The late 1800s was a time when many immigrants were coming to America, social classes were being distinguished, and a great deal of prejudice was sweeping over the United States. The upper and middle classes had extreme advantages over the lower class, which consisted of a large number of immigrants. These lower class individuals were looked down upon by the prestigious upper class, who were brought up with the best of everything for their time period. Despite her family’s honorable place in society, one woman rose above the gap between the classes in order to help individuals, who were less fortunate than she. Her name was Jane Addams and this paper will focus on her life-long contributions to help the poor.
Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860, in Illinois. Her mother died when she was only three years old leaving her with only a father and 8 siblings. Her father became her backbone of her life and was responsible for her learning of the harsh conditions that many less fortunate people were forced to live with. He was the first thing that made her want to help others. “She was devoted to and profoundly influenced by her father, an idealist and philanthropist of Quaker tendencies and a state senator of Illinois for16 years” (Gale 54).
Her determination was seen early in her life. Even though many women were advised not to go to college because they were meant for marriage and not education, at the age of 17, Addams enrolled into a woman college called Rockford Seminary. “During her 4 years at Rockford, she took courses in German, Latin, Greek, history, literature, algebra, and trigonometry. She also studied science-geology, chemistry, mineralogy, and astronomy-as well as music, philosophy and Bible history” ( Kittredge 34). On top of taking these difficult courses, she scored nearly perfect in almost every class.
Knowing that her goal in life was to benefit others in some form or another, after graduating from Rockford, she went to the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, her stay in this college was short-lived because depression and a back surgery caused her to drop out.
Besides being educated in academics, she wanted to learn about people…all types of people. She did this by traveling abroad in Europe for a few years. While in London, she came across a settlement house called Toynbee. Here, she was impress...
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...obel Peace Prize. “Now 71 years old, she had at last received official recognition for her tireless efforts on behalf of peace” (Kittredge 99). Addams was the second woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, however she was not able to accept it in person because she was in the hospital awaiting lung surgery. With her earnings for this honor she divided the money between Hull House and The International League for Peace.
On May 21, 1935, cancer consumed the life of Jane Addams. Many were greatly grieved by the loss. “At Hull House where Addams’s body lay in state a stream of neighbors, friends, and admirers filed past her casket at a rate of 2000 per hour” (Kittredge 105). This showed how powerful this woman was to the lives of many in the American Society.
In conclusion, this woman was a pioneer to the wealthy all over the world. Her message was to reach out and help someone who is in need of your help. Although this happened decades ago, the message is still clear in the world today. Many of us should look at the life of this woman and see how we could apply it to everyday life. If everyone exerted as much compassion as this woman did than the world would be a much better place.
Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print. The. James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950.
Mary Richmond and Jane Addams were two historic social workers that were known for their great work in the history of social work profession. They gravitated their focus on real world social problems. Which in today’s era social workers of today, also gravitas on bringing social justice for the injustice on behalf of the clients.
The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".
Works Cited Brown, Victoria Bissel, ed. Introduction. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910. By Jane Addams.
paved the way for religious freedom. She was a great leader in the cause for
Addams, whose father was an Illinois state senator and friend of Abraham Lincoln, graduated in 1881 from Rockford College (then called Rockford Women’s Seminary). She returned the following year to receive one of the school’s first bachelor’s degrees. With limited career opportunities for women, she began searching for ways to help others and solve the country’s growing social problems. In 1888, Addams and her college friend, Ellen Gates Starr, visited Toynbee Hall, the two women observed college-educated Englishmen “settling” in desperately poor East London slum where they helped the people. This gave her the idea for Hull House.
Jane Addams was a Victorian woman born into a male-dominated society on September 6, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. Her father was a wealthy landowner and an Illinois senator who did not object to his daughter’s choice to further her education, but who wanted her to have a traditional life. For years after his death, Addams tried to reconcile the family role she was expected to play with her need to achieve personal fulfillment.
She secretly always wanted to be a scientist in finding a cure for some uncommon disorder, but she would never try or admit it a loud to anyone. She was known as the safer than sorry friend, not
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""In Search of the Heroes": The Susan B. Anthony Story." "In Search of the Heroes": The Susan
Sumner graduated from Yale University and upon graduating he went back to the university becoming a professor. Sumner was the first to teach a course titled “Sociology”. Addams, on the other hand, did not attend the college that she had chosen, Smith College. Instead, she had the opportunity to attend Rockford Female Seminary. This specific college was a missionary college. Another similarity between Addams and Sumner is that they both came from families that were considered well rounded. Additionally, they both lost their mothers at a fairly young age. Sumner comes from a hardworking family. Addams’ main influence in her childhood was her father, John Addams. Addams was very much influenced by her father’s strong ethics. He helped shape his daughter to become more benevolent to the less
...nspired to make a change that she knew that nothing could stop her, not even her family. In a way, she seemed to want to prove that she could rise above the rest. She refused to let fear eat at her and inflict in her the weakness that poisoned her family. As a child she was a witness to too much violence and pain and much too often she could feel the hopelessness that many African Americans felt. She was set in her beliefs to make choices freely and help others like herself do so as well.
Many graduates from LLU School are actively involved in the medical field. The environment surrounding LLU University provides pharmacy students with ample opportunities to serve the co...
In early American history, society believed that women did not have a place in education and high-level learning. They were told not to bother their brains with such advanced thinking. Middle and upper class women learned to read and write, but their education ended there. A woman’s place was said to be in the home, cooking, sewing, and taking care of the children. In the case of upper class women, their “to-do” list was cut even shorter with the servants present to do the work.
... she addressed many problems of her time in her writings. She was an inspirational person for the feminism movements. In fact, she awoke women’s awareness about their rights and freedom of choice. She was really a great woman.