美国人物生平 Jane Addams

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Jane Addams

 

Jane Addams is best known as the founder of Hull House, a place that provided aid to poor working-class families in Chicago, These centers are often called “settlement houses”. Born on September 6,1860 into a wealthy family, Addams was one of a small number of women in her generation to graduate from college. Her commitment to improving the lives of those around her led to her work for social reform and world peace. Jane Addams died on May 21, 1935.

 

1, The Good Work of Jane Addams

In the 1880s Jane Addams traveled to Europe. While she was in London, she visited a settlement house called Toynbee Hall. Settlement houses were created to provide community service to ease urban problems such as poverty. Inspired by Toynbee Hall, Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, opened Hull House in a neighborhood of slums in Chicago in 1889. Many who lived there were immigrants from countries such as Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Greece. For these working poor, Hull House provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it provided a training ground for careers in social work.

 

   Jane Addams, who had become a popular national figure, sought to help others outside Hull House as well. She and other Hull House residents often “lobbied” city and state governments. When they lobbied, they contacted public officials and legislators and urged then to pass certain laws and take other actions to benefit a community. For example, Addams and her friends lobbied for the construction of playgrounds, the setup of kindergartens throughout Chicago, legislation to make factory work sager, child labor laws, and enforcement of anti-drug laws.

 

   Addams believed in an individuals obligation to help his or her community, but she also thought the government could help make Americans lives safer and healthier. In this way, Addams and many other Americans in the 1890s and 1900s were part of the Progressive movement. For a while, they even had a political party. When Theodore Roosevelt ran for president for the Progressive Party in 1912, Jane Addams publicly supported him at the party convention.

 

   Jane Addams was a strong champion of several other causes. Until 1920, American women could not vote. Addams joined in the movement for womens suffrage(womens right to vote). She was a vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Addams was also a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

 

2, Opportunities at the Hull House

Jane Addams’s Hull House offered many programs to the Chicago community, even music lessons. Solomon Saranoff lived near Hull House. He was the son of Russian immigrants. His father worked for a rag shop for $ 8 a week. “Solly”, as he was called, wanted to learn to play piano, but his family had no extra money to buy one, much less pay for lessons. One day, friends of Solly and his sister, Rosie took them to Hull House, where, guess what? There was a piano.

Can you imagine how excited Solly was when he saw the instrument? Although he had dreamed of playing one, he had never even been near a piano before. He struck a note and was thrilled with the sound. He played a few more notes. When a director of Hull House entered the room, she asked Solly if he wanted to learn to play. “Oh yes! Could I?” He asked eagerly.

Solly took piano lessons at Hull House, while his parents learned to speak English in the language class. During a Hull House party, Solly and his family met Jane Addams. Solly’s father told Jane that he had never heard his son play the piano. “Well, that is too bad,” Addams said. “I must see that you hear him soon.” A week later, Solly brought home a card announcing his piano recital at the Hull
                    House
                    Music
                    School. At the concert, tears rolled down Solly’s father’s face as he heard his son play. The teacher proclaimed, “I think Solly will be a great musician.”

Stories like this one were the reason that Jane Addams founded Hull House in the first place. She wanted to create a place where people who didn’t have much money were able to have access to programs and learning that they would otherwise never be able to afford. So kids like Solly were able to learn to play the piano and make his father proud.

3, Jane Addams, the Peacemaker

Jane Addams was a peacemaker even when she was criticized for her views. She taught, wrote, and lectured about peace both nationally and internationally. Before World WarⅠ, Addams was probably the most beloved woman in America. In newspaper poll that asked, “Who among our contemporaries are of the most value to the community?” Jane Addams was second, after Thomas Edison (another “Amazing American”). When she opposed America’s involvement in World WarⅠ, however, newspaper editors called her a traitor and a fool, but she never changed her mind.

Jane Addams’s reputation gradually restored during the last years of her life. She continued to run Hull House and work on her peacemaking activities. Addams was president of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom and traveled overseas to meet with officials of other nations to persuade them of the importance of working to preserve world peace. Addams was rewarded for her efforts in 1931 with the Nobel Prize. The prize is awarded annually by a committee in Norway to those who have made major contributions to world peace efforts. She was the first American woman to win the prize. There are many women today who have followed Addams’s lead.

During her final years, Addams was ill with cancer. She died on May 21, 1935, 10 days after a banquet in Washington, D. C., honored her and the women’s International League for Peace and freedom. When she won the Nobel Prize, the committee cited her for her “expression of an essentially American democracy of spirit”. What do you think about the committee meant by this?

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