Jane addams

A progressive social reformer and activist, Jane Addams was on the frontline of the settlement house movement and was the first American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Discover more at womenshistory.org.

Jane Addams (1860-1935): American pioneer social worker, sociologist and founder of the Women's League for Peace and Freedom.

Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois in 1860. Her mother died when she was two and she was raised by her father and, later, a stepmother. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, among the first students to take a course of study equivalent to that of men at other institutions. Her father, whom she admired tremendously, died that same year, 1881. Jane Addams attended Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania but she left the college, probably due to her ill health and her…

L) In her account of her visits to “the war capitals,” Jane Addams, who had served as chair of the Congress, recalled: “Our mission was simple. Foolish it may be, but it was not impossible.” While the women did not achieve any concrete results, they were cordially received everywhere they went. Everywhere they found all the governments had convinced themselves they were fighting ‘in self-defence’ and were waiting for the neutral countries to intervene.

The US entry into World War I abruptly ended a different campaign to end war.

Eva Lawrence Watson-Schütze, c. 1910

The feminist movement has been around for nearly two centuries in the United States now, and if its founding mothers saw what it looked like today, they might have trouble recognizing it at first, but they'd also notice similarities. That's why many…