Jane Addams
A BIOGRAPHY
Published on 11. May 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
504 pages
978-0-252-06904-8 (ISBN)
Description
Jane Addams is most widely remembered as a founder of Hull House, but her social vision extended far beyond Chicago's Halsted Street. The first real adventurer in the unexplored territory of social amelioration in America, Addams worked tirelessly on behalf of a multitude of social causes, including industrial and educational reform, drug laws, sanitation, disaster relief, and food purity. In 1931 she won the Nobel Prize for Peace, a tribute to the decades of energy and eloquence she devoted to eradicating intolerance and elevating human life to a more humane standard.
James Weber Linn's life of this forceful public figure offers a rare glimpse of the private Addams, from her childhood and schooling through her first efforts in public service and her rise to a position of national influence. Linn's biography is based on Addams's personal papers, which she turned over to him before she died: files of her manuscripts, published and unpublished, along with all of her letters and papers, from her first valentine to her last speech. Out of this treasure trove, in combination with Addams's substantial published works, he has written a unique life of his aunt, beautifully illuminating her private reflections and inner strength as well as her formidable public persona.
James Weber Linn's life of this forceful public figure offers a rare glimpse of the private Addams, from her childhood and schooling through her first efforts in public service and her rise to a position of national influence. Linn's biography is based on Addams's personal papers, which she turned over to him before she died: files of her manuscripts, published and unpublished, along with all of her letters and papers, from her first valentine to her last speech. Out of this treasure trove, in combination with Addams's substantial published works, he has written a unique life of his aunt, beautifully illuminating her private reflections and inner strength as well as her formidable public persona.
Reviews / Votes
"Fascinating, important, and readable." -- Booklist "No one of those myriad volumes which will inevitably be written will be simpler, more tender, than this life written by her nephew, James Weber Linn... [In] its honest lack of sentimentality, its painstaking care of detail, its setting down in complete frankness its facts, [it] is a rare one." -- Chicago Tribune "At once a meticulous life history, a descriptive socio-political commentary, and a sentimental tribute to the accomplishments of a woman who was not only a public figure of internation renown, but also aunt of and surrogate mother to the author... History was never this interesting or enlightening." -- Illinois Times "[Addams'] meaningful life spanned the tumultuous era of rapid industrialization and urban growth marked by the rise of numerous critical social and political issues... Addams stood in the midst of those issues, often as a leader and always as an exemplar of a responsible talented citizen with a social vision... With the many biographies and studies that have continued to be written about Addams ... why reprint a sixty-five-year-old work by a relative? The volume answers the question... Addams gave Linn access to her voluminous papers... Moreover ... Linn was well-qualified. He superbly covers the several aspects of Addams's life, the issues she confronted, and the influence she exerted upon society... Linn possessed an excellent writing style and sense of subject." -- David R. Wrone, Journal of Illinois HistoryMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
626 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-252-06904-8 (9780252069048)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
James Weber Linn was the nephew of Jane Addams. Anne Firor Scott, professor emerita of history at Duke University, is the author of Making the Invisible Woman Visible and other books.