Jane Addams

July 26, 2010
Jane Addams (1860–1935) was one of the leading figures of the Progressive era. This "pragmatic visionary," as Knight calls her, is best known as the creator of Hull House, a model settlement house offering training, shelter, and culture for Chicago's poor. Addams also involved herself in a long list of Progressive campaigns. Her rhetorical skills as both speaker and writer made her internationally recognized as a supporter of civil rights, woman suffrage, and labor reform. Using brief quotes and contextual details, Knight (Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy) describes her subject's journey from a Victorian upbringing that stressed family duty through her practice of lofty "benevolence" as a young woman to the confidence to unhesitatingly risk her substantial reputation advocating pacifism during WWI. Her continuing peace activities earned her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, but antagonized many longstanding supporters. In this well-supported and appealing portrait of an iconic American, Knight emphasizes Addams's struggle to redefine Victorian womanhood and claim her right to "possess authority in the public realm" and "exercise authority" as a lobbying feminist who helped women acquire the right to vote. 32 illus.

June 15, 2010

Biography of social reformer and peace activist Jane Addams (1860–1935).

Knight (Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, 2005) begins with a speech the 72-year-old Addams, by then a Nobel laureate, made in 1933, which urged her audience to break free from conventional thinking. Knight uses Addams's thesis as the key to understanding her life. Scarred by the early death of her mother, Addams grew up in a traditionally Christian home. Her father, a gender traditionalist, had only domestic ambitions for Jane and refused to send her to Smith College to study medicine. So she went to Rockford Female Seminary, where she encountered an influential teacher who inspired her with the writings of Margaret Fuller. Addams earned academic honors, and when her father died, leaving Addams financially secure, she went to Europe, where poverty depressed her but where Tolstoy's religious writings and London's Toynbee Hall, a settlement house, animated her. In 1889, she moved to Chicago, where she opened the country's first settlement house, located in the former home of Charles Hull. Hull House, writes Knight, swiftly became—and remains—a powerful social-service agency in the city. While Addams assailed poverty and illness, she also addressed the related issues of gender, race and peace. Involved deeply in the women's-suffrage movement, she was an early advocate for the new NAACP and fought tirelessly for peace, though during World War I she suffered from attacks on her patriotism. She wrote bestsellers, spoke all over the world and was without question the most celebrated woman in America. Knight is an enthusiastic Addams partisan—the writing is occasionally treacly—rarely finding anything negative to say, and is reluctant, even coy, about declaring that Addams's decades-long relationship with Mary Rozert Smith was anything more than a friendship.

A sympathetic portrait of—and tribute to—a brave and committed human being.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2010

Knight's second full-length work on Addams (1860-1935), after Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, is a well-researched study notable for covering Addams's entire life, her early influences, and the many roles she played as a public figure, rather than focusing only on her career as founder of Hull House, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and activist. Addams wore many hats. She was the founder of the country's first settlement house, offering education, entertainment, and advocacy to less fortunate Chicagoans; she wrote books on moral ethics in American society; and she headed organizations advocating for suffrage, peace, and social justice. Knight has organized Addams's disparate interests into chapters that describe the woman herself: "Dreamer," "Activist," "Political Ethicist," "Politician," "Dissenter," and "Ambassador." The author seamlessly traces Addams's early influences, moral beliefs, and the career path of a woman who had the ear of Presidents and the nation alike. VERDICT While less narrowly in-depth than her first book, this work would nonetheless be a wonderful supplement to any college course on women's history or the history of the early 20th century. Enthusiasts of the history of the Progressive Era will be equally pleased. Recommended.--Laura Ruttum, NYPL

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2010
Jane Addams life story never becomes irrelevant. With the passage of time, her reputation and her remarkable accomplishments have only increased in stature. As the cofounder of Hull House, the first settlement house in America, she gained a level of independence, influence, and respect seldom achieved by a woman in the late nineteenth century. As the twentieth century dawned, Addams began translating her own heartfelt spirit of democracy into both social and political action. In addition to helping the immigrant residents of her working-class Chicago neighborhood, she became a tireless advocate of labor unions, free speech, civil rights, womens suffrage, and world peace. Knight, the author of Citizen (2006), provides the first full-length biography of Jane Addams in 35 years. She carefully traces Addams philosophical progression as she Addams evolvedfrom a passive reformer into an active collaborator, who tirelessly worked with, not for, others to usher in a new era of democracy and social justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)