Jane Addams Papers

Ramapo College

Duke University

University of Illinois at Chicago

Additional information at http://janeaddams.ramapo.edu/aboutproject/

Jane Addams (1860-1935) was best known for co-founding Chicago’s Hull-House social settlement in 1889. A prolific writer and intellectual, Jane Addams was a popular speaker, commentator, and author, publishing eleven books and hundreds of articles on topics ranging from woman suffrage, child labor, immigration, peace, and democracy. By 1905 Addams’s eloquent arguments for social reform made her one of the most influential women in America and a leader of the Progressive movement. She led the fight for peace, both in the United States with the Woman’s Peace Party, and as head of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was also an outspoken supporter of woman suffrage, serving as a vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and fought for improved child labor laws with the National Child Labor Committee. She was an active member of the Progressive Party’s National Committee, and was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Jane Addams Papers Project was founded at the University of Illinois at Chicago, later moving to Duke University. The NHPRC supported 82-reel Jane Addams Papers microfilm edition in 1985 and a detailed guide and index in 1993. See http://www.worldcat.org/title/jane-addams-papers-1860-1960/oclc/612824144. The Project will complete three volumes of the planned six-volume Selected Papers of Jane Addams, covering the years 1860-1900 (University of Illinois Press).

The project intends to digitize documents covering the years 1901-1935, making them freely available and searchable, to provide context for the documents by adding identifications of people, places, events, and organizations, to locate additional Addams materials and add them to the edition, and complete the remaining volumes of the Selected Papers of Jane Addams covering 1901-1935.