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Jane Addams [1860-1935]

Jane Addams [1860-1935] was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author & leader in woman suffrage & world peace. Beside presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson, she was the most prominent reformer of the Progressive Era & helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health & world peace. She emphasized that women have a special responsibility to clean up their communities & make them better places to live, arguing they needed the vote to be effective. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy. In 1931, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Click here for "An Exhibit of Photographs of Jane Addams, Her Family & Hull-House."

Right click image to enlarge.
September 6, 1860 - Birth of Jane Addams, John H. Addams Homestead, Cedarville, Illinois (USA). "Jane Addams was the youngest of eight children born into a prosperous Yankee family; her father was politically prominent. She was the eighth child, but three of her siblings died in infancy, & another died at age 16, leaving only four by the time Addams was age eight. Her mother, Sarah Addams (née Weber), died during birth when Jane was two years old. Addams spent her childhood playing outdoors, reading indoors & attending Sunday school. When she was age four, she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, Potts's disease, which caused a curvature in her back & lifelong health problems. As a child, she thought she was 'ugly' & later remembered wanting not to embarrass her father, when he was dressed in his Sunday best, by walking down the street with him. Addams adored her father when she was a child, as she made clear in the stories she told in her memoir, 'Twenty Years at Hull House' (1910). John Huey Addams was an agricultural businessman owning large timber, cattle & agricultural holdings, flour & timber mills & a woolen factory. He was the president of The Second National Bank of Free-port. He remarried in 1868, when Jane was eight years old. His second wife was Anna Hostetter Haldeman, the widow of a miller in Freeport. She had two sons: Harry, age 20, & George, age 7."

1888 -"Ellen Gates Starr [1859-1940] taught for ten years in Chicago before joining Addams in 1888 of a tour of Europe. While in London, they were inspired by the success of the English Settlement movement & became determined to establish a similar social settlement in Chicago. They returned to Chicago & co-founded Hull House as a kindergarten & then a day nursery, an infancy care centre & a center for continuing education for adults." Image shows Toynbee Hall settlement house in East London, founded 1884, pictured here in 1902.


1889 - Hull House, 800 South Halsted, Near West Side, Chicago, Illinois (USA). "A settlement house co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams [1860-1935] & Ellen Gates Starr [1859-1940]... By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings..." Right image is one of the 13 buildings. The original Hull House building [left image] is now [since when?] Jane Addams Hull-House Museum owned & operated by College of Architecture & the Arts of the University of Illinois at Chicago, & is open to the public." Jane Addams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 (with Nicholas Murray Butler).

1887 - "Standing Lincoln" Statue, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois (USA). By Irish-born American sculptor August Saint-Gaudens [1848-1907]. A favorite of Hull House founder [& Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Jane Addams [1860-1935] who once wrote, "I walked the wearisome way from Hull-House to Lincoln Park ... in order to look at and gain magnanimous counsel from the statue." Left image is 1920 copy in Parliament Square, London (England).

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January 10, 1915 - Women's meeting, New Willard Hotel, Washington, DC (USA). The forerunner to WILPF, the Woman's Peace Party (WPP) was formed at a meeting called by Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt. The approximately 3,000 women attendees approved a platform calling for the extension of suffrage to women and for a conference of neutral countries to offer continuous mediation as a way of ending war. WPP sent representatives to the International Women's Congress for Peace & Freedom in The Hague, April 28-30, 1915. (Image is not necessarily from the meeting in January 1915.)


