Jane Addams

Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, and educated at Rockford Female Seminary. Illness interrupted later medical studies. During European travels she visited Toynbee Hall in London, encountering a settlement in which educated residents worked among poorer urban communities.

In 1889 she and Ellen Gates Starr leased a house built by Charles Hull in Chicago and established Hull House. Childcare, classes, clubs and cultural activities developed around the neighbourhood's needs. An art gallery, library, public kitchen and employment assistance were among the services added as the settlement expanded.

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Settlement work exposed Addams and her colleagues to factory labour, crowded housing, food supplies and sanitation. She investigated issues such as midwifery and milk provision and accepted an appointment as garbage inspector for her ward. In 1905 she joined Chicago's Board of Education.

She also campaigned for women's suffrage and supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party candidacy in 1912. Her work thus moved between direct services, municipal institutions and electoral politics. Books including Twenty Years at Hull-House recorded her interpretation of the settlement and the personal experiences that shaped it.

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In 1915 Addams chaired the Women's Peace Party and presided over the International Congress of Women at The Hague. She subsequently led the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, advocating mediation. Opposition to American entry into the First World War brought press attacks and accusations of disloyalty.

She nevertheless helped provide food relief to women and children in war-affected countries and later described this work in Peace and Bread in Time of War. Illness prevented her from attending the 1931 Nobel ceremony in Oslo. When she died in 1935, her funeral was held in the Hull House courtyard, linking the setting of her local work with an international public career.

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