Addams, Jane (1860–1935)

US social reformer, feminist, and pacifist. In 1889 she founded and led the social settlement of Hull House in the slums of Chicago, Illinois, one of the earliest community welfare centres. She was vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Alliance 1911–14, and in 1915 led the Women's Peace Party and the first Women's Peace Congress. She shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931 with Nicholas Murray Butler for her support of women's suffrage.

Hull House served as a model for other such centres throughout the USA, and provided innovative services such as day care. Addams was a pioneer in attempts to reform child-labour laws and was president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919. Her publications include Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), and Twenty Years at Hull House (1910).

Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois and received a degree from Rockford College in 1882. On a trip to Europe 1887–88, she visited Toynbee Hall settlement house in London, England, which inspired her to establish Hull House. In 1910 she became the first woman president of the National Conference of Social Work. She also helped found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920.