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April 28-30, 1915 - International Women's Conference for Peace & Freedom, The Hague (Netherlands). Where held in The Hague? "Convenes on this day with more than 1,200 delegates from Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Poland, Belgium, the USA, and five other countries. Dedicated to the cause of peace and a resolution of the Great War. Often referred to as the Women's Peace Congress. Resulted from an invitation by a Dutch women's suffrage organization, led by Aletta Jacobs [1853-1929], to women s rights activists around the world, on the basis of the belief that a peaceful international assemblage of women would 'have its moral effect upon the belligerent countries' (as Jacobs put it during her opening address)." "International Women's Congress for Peace and Freedom, held in The Hague from April 28 to April 30, 1915. The Congress was organized by the German feminist Anita Augspurg (1857–1943), Germany's first female jurist, and Lida Gustava Heymann (1868–1943) at the invitation of the Dutch pacifist, feminist and suffragist Aletta Jacobs to protest against the war then raging in Europe, and to suggest ways to prevent war in the future. The Congress, attended by 1,136 participants from both neutral and belligerent nations, adopted much of the platform of WPP and established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP) with Jane Addams as president. WPP soon became of US Section of ICWPP." Both images show the US delegation, including Jane Addams, Emily Greene Balch [1867-1961], and Alice Hamilton [1969-1970]. Click here to identify everyone in upper image. Lower image from MS Noordam with the delegation's their blue & white "PEACE" banner.


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1915-1916 - Henry Ford's Peace Ship. "On the outbreak of the First World War in Europe [in 1914], Henry Ford, the wealthy American businessman, soon made it clear he opposed the war and supported the decision of the Woman's Peace Party (WPP) to organize a peace conference in Holland. After the conference Ford was contacted by America's three [sic] leading anti-war campaigners, Jane Addams [1860-1935], Rosika Schwimmer [1877-1948], Oswald Garrison Villard [1872-1949], and Paul Kellogg [1879-1958]. They suggested that Ford should sponsor an international conference in Stockholm to discuss ways that the conflict could be brought to an end. Ford came up with the idea of sending a boat of pacifists to Europe to see if they could negotiate an agreement that would end the war. He chartered the ship Oskar II, and it sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey on 4th December, 1915. The Ford Peace Ship reached Stockholm in January, 1916, and a conference was organized with representatives from Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden and the USA. However, unable to persuade representatives from the warring nations to take part, the conference was unable to negotiate an Armistice." (Unitarian Jenkin Lloyd Jones [1843-1918] sailed on the ship.) Upper images show Henry Ford [1863-1947] at the rail of the ship and Lola Maverick Lloyd [1875-1944] on board. Bottom image is "Henry Ford's Peace Ship," a painting by Mary McCleary, Regent's Professor of Art Emeritus, Stephen F. Austin State University. Click here for paper about the Peace Ship.

"After World War-I, peace movements & their different aims & strategies multiplied. The International Peace Bureau (IPB) lost its central role, and the peace movement lost much of its direct influence over politics." -- From Santi (1991).

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May 12-17, 1919 - 2nd International WILPF Congress, Zürich (Switzerland). "Because the French government refused permission to the German women delegates, the women's conference was held in Zürich." "ICWPP denounced the final terms of the peace treaty ending World War I as a scheme of revenge of the victors over the vanquished that would sow the seeds of another world war. They decided to make their committee permanent & renamed it the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF). The WILPF moved its headquarters to Geneva to be near the proposed site of the League of Nations, although WILPF did not endorse empowering that organization to conduct food blockades or to use military pressure to enforce its resolutions." Lower image shows the US delegation.

July 10-17. 1921 - 3rd International WILPF Congress, Vienna (Austria).


1922 - Emergency Peace Conference, the Hague (Netherlands). Also called Conference for a New Peace. "Calls for the convening of a World Congress to draw up a new agreement for a genuine peace." Attended by WILPF (Catherine Marshall, Jane Addams, Jeanne Melin) & other organizations.


1930 - Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (USA). Began with donation of papers from Jane Addams who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Has oniline Exhibits. 1931

1931 - Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to Jane Addams [1860-1935] & Nicholas Murray Butler [1862-1947]. Where is Addams' gold medal today?


1935 - Grave of Jane Addams, Cedarville (30 miles west of Rockford), Illinois (USA). Addams died in Chicago. The obilisk at her grave was restored in 2004. Jane Addams [1860-1935] was president of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF). She & Nicholas Murray Butler [1862-1947] shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. "As the first U.S. woman to win the prize, Addams was applauded for her 'expression of an essentially American democracy.'"

