Imagine.... A quiet, dignified woman from a well-to-do family in a small Illinois town who moves to Chicago because she wanted to help the poor and less fortunate. Who might this woman be whose heart was filled in faith for the common good? A woman who lived her life for the generosity of others? If you guessed humanitarian Jane Addams, then you're correct.
Born in Cedarville on Sept. 6th, under the giving and caring sign of Virgo in 1860, Jane knew from when she was small that she had big plans for the world.
To prepare herself, she graduated from Rockford College in 1882 and founded the world famous Hull-House near West Side Chicago. It was a large house, run down in the midst of a densely populated immigrant neighborhood.
Ms. Addams knew the renovation of the house would take plenty of work, time, and money so she organized an impressive group to help her repair and manage it.
The University of Illinois at Chicago Jane Addams ...
English: Hull House Women's Club building on Polk ...
English: Delegation to the Women's Suffrage Legisl...Her comrades consisted of Florence Kelly, Ellen Gates Starr, and Dr. Alice Hamilton. Hull-House was going to be a very powerful reform movement.
The women formed to teach neighborhood residents to speak English, discuss political events, and even hold celebrations. Things that had been impossible for these people before. Ms. Addams set out to see that these changes were made possible. She just wanted these people to have the basic common rights that they had been denied up until then.
Jane also had a very big heart for little children, and it worried her greatly for many of them to be unattended and left to fend for themselves while their parents worked long hours. She started to particularly teach and care for immigrant children, so Hull-House became a sort of nursery as well. Young children were no longer left unsupervised...