San Antonio College Library

In this ... interpretation of the life and work of quintessential "public intellectual" Jane Addams (1860-1935), [the author] explores Addams's legacy thematically and chronologically, recounting Addams's embrace of "social feminism," her challenge to the usual cleavage between "conservative" and "liberal," and the growth of Chicago's famed Hull House into a thriving cultural and intellectual center.-Back cover.

Chronicles the life of Jane Addams, discussing her family life, personal relationships, political beliefs, work for social reform, and impact on American history.

"When she penned her autobiography Twenty Years at Hull-House in 1909, Jane Addams was one of the most famous and influential women in the country. Committed pacifist and champion of social progress, she was also deemed by the contemporary media to be the only saint America had produced. Writing from that lofty perch at the height of the Progressive era, Addams aimed to use an attractive, accessible life story as a vehicle for advancing her reform...

"The centrality of the mother-daughter relationship to women's reform movements is revealed through the collected journals, letters, and diaries of four women's rights pioneers and their respective daughters"--

""She is one of the most beautiful proofs of that which a woman, without any other aid than her own free will and character, without any other power than that of her purpose and its uprightness...can effect in society." So wrote a contemporary Swedish novelist of Dorothea Dix, one of America's first and foremost women achievers. In an era when "ladies" did not mix in politics she single-handedly paved the way for far-reaching reform in the treatment...

Jane Addams is most widely remembered as a founder of Hull House, but her social vision extended far beyond Chicago's Halsted Street. Addams worked tirelessly on behalf of a multitude of social causes, including industrial and educational reform, drug laws, sanitation, disaster relief, and food purity. In 1931, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace, a tribute to the decades of energy and eloquence she devoted to eradicating intolerance and elevating human...

The first biography in twenty-six years of Jane Addams -- founder of the Hull-House settlement and winner of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize -- written with access to hundreds of new family documents. "Today, Jane Addams is widely recognized as an extraordinary figure in our nation's history, one of a roster of great Americans -- Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. among them -- who made lasting contributions to social justice. But as with the lives...

"This book's purpose is to galvanize women to push for universal health care in the United States"--

"Mary E. Richmond (1861-1928) was a contemporary of Jane Addams and an influential leader in the American charity organization movement. In this biography - the first in-depth study of Richmond's life and work - Elizabeth N. Agnew examines the contributions of this important, if hitherto under-valued, woman to the field of charity and to its development into professional social work." "Orphaned at a young age and largely self-educated, Richmond initially...