This truly outstanding and detailed biography of Jane Addams surveys the founder of Hull House, a social reformer who was one of the most admired women in American history. American Heroine recounts her life, work and ideas, providing chapters which go into far more depth and detail than most reviews of her life, probing the philosophy behind her works and the atmosphere of her times.

Jane Addams was a remarkable woman. This book is the best biography written of her life. She was a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in her later life. Her liberal views of American society are covered thoroughly by this author in his chapters of her early work at Hull House, and her later work for world peace. A must read book for every woman, because Jane Addams was truly an American woman.

Jane Addams of Hull House is a wonderful book that greatly depicts her life and all of her great accomplishments. This book was written with her assistance. It greatly depicts all of her hardships from her mother dying at such a young age to her father dying when she was older. It tells of all of her travels and her trips to Europe. It also tells of her days in Rockford Syminary School. After her school girl days she and her best friend Ellen repair the old crumbling Hull House to a community center for all of the smaller wordly communities to come and shar her beautiful new home with her. She dies as a single woman that recieved her hope and happiness from this beautifly furnished home. She was a great woman that had many accomplishments and goals that she achieved in her fullifiling life. Jane Addams was the first woman to recieve the Noble Peace Prize and one of the greatest women that ever lived.

This biography has an advantage over all other biographies of Addams: it was written not too long after her death by a family member that knew her well. Furthermore, Weber Linn was an English scholar, so his writing style is very refined and easy to read. Despite its complete lack of citations, the author is very objective to the subject at hand. The end result is a very intimate portrait of one (if not the) most amazing woman in American History. Some of the larger aspects of her life included: forming the Women's League for Peace in WWI, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, setting off the Settlement house movement in United States, and being blacklisted by the House for Un-American Activities (yes, she was that cool!). The greatness of Jane Addams is to be found in the details, however, and this book provides the reader with just that. An amazing life, well told.

This is a collection of seven essays by Jane Addams and others that were delivered before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth, Mass. during the session of 1892. Includes an introduction by Henry C. Adams. A must read for scholars of philanthropy and social progress.

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The liberal feminine look on Jane Addams rings false to me. Jane Addams was from a much different time. She was from the victorian era. She was from the liberal protestant part of the culture. The hints of this writer reflect the narrow view of the few of today's citizens. But in the end, make no mistake, Jane Addams was a very proper person from her time. She was of course not sexually active outside of marriage. She was not sexually attracted to women. The problem with facts is that they do not change.

It bothers me to hear A USEFUL WOMAN described as a "feminist biography" just because the subject bucked the gender norms of her Victorian times. This book is about a social force and conscience, Jane Addams, whose intelligence, spirituality, generosity and, yes, unmarried status drove her to found Hull-House, a "settlement" in Chicago that served as both haven and learning center for the indigent, with a particular emphasis on aiding women and children. Addams, a frail woman suffering from lifelong ailments including depression, rose above her infirmities to enact social change and awareness during a time when many of the poor were seen as morally bankrupt individuals and not the victims of a socially unjust system.

The book is well-written and accessible, and suffers only rarely from too much trivial detail. Diliberto provides remarkable insight into this remarkable woman. If you are at all interested in social causes and the people behind them, read this biography. It is truly inspiring to read of how one woman changed the course of many lives.

Womens' lives are often filled with many tasks, and to become an international social reformer is very difficult to include. This is the story of one woman who wanted a life that was different from the traditional woman of her age. And the interesting part of the story is that she did become an internationally known social reformer. And she did win a Nobel Peace Prize. In our age of supporting choices for women, this book is not only about a 'useful' woman, it is also a very useful story.

This book is a breath of truthful air in recent history writing. Gone are the speculations and unsupported theories. Gone also is the garbage of modern history departments. The author deals with the recent speculation about Jane Addams. She does not ignore it. It is nice to find a book that deals intelligently with the subject. It is also nice to see that the author has carefully researched her subject. Historians of today are doing the world a great disservice. But the cultural wars will continue. Facts, provable facts, do matter in the end. The author talked to people who knew Jane Addams. In the First World War, Jane Addams was closely watched by various intelligence agencies of the federal government and of local government. If there was dirt to be picked up, these vacuum cleaners of that subject would have found it and published it. The reports of these agencies are available on microfilm in the Jane Addams Papers published by University Microfilms.

