Jane Addams

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Jane Laura Addams (born September 6, 1860 in Cedarville , Stephenson County , Illinois , † May 21, 1935 in Chicago , Illinois) was an American feminist , sociologist and committed journalist for the peace movement in the early 1920s. She pioneered social work and founded the Hull House in Chicago in 1889 , which is now a museum. In 1931 she received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Nicholas Murray Butler .

Jane Addams (Moffett Studio, 1914)

life and work

Family, education, private life

Jane Addams' parents were John H. Addams (1822-1881), mill owner and later Republican State Senator in Illinois, and Sarah Weber Addams, née Weber (1817-1863). She had four sisters and three brothers: Mary Catherine Addams (1845-1894); Georgiana Addams (1849-1850); Martha Addams (1850-1867); John Weber Addams (1852-1918); Sarah Alice Addams (1853-1915); Horace Addams (1855-1855); George Weber Addams (1857-1859). When Addams was two years old, her mother passed away. Her father then remarried in 1864. He married the widow Anna Hostetter Haldeman (1828-1919). This brought two of their own children into the family, Henry Winfield Haldeman (1848-1905) and George Bowman Haldeman (1861-1909).

After graduating from high school, Addams wanted to study at Smith College , but her father would not allow her to drive that far away. Instead, she graduated from Rockford Female Seminary , later Rockford College in Rockford . Here she met Ellen Gates Starr , with whom she began an intense friendship. After graduating from Rockford, Addams studied medicine, but dropped out because she found little inspiration from the hard work. As was customary for unmarried women in her time, she returned to her parents' home to look after elderly family members.

Her father died in 1881 and she fell into a deep depression. Two years later she toured England and Germany with her stepmother, and later also Spain, Italy and France. After her return from Europe, they renewed their friendship with Starr, and the two traveled together to London to Toynbee Hall to visit.

In 1890 Jane Addams met Mary Rozet Smith and had a partnership with her that lasted until Smith's death in 1933. She referred to the relationship as " marriage ", even if it had neither legal nor ecclesiastical recognition. Smith was the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer and executive on the Illinois Central Railroad . She cared for Addams when she was sick and exchanged letters even with close relatives such as nephews and nieces. While Addams destroyed most of the letters she received from Smith while traveling, a deep affection can be seen in the letters Addams sent to Smith. The two bought a vacation home together in Bar Harbor , on the Maine coast , in 1904 .

In her childhood, Jane Addams was raised in the Society of Friends known as the Quakers , although her father made donations to all four local parishes in attendance. In Chicago, she was a member of a Presbyterian congregation, and often attended Unitarian congregations where she lectured. She died of cancer on May 21, 1935 .

Social work and political activity

Upon her return from Europe in 1885, Jane Addams began her social work . She cared for African American orphans in Baltimore and was active in several charitable organizations. On September 18, 1889, she and Ellen Gates Starr opened the Hull House in Chicago, one of the first so-called “settlement houses” in the USA, and thus became the most important representative of the American settlement movement . This was inspired by Toynbee Hall in south London, which was founded by Samuel Augustus Barnett in 1884. The settlement movement was a fundamental movement within Anglican social services and community work . Jane Addams bought the house from what her father left.

“Settlement houses” were centers that offered the poor in a neighborhood education and social services and promoted social reforms. Hull House was visited by around 2,000 people each week. Hull House could offer facilities such as an adult evening school , kindergarten , clubs for older children, a public kitchen , an art gallery, a coffee house , a gym, a swimming pool, a bookbinding shop , a music school, an acting troupe, a library and various work arrangements.

Hull House also served as a social institution for women. Addams was friends with her colleagues at the Chicago School of Sociology and influenced them through her work in applied sociology . Although the scientific sociologists of the time defined applied sociology as social work, Addams did not consider herself a social worker. She was a co-author of the Hull House Maps and Papers in 1893, which defined the fields of work and methods of the Chicago School of Sociology . She worked with George Herbert Mead on various topics of social reform , such as: B. the rights of women or the labor strike of the textile union in 1910. Addams combined the central ideas of symbolic interactionism with the theories of cultural feminism and pragmatism to form her social work and sociological ideas.

In 1910, Jane Addams became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate (Honorary Degree) from Yale University .

In 1911 she helped found the National Foundation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers and was the first woman president of that association. Affected by the beginning of the First World War , the pacifist founded the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915 . She spoke out against the participation of the USA in the war and thus supported the position of President Woodrow Wilson . In the same year she took over the leadership of the large international women’s conference in The Hague , which was attended by over 1,500 women from 28 countries. Jane Addams was also a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was also a member of the American Anti-Imperialist League and the American Sociology Association . She was also a leader in the movement for women's suffrage .

In 1929 she became honorary president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and two years later she was the first American and second woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her social commitment . In 1935, shortly before her death, she took part in the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

theory

Jane Addams lived in Chicago at the time of industrialization . This brought with it a number of social problems for which American society was not prepared. She lived in the so-called Hull House in a poor district of Chicago because she wanted to participate in the life of the poor and improve their living conditions. Her theory emerged from reflection on her work there.

1. Social and industrial problems as a subject area

She saw social and industrial problems as the subject of her social work theory. Two aspects were particularly important to her:

  • Researching the conditions and triggers that lead to social problems
  • Development of methods to eliminate these sustainably .

