Jane Addams was a significant person in history. First, she was a big part of Progressive Reform. She created the famous, "Hull House," which was a settlement house that opened its doors to European immigrants. The Hull House was made by Jane Addams and friend, Ellen Starr. The Hull House was used to give immigrants important lessons on hygiene, English, and sanitation.
Wells remained in the North, where she became the nation’s leading antilynching crusader.” (Foner pg.63) On the other hand, Social activist and reformer Jane Addams worked to make working-class people's lives better, especially women and immigrants. Jane stated “Progress is not automatic," "The world grows better because people wish that it should and take the right steps to make it better.” (week 3 reading)
The women at the Hull Houses were of her class who strongly believed that they belonged in the public workplace and had the idea of protecting children and women in the workplace. They wanted to give all humans social injustice and democracy for all. While at the Hull House, she found interest in urban poverty since it reflected her life when she was married and was later appointed to the Chief Factory Inspector by Governor John P. Altgeld. She later earned a degree in law from Northwestern University and in 1899, she returned to New York to take the position of first general secretary of the newly founded National Consumers League. The National Consumers League is an organization that was created in order to gain control of the purchasing powers of the public and put it towards good labor practices.
It gained momentum while America's imperialist ambitions expanded globally. Jane Adams represented the struggle of progressive reformers via Hull House. The Hull House expanded the services like childcare, education, health care, etc. It was among the first not-for-profit organizations in the country along with the possibility of more individual donors joining hands with similar organizations to expand the reach of services. She and the other Hull House participants provided the marginalized members of society with immediate help and in the process also advocated for wide scale social and legislative changes.
When mothers would go to work they would leave their children at the Hull house. Addams knew that she would have to do more for immigrants and women and she used the Hull house to her fullest extent.
Addams having quickly found out that needs of the neighborhood couldn 't be met unless the city and state rules were reformed . addams challenge both boss rule in the immigrant neighborhood of hull house and indifferences to needs of the poor in the state legislature. While she was in london she visited the toynbee hull. Sh was inspired by this. She then created the Hull House.
Jane Addams was Progressive to the extent that she lived
Jane Addams life as a child was not easy, she had a congenital spinal defect which led to her never being physically strong and her father who served for sixteen years as a state senator and fought as an officer in the Civil War always showed that his thoughts of women were that they were weak, and especially her with her condition. But besides that she lived a very privileged life since her father had many famous friends like the president Abraham Lincoln. Jane was determined to get a good education which she ended up getting. She went to Rockford sanitary for women which is now called Rockford University and she also studied to be a doctor but had to quit because she was hospitalised too many times. Being sick affected her life very much so when she got older she remedied her spinal defect with surgery.
Jane Addams and Ida B. Wells, two pioneering figures of the Progressive Era, reshaped the landscape of what was deemed possible for women in the socio-political climate of the time with their transformative reform agendas. These two women directly addressed the gender disparities that had intensified during the Gilded Age, channeling their efforts into reforms that not only advanced women’s roles in society but also aimed to correct broader social injustices. Jane Addams founded Hull House in 1889, a community center that became a beacon for social reform in an era defined by severe economic disparity. Hull House offered educational programs, legal aid, and healthcare services, directly addressing the consequences of the Gilded Age, such as
Despite facing opposition from powerful interests, Addams remained steadfast in her commitment to social justice and equality. Her experiences at Hull House during the 1890s serve as a testament to the power of collective action and compassion in effecting positive change in
Jane Addams was born in September 6, 1860 and died in May 21, 1935. She was an intelligent educated woman who came from an upper-class family. She graduated as valedictorian of Rockford Female Seminary. She started to study medicine however she had to leave school due to her spinal defect. She was uncertain of her career, so she made a few trips to Europe.
“She advocated woman’s suffrage because she believed that women’s votes would provide the margin necessary to pass social legislation she favored” (History.com). Addams even wrote a paper called “Why Women Should Vote”. She expressed that the world is merely an extension of their house and no one should be scared for what they belive in. She continued to fight until women got their right to vote in 1920 and then moved onto other issues that women had. Overall, she completed the movement with a sucessful victory winning the right for women to
During the early nineteenth century the idea of nationalism was born. Nationalism is a strong feeling of pride in your country. It is the idea of one country being better than all others. Before the idea of nationalism took shape, cultures living in Europe were spread throughout large multi-cultural empires. These cultures didn't feel any ties to other people of the same culture, they only felt loyalty to the king or queen.
Her advocacy for suffrage as well as for the rights for those in need was different for the time. Furthermore, Addams believed that it was necessary for women to be working because a young girl "is besotted with innocent little ambitions and does not understand this apparent waste of herself… if no work is provided for her" (Addams, 5). Addams' work to help others was much different than Ida B. Wells' work in the sense that Addams was able to protest and do the work because of her white privilege.
Reformers who wanted to help the inner city, often immigrant, neighborhoods built community-like centers called settlement houses. These settlement houses helped improve the lives of the people by providing hygiene classes and other basic skills, by providing education, by providing job counseling, by providing childcare, by teaching immigrants the English language, and by offering medical clinics. The most prominent settlement house, the Hull House, was located in Chicago’s West Side and founded by Jane Addams. Often, these houses