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1936 - "Jane Addams Memorial," By Mitchell Siporin, Illinois Federal Art Project, WPA, 1936 Tempera on paper Fine Arts Collection, General Services Administration (FA 216) "In this painting, Works Progress Administration (WPA) artist Mitchell Siporin [1910-1976] chose to memorialize a more contemporary heroine, humanitarian & social reformer Jane Addams. Addams is shown in the midst of the poor women & children to whom she dedicated much of her life. Her support of labor is indicated by a worker & farmer shaking hands. A soldier breaking a sword signifies her leadership as the head of the Women's Peace Party (WPP) & notes her achievement as the first American female Nobel Peace Prize winner." Where is this today?
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1940 - US postage stamp commemorating Jane Addams.

1946 - Nicholas Murray Butler Library, Columbia University, 535 West 114th Street, New York, New York (USA). Completed in 1934 & renamed for Butler in 1946. Nicholas Murray Butler [1862-1947] was president of Columbia University 1902-1945, president of the American branch of the Association for International Conciliation (founded in Paris in 1905 by Baron d'Estournelles de Constant), president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1925-1945 & chaired the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration (qv) that met periodically from 1907 to 1912. He "led five international conferences on international arbitration between 1907 and 1912" & received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 (with Jane Addams)."


1948 - Jane Addams Peace Association (JAPA), 777 United Nations Plaza, New York City, New York (USA). "Founded in 1948 'to foster a better understanding between the people of the world toward the end that wars may be avoided & a more lasting peace enjoyed.' We are the 501(c)3 educational affiliate of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), founded in 1915 with Jane Addams as its first president." Right image shows the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, awarded annually since 1953.


1956-1969 - Peace & Justice Murals, Third Unitarian Church, Mayfield & Fulton Streets, Chicago, Illinois (USA). 24 murals depicting "saints of liberalism." Painted by artist Andrene Kauffman [1905-1993] over a 14 year period. The "saints" (in alphabetical order) are: Jane Addams, John Peter Altgeld (governor 1893-1897), Susan B. Anthony, E.T. Buehrer (minister 1941-1969), Albert Camus, William Ellery Channing, Confucius, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mohandas Gandhi (left image), Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln (right image), James Martineau, Thomas Paine. Theodore Parker; Joseph Priestley, Siddhartha Gautama, Socrates, Harriet Tubman. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walt Whitman, Roger Williams & Woodrow Wilson. /// Images show only the Addams, Gandhi & Lincoln murals.


Date? - Jane Addams Quote. A wall-mounted quote by Jane Addams in The American Adventure, World Showcase Pavilion, Epcot, Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Florida (USA). Text: "What after all has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them?"


1996 - Jane Addams Memorial Park, 600 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois (USA). Near Navy Pier. Honors Jane Addams [1860-1935], founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and first US woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (1931). Park includes black granite statue "Helping Hands" by Louis Bourgeois. Entry #272 in the "Peace Movement Directory" by James Richard Bennett (2001).


1996 - "Helping Hands / A Touch of Jane Addams," Women's Park & Gardens, 1827 South Indiana Avenue, Chicago, Illinois (USA). By French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois [1911-2010]. "The work entails six rough hewn stone bases which each support a hand or series of carved black granite hands representing a broad range of people of different ages & backgrounds. The current installation reflects the artist’s original arrangement of the sculptures & their positions." First dedicated on the city’s lake front in 1996. "The Chicago Park District team completed the relocation of the group of sculptures on June 24th, 2011."


September 7, 2007 - Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, Illinois (USA). "A 79-mile (127 km) segment of Interstate 90 from Interstate 190 in far northwest Chicago to Illinois Route 75, one mile (1.6 km) south of the Wisconsin state line. The highway is named after Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Prize winner & founder of the Settlement House movement in the United States. The tollway was built in the late 1950's & early 1960's from the O'Hare area (at the Tri-State Tollway) to the Wisconsin line north of Rockford. Prior to September 7, 2007, the tollway was known as the Northwest Tollway.

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