Review

Textbooks, Readers, and References

The Jane Addams Reader, edited by Jean Bethke Elshtain. New York: Basic Books, 2002. 488 pages. $20.00 paper.

Once the most famous woman in America, Jane Addams' reputation has been battered since her 1935 death. In Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy and The Jane Addams Reader Jean Bethke Elshtain makes abundantly clear that the common present-day representation of Addams as an unoriginal racist determined to civilize helpless immigrants is more a reflection of our cynical age than of reality. Addams profoundly influenced American life for the better as one of the leading public intellectuals of the Progressive era. By focusing on her ideas, Elshtain aims to restore Addams to relevancy. Organizing the biography both chronologically and thematically, Elshtain examines Addams' beginnings as an intellectual, her decision to become a social reformer, her struggle with the conflicting claims of family and the world, social feminism, the impact of the city on the child, and her peace activism. Addams was an enormously prolific writer, mostly of essays, but the great bulk of her work is long out of print. In the companion reader, Elshtain reproduces many of Addams' writings.	1
Even as a child, Addams had an enormous sense of responsibility. Because she was a voracious reader, works of philosophy and history played as much of a role in shaping her social conscience as did her abolitionist father. When John Addams died, his distraught daughter embarked upon a tour of Europe while seeking a direction for her life. Shocked by how the other half lived, Addams focused her anger upon the lack of kindness in the world and resolved to lay the foundations for decency to grow. Returning to America, she joined with a friend to found a settlement home, Chicago's Hull House, in 1889. Addams now had a site from which to speak and act, as well as a lifelong home.	2
The many activities at Hull House, including kindergarten classes, boys' and girls' clubs, theater workshops, music schools, language classes, reading groups, college extension courses, and a labor museum, all were designed to foster cooperation among people. Building a democratic culture was necessary, according to Addams, because Americans enjoyed political democracy in the form of the ballot but created artificial barriers between groups of people that made it impossible for social democracy to take place. This type of ostracism encouraged people to focus on the narrow agendas of their particular groups rather than working for the good of all. As Elshtain states, Addams had compassion without condescension. Much of her compassion centered on city children. Nearly every major piece of social legislation or civic initiative having to do with the well-being of children came from Hull House. The list is impressive: the first studies in Chicago of truancy, typhoid fever, cocaine, children's reading, newsboys, infant mortality, and midwifery. Firmly believing that the city should be a thing of beauty for all citizens, Addams also triggered investigations that led to the creation of the first model tenement code and the first factory laws in Illinois. When Addams had successes in political life, they often came about because she cultivated the theme of the extension of household duties as a rationale for social action. Addams overreached when her desire to mitigate the circumstances of the poor led her to intervene in matters that were not perceived to be woman's business. To insist that effective government could not take place until certain officials were removed from office or pressured to change their views placed Addams squarely in the political world of men and made her the subject of vicious attacks.	3
From 1914 on, Addams' life was dominated by her internationalism and her pacifism rather than by her work at Hull House. When Addams broke with most Progressives by opposing U.S. entry into World War I, she experienced civic isolation for the first time. Yet her pacifism showed the consistency of her beliefs. The more that the nation moved in the direction of compassionate tending to citizens, Addams held, the more it would move away from war. In the 1930s, Addams' reputation enjoyed a brief rehabilitation before she succumbed to cancer and began a second, longer slide from grace. A good intellectual study of Addams is long overdue and Elshtain has created a book that is both impressive and easy to read. Graduate students in particular will enjoy it, but advanced undergraduates would not find it overwhelming. While the biography can easily be used by itself, the reader does not contain enough background information to be used alone. It should ideally be paired with Elshtain's biography.	4
Ohio State University Caryn E. Neumann

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