Jane Addams was a social activist and reformer and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This middle grade biography of her not only charts the history of her life, but also offers readers useful context and background on society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The book begins as Addams and “her college friend Ellen Gates Starr, two fearless women,” open a settlement house, or community center, in Chicago, where volunteers could live and offer services to those in need around them. The story then goes back to give us details of Addams’ upbringing as the youngest of eight children, born to a miller and his wife. Addams’ mother died in childbirth (along with the baby) when Addams was two, an event that the book says gave her an early sense of the world’s injustice. This sense few as she grew older, ultimately leading to the founding of Hull House with Starr. She went on to become a leading voice for women’s, workers’, children’s, and Black rights, as well as for world peace, writing and speaking out in national and international forums at a time when women were not encouraged to do so. In in 1931, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Author Marlene Targ Brill does a good job of making her work relatable, calling Addams “Jane” and quoting extensively from her own and other primary sources, but filling in with clear explanations as needed. Brill is cautious, however, about Addams’ relationships with Starr and with Mary Rozet Smith, one of Hull House’s benefactors, who later shared a house with Addams. Brill sees Starr as simply a close friend and colleague of Addams. She calls Smith a “longtime friend and partner,” but also notes, “There has been much speculation about the exact nature of their relationship. Was it romantic or were they good friends? No one will ever know for sure. Before she died, Jane destroyed many of the more personal letters the two women had exchanged.”
This contrasts with the assessment of historian Lillian Faderman, who in To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America, says that Addams was in romantic relationships with both Starr and (later) Smith. I am not familiar enough with the specifics of Addams’ life to offer my own opinion here; I see Addams as a queer foremother in any case because her close relationships with women certainly tread into the fuzzy space towards what we would today call lesbian relationships, even if she would not have used the term herself. Having said that, Brill at least seems to be open to the idea of a romantic relationship between Addams and Smith, even if she is exercising an academic caution in the face of debatable evidence.
Regardless, this is a thorough and thoughtful biography that feels both substantive and yet introductory and engaging enough for the older middle grade age group.
