her neighbors. She attended to read the bible out loud. It was too big a task for a 5 year old.
She was not baptized as a child, was expected to make he own decision.

11. Childhood
Jane begins her formal education in the Cedarville Public School, a two-room schoolhouse, where she was known as “Jennie” Addams.
She had a crooked back from tuberculosus at age 4.

12. Lover of Books and a Dreamer

13. Wicked Stepmother!
When Jane was 8, John married Anna Hostetter, a widow with 2 sons.
Jane’s half brother George moved into the house.

14. “Jane and Anna mixed like oil and water”
Jane was quiet and equitable (fair and impartial). Anna was dramatic and had a fiery temper.
Anna had servants and did not cook but demanded Jane learn,
She would criticize Jane's cooking. Once she made Jane cancel a visit to see Mary (who had married) because the servant had a day off and someone need to cook John’s breakfast.
ANNA and Jane fought constantly. Anna would have “explosions” in which she would criticize Jane and Jane would argue back feeling unjustly slighted. The fights would escalate.
Both Anna and Jane had phrenological readings when Jane was 16. Womanly and Matronly. Above average intellect. Evenness of temperament. Tendency to be sober, serious and earnest. Skeptical prudent and careful. Would act on principle. Would believe nothing without good reason. There was an element of toughness about her that would endure a good deal. Though she would be a good chess player or financier.

15. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Transcendentalists
Jane Addams (second from left in first standing row) and Cedarville public school classmates (Rockford College Archives)
In high school her career choice was “social reformer”
Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Transcendentalists) believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual. They had faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed. Also believed that all people possessed a piece of the "Over-soul" (God). Because the Over-soul is one, this also united all people as one being.
 Robert Owen purchased New Harmony town in 1825 with the intention of creating a new utopian community.

16. Robert Owen: Utopian Socialism & the Cooperative Movement.
New Harmony Indiana
Jane read a 3 part series in The Atlantic Monthly on New Harmony Indiana.
Classless society. Lasted 2 years before economic ruin.
Became known as a center for advances in education and scientific research. New Harmony's residents established the first free library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to men and women.

17. Lucy Stone Prominent American abolitionist and suffragist .
“I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex.” (1847) .

18. Women and Education
Less than 1% of women attended college. There were less rigorous institutes of learning for women (women’s seminaries or colleges)
Smith College (Mass) a real university for women was opening just in time for Jane to attend, but her father would not let her go.

19. Rockford Female Seminary
The Seminary has two roles evangelizing (training women for Christian service overseas).
Giving Rockford woman : a dusting of culture before they marry.
They kept trying to convert her (she was still not baptized). She resisted – her father told her never to pretend to believe things she did not.
Rockford Female Seminary

20. Caroline Potter
Caroline Potter – History and Literature teacher – critical thinking and feminism
Jane Addams with members of the Rockford Female Seminary Class of 1881.  Jane Addams is to the far right in the back row, holding the parasol. (Rockford College Archives).

21. Ellen Gates Starr
Met first year at RFS Ellen could not afford to return for a second year, but Jane and she exchanged letters.

22. President of Castalian Society. Learned rhetoric and debate.
Excellent student
Class President
Editor of magazine
President of Castalian Society.
Learned rhetoric and debate.
Competed in an all male oratorical contest
Placed 5th of 9 .
Graduated 1881.

23. Mental Illness
Brother Weber – paranoid schizophrenia at 19 - committed to state mental hospital - was able to marry and to manage a mill for father. - always a fear of a relapse.

24. Mental Illness
Charles Julius Guiteau” Shot President Garfield. – son of family friend - John feared he would be asked to testify.

25. Death of John Addams August 1881
Addams died suddenly of acute appendicitis
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Jane takes this very hard and she spent eight years in a state of depression after his death
In early August 1881 Addams decided to take his family on a vacation in northwestern Michigan, where he planned to inspect some of the iron and copper ore mines as potential investments; they left on August 4. A week later John Addams became ill while climbing in an ore mine and the family decided to return home by train. They made it to Green Bay, Wisconsin before Addams was too sick to travel any further and the family booked a hotel room.[8] John H. Addams died suddenly of acute appendicitis on August 17, 1881 in the hotel in Green Bay at the age of 59.  His death came as a shock to his daughter Jane, and she spent eight years in a state of depression after his death.