This book is 329 pages long. It has 63 pages of notes, 9 pages of index, and 10 pages of well selected photos.

It is a good book, about a good person. Jane will be long remembered for the "quality of her thinking, for her rightness as an interpreter of individuals to themselves and of social groups one to another." So wrote her first biographer, James Linn. I think this book continues that image of Jane Addams.

Like many of her fellow "Progressives," Jane Addams was born in the midwest and received an exceptional scholastic and religious education. She was strongly devoted to her father and shared with him a reverence for Abraham Lincoln not just as a man, but as a living ideal against which all men should measure their ideas and actions. Typical of many reformers of her era, Addams was not attracted to evangelical duty. Missionary work left her with a sense of futile detachment from the wretched social conditions she witnessed in East London. After visiting Toynbee Hall, Addams decided to establish a similar settlement house in the rapidly-growing city of Chicago, where "the evil and vices of American life seemed to be exaggerated." Her experiences at this settlement house are the subject of this book.

Although, on the one hand, Addams seemed the typical Progressive; on the other hand she did not follow many of the ideas of the more radical reformers. She was very practical and refused to be swayed by the claims of certain social movements and untried panaceas. she did not become a socialist. Although she greatly admired Tolstoy, she found his message "confused and contradictory" and doubted its suitability to the situation in Chicago. She deplored any violent tactics associated with socialist and anarchist groups despite their "noble motives." Addams demostrated an understanding of the ways in which strikes had a detrimental effect on people outside the labor movement (her dying sister was unable to see her family because the transportation system was blocked due to the Pullman strike. Unlike most reformers, she also had respect for the immigrant cultures represented at Hull House. A labor museum put native sewing machines and other instruments and crafts on display for all to enjoy.

One observation made by this reader was the animosity on the part of European reformers toward the work of the settlement residents. Tolstoy offered petty criticisms and one English visitor concluded that reformers in America were indifferent to the plight of the poor because they could not recite the "cubic feet of air required for each occupant of a tenement bedroom." Such remarks smack of a "caring competition." Addams, however, was well aware that the settlement house experiment was far from complete. Jane Addams' honest and humble account--albeit long and sometimes rambling (don't let the skinny paperback fool you)--demonstrated her unwavering commitment to achieving the improvement and unity of humanity.

Although, I did find this book to be hard to read at times, I did find it very interesting. It was an inspiring book, showing what a group of dedicated ladies can do when they set their minds to something. Jane Addams is quite the heroine along with the many other ladies that helped her run Hull-House. A very inspiring story. We should all be as dedicated to doing good in the world.

Most of the people who reviewed this book were forced to read it in college, admittedly. A couple of them openly confessed to having given up part-way through. My question: Why are you reviewing the book you haven't even read? Granted, it's not a Hollywood film, but it is perhaps one of the greatest works of the 20th century, written by an author who stands on par with Gandhi or Mother Teresa in her committment to social justice. Think about it this way: Addams' settlement house (or Hull House, as it was called) was like an ashram built in the middle of Chicago's dirtiest late 19th century slum. She was doing social work of a kind that had never been done before - working with immigrants, single mothers, orphins, troubled youth and the unemployed. The scope of her sociological experience has never been matched. Politically, Addams was an advocate for the abolition of war, and these views not only secured her the Nobel Prize, but also a black-listing with the House of Un-American Activities. I don't see what is not to like about this book. It is autobiographical in the strict sense of the term, but Addams was larger than life. If you are even vaguely interested in ethics, social work, sociology, social justice, or democracy, Addams' story will inspire and amaze you. Her life was a paradigmn of exellence. It was a life that will inspire you to achieve greatness yourself. I cannot over-recommend familiarizing yourself with this figure, and 20 Years at Hull House is the best place to start.

a new conscience and an ancient evi