She described hunger and war as the greatest threats to humanity and therefore counted combating them as one of the central tasks of social action .

2. Three major lines of explanation

a. The ecological-territorial division of classes

  • different strata of the population live separately in different districts
  • also in the factories as the only point of contact separated according to positions and functions

b. The male-militarist organization of cities

  • male elite rule the city
  • their defensive-military model prevents social improvements for the poor and the handling of social urban household tasks
  • the fortress city must be defended against internal and external enemies

c. The business interests of international corporate groups

3. Goals and tasks of social work

As the main objectives Jane Addams sees as part of an ethic of solidarity (solidarity) of all people:

  1. the democracy into social life to transfer
  2. to progress to contribute to humanity
  3. to solve social and industrial problems contribute
  4. to understand and apply Christian teaching in human terms

The way to these goals is the negotiation of agreements , contracts and alliances between social groups and nations .

4. A dynamic peace theory

5. The importance and rights of women

Women should no longer be disadvantaged . Take women's commitment to 'bread and peace' seriously and assert yourself against men and their interests.

Jane Addams' theory is still relevant today. Even today, the connection between social justice , social awareness and peace applies as well as connection with political action.

Many of the problems she identified as causes of social inequality still exist. She criticized the fact that the business interests of international corporations tried to block political changes with their huge capital accumulations.

Their criticism of the justification of wars as a means of developing civilizations has also become topical again, especially in recent years. Although the social and industrial problems described by Addams have been defused in some countries, they have not been solved internationally. Although considerable steps have been taken towards gender equality , this has only been achieved in a few Western countries.

Honors

Fonts

  • Democracy and social ethics . Macmillan, New York 1902.
  • Children in American street trades . National Child Labor Committee, New York 1905.
  • New ideals of peace . Chautauqua Press, Chautauqua, NY 1907.
  • The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets . Macmillan, New York 1909.
  • The wage-earning woman and the state . Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, Boston [191?].
  • Symposium: child labor on the stage . National Child Labor Committee, New York [1911?].
  • Twenty years at Hull-house, with autobiographical notes . Publisher: The Macmillan Company; New York 1910. 3rd edition 1912
  • Books by Jane Addams on the Internet Archive Online

literature

  • Rita Braches-Chyrek: Jane Addams, Mary Richmond and Alice Salomon. Professionalization and discipline development of social work. Budrich, Opladen (inter alia) 2013, ISBN 978-3-8474-0015-8 .
  • Mary Jo Deegan: Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918 . Transaction Books, New Brunswick 1988, ISBN 0-88738-077-8 .
  • Cathy Eberhart, Peter Herrmann, Ming-Fang Chen (eds.): Jane Addams (1860-1935). Social work, social pedagogy and reform policy. European University Press, Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-941482-32-6 . (Studies on comparative social pedagogy and international social work and social policy, vol. 6)
  • Dorothy Ross: Jane Addams (1860–1935), Domestic Feminism and the Opportunities of the Social Sciences . In: Claudia Honegger, Theresa Wobbe (Hrsg.): Women in sociology. Nine portraits . CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-39298-9 .
  • Anja Schüler: Women's Movement and Social Reform. Jane Addams and Alice Salomon in the Transatlantic Dialogue, 1889–1933 . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-515-08411-8 .
  • Shields, Patricia M . 2006. "Democracy and the Social Feminist Ethics of Jane Addams: A Vision for Public Administration". Administrative Theory & Practice , vol. 28, no. 3, September, pp. 418-443. https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/3959
  • Shields, Patricia M . 2011. Jane Addams' Theory of Democracy and Social Ethics: Incorporating a Feminist Perspective. In Women in Public Administration: Theory and Practice. Edited by Maria D'Agostiono and Helisse Levine, Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlet.
  • Shields, Patricia M . 2017. "Jane Addams: Progressive Pioneer of Peace, Philosophy, Sociology, Social Work and Public Administration." New York, NY: Springer.
  • Silvia Staub-Bernasconi: Social work as action science . Cape. 2: Jane Adams (1860–1935) - systems theorist from the very beginning. Haupt UTB, Weinheim / Basel 2007, ISBN 3-8252-2786-3 , pp. 49-74.
  • Irene Stratenwerth: The feeling of having to take the world a little further. In: Charlotte Kerner (Ed.): Not only Madame Curie - women who got the Nobel Prize. Beltz Verlag, Weinheim / Basel 1999, ISBN 3-407-80862-3 .

Web links

Commons : Jane Addams  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Jane Addams  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, June 18, 1915, Jane Addams Papers, Series I, Swarthmore College Peace Collection (Jane Addams Papers microfilm, reel 8, # 1027).
  2. ↑ Jane Addams Biographical on the homepage .nobelprize.com (English)
  3. ↑ Article about the Nobel Peace Prize for Jane Addams on .nobelprize.org (English)
  4. ↑ Newspaper article with a picture of the Jane Addams stamp ( memento from May 21, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) on gazettenet.com (English)
  5. ↑ The Venus crater Addams in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS (English)
  6. ↑ Google Doodle houses Jane Addams tribute , article by Jon Skillings on cnet.com, September 6, 2013 (English)
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 29, 2005 .
personal data
SURNAME Addams, Jane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Addams, Jane Laura (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist, pacifist, and social scientist
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Cedarville , Illinois , United States
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1935
Place of death Chicago , Illinois