26. Philadelphia
Anna, George, Jane, her sister Alice and Alice’s husband Harry (Anna’s oldest son) all move to Philadelphia where Jane and Alice enroll in Women’s medical college.

27. Disaster Anna became ill and had to have surgery.
Jane, having just lost her father, having to take care of Anna became ill (mental breakdown) and had to withdraw from medical school.
Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell - rest cure
for neurasthenia.
Rest cure for neurasthenia in the 1880s. Due to morale failure and selfishness. 6 weeks seclusion and rest. No visitors, books, good food, or letter writing.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman. – the yellow wallpaper published in 1892.

28. For the next eight years Addams searched for an appropriate career
For the next eight years Addams searched for an appropriate career. Two trips to Europe In London she was shocked by the poverty she observed (1883)
Waited on Anna – tried to be less selfish.
Got her BA from Rockford who had changed its rules and wanted to give her BA based on credits earned,
Harry (step-brother/brother-in-law) has found a way to fix her back. She has the surgery.
Four month recovery time.
Plans to go to Europe, but brother Weber has another “episode” that Jane and his wife need to deal with, He is committed again for a period.
1883 – first trip to Europe
 With her stepmother, family relatives, and friends she visits Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece.
In Ireland she sees begger children starving right beside huge estates of Anglo-Irish and British estates.
Finally she goes to Europe for a year (with Anna and her niece Sarah Hostetter, 7 women in total).
Tour of the east end of London left her in tears for days. She wanted to do something to help, but could not.
When back home she feels idol and lacking in purpose.

29. In She was deeply impressed by Toynbee Hall, England's first settlement house. Provided social services and education to the poor workers.
second tour of Europe with Rockford professor Sarah Anderson and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, Addams
Addams tours Toynbee Hall, the model for the social settlement movement throughout the world. 
In a letter to her sister, she proclaims this visit “the most interesting thing we have done in London.” 
Addams also begins reading Henry Besant’s novel, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, An Impossible Story.
Angela Messenger, the Cambridge-educated heiress to a large brewery and owner of several tenement houses in the East End, disguises under the name of Miss Kennedy and sets up a dressmaker's shop in Stepney. She offers her employees fair wages with additional benefits, such as free meals and longer recreation breaks during which they can even play tennis. Her overall aim is to upgrade the quality of life and work of disadvantaged female slum workers.

30. Chicago Nation's rail center and center for manufacturing.
heavy industry attracted a variety of skilled workers from Europe.
By 1870 Chicago had grown to become the nation's second largest city
Between 1870 and 1900 Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million, at the time the fastest-growing city ever.

32. Chicago 1889
Jane and Ellen move to Chicago and look for support among protestant ministers and club women.
Begins teaching boys classes on Wednesday evenings at the Industrial School .
  organizes a social club for girls
1889  Addams and Ellen Gates Starr move into a boardinghouse across the street from Chicago’s Washington Square Park on the city’s Near North Side, and begin to marshal support for their “scheme” among leading Protestant ministers and club women,
architect Allen B. Pond expresses enthusiasm for her plan, predicting that it will have great appeal for young women who are “dying from inaction and restlessness.”

33. Charles J. Hull 
Real estate developer who invested heavily in the Near West Side of Chicago. He built a family home there in 1856 Death of his wife in 1860, Helen Culver
Charles J. Hull 
Hull's cousin, Helen Culver moved into their household on South Halsted Street. Culver cared for the Hull children and assisted Charles Hull in his real estate office. Upon his death in 1889, Culver inherited his home, business, and fortune.

34. May 1889
Addams secures a lease for the use of a portion of the Charles J. Hull family home from Helen Culver
 Culver became a major donor to Hull-House, contributing land and money to the settlement, and a member of the Hull-House Board of Trustees.

35. June 8, 1889
Addams and Starr establish a kindergarten and opened the parlors of Hull House to their neighbors.

36. Provided medical service, established a night adult education program, staffed an employment bureau, fed the hungry, encouraged kids and adults to create art, set up, and started a day care center and a circulating library.

37. Hull-House was furnished as a middle-class home, with fine art and fashionable furniture, because Addams believed that in a truly democratic society the poor needed to have access to a setting that enriched the lives of the upper classes. 

38. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Video
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

40. May 21, 1935

41. Question
If she were alive today, what issues do you believe Jane would find most important for social activists to tackle? What would be her goals?