Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy [Hardcover]

Louise W. Knight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2005

Jane Addams was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Now Citizen, Louise W. Knight's masterful biography, reveals Addams's early development as a political activist and social philosopher.  In this book we observe a powerful mind grappling with the radical ideas of her age, most notably the ever-changing meanings of democracy. 

Citizen covers the first half of Addams's life, from 1860 to 1899. Knight recounts how Addams, a child of a wealthy family in rural northern Illinois, longed for a life of larger purpose. She broadened her horizons through education, reading, and travel, and, after receiving an inheritance upon her father's death, moved to Chicago in 1889 to co-found Hull House, the city's first settlement house. Citizen shows vividly what the settlement house actually was—a neighborhood center for education and social gatherings—and describes how Addams learned of the abject working conditions in American factories, the unchecked power wielded by employers, the impact of corrupt local politics on city services, and the intolerable limits placed on women by their lack of voting rights. These experiences, Knight makes clear, transformed Addams. Always a believer in democracy as an abstraction, Addams came to understand that this national ideal was also a life philosophy and a mandate for civic activism by all. 

As her story unfolds, Knight astutely captures the enigmatic Addams's compassionate personality as well as her flawed human side. Written in a strong narrative voice, Citizen is an insightful portrait of the formative years of a great American leader.

“Knight’s decision to focus on Addams’s early years is a stroke of genius. We know a great deal about Jane Addams the public figure. We know relatively little about how she made the transition from the 19th century to the 20th. In Knight’s book, Jane Addams comes to life. . . . Citizen is written neither to make money nor to gain academic tenure; it is a gift, meant to enlighten and improve. Jane Addams would have understood.”—Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review 

“My only complaint about the book is that there wasn’t more of it. . . .  Knight honors Addams as an American original.”—Kathleen Dalton, Chicago Tribune 

(20070319)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“My only complaint about the book is that there wasn’t more of it. . . . It is an epic Chicago story that every city history buff should read.”—Kathleen Dalton, Chicago Tribune (Best of 2005)

(Chicago Tribune 20080527)

“Knight’s decision to focus on Addams’ early years is a stroke of genius. We know a great deal about Jane Addams the public figure. We know relatively little about how she made the transition from the 19th century to the 20th. In Knight’s book, Jane Addams comes to life. . . . Citizen is written neither to make money nor to gain academic tenure; it is a gift, meant to enlighten and improve. Jane Addams would have understood.”—Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review

(Alan Wolfe New York Times Book Review )

“Louise W. Knight’s excellent book makes the case for Addams as a preeminent social thinker and a masterful politician. Knight will have none of Saint Jane; and her biography should forever dispel the lingering assumption that Addams was the church lady of progressivism. She gives us instead a woman who took up residence—quite literally, when she rented Hull House—in the life of her times, eschewing the limits (and the protections) of her sex and refusing to don the veil of Christian charity. Addams entered into the afflictions and aspirations of poor people, and from there she pushed, uninvited, into the back rooms where politicians made the decisions that pressed on poor people’s lives.”—Christine Stansell, New Republic

(Christine Stansell New Republic )

"[Citizen] is enviably well-written and deeply engrossing, and a considerable addition to the literature, not just on an extraordinary woman, but on an extraordinary epoch."—Alan Ryan, New York Review of Books

(Alan Ryan New York Review of Books )

"[Citizen] is enviably well-written and deeply engrossing, and a considerable addition to the literature, not just on an extraordinary woman, but on an extraordinary epoch."—Alan Ryan, New York Review of Books

(Russell Strange Memorial Book Award Illinois State Historical Society )

“Citizen is like a good vacation; once the book is started, one hopes it will go one forever. . . . In many ways, Citizen is the story of Addams’s intellectual journey. Much of the book is a detailed description and analysis of what Addams was reading and thinking about from her teenage years on through adulthood. I say that with some hesitation for fear that prospective readers will think the book too heady. But that is precisely the miracle of Citizen, for one comes away feeling intimately connected with Addams and her struggles.”—Susan Kerr Chandler, Social Service Review  

(Susan Kerr Chandler Social Service Review )

“Knight succeeds in her efforts to place Addams within the context of her philosophical development. Her study does not shy away from examining Addams’ ambition, her complicated personal relationships, and her prejudices. Knight’s careful dissection of every element of Addams’s transformation from a typical member of her class to an exceptional reformer only serves to further emphasize Addams’s significance to the history of women and to American history in general.”—Katherine G. Aiken, American Historical Review

(Katherine G. Aiken American Historical Review )

"A picture of the persons and experiences that had shaped Addams, from a rather conservative and provincial member of the upper middle class into an outstanding spokesperson for peace, social change, and democracy. . . . Knight covers complicated issues with grace and clarity. However many books one may have read about Jane Addams, this is one not to be missed."—Margaret Hope Bacon, Friends Journal

(Margaret Hope Bacon Friends Journal )

“[A] remarkably respectful intellectual biography that adds significantly to our understanding and appreciation of Addams and her times and will be of special interest to scholars of the Progressive Era, women’s activism, urban history, and pragmatism.”— Ruth Crocker, Historian

(Ruth Crocker Historian )

About the Author

Louise W. Knight is an independent scholar who has taught rhetoric at Northwestern University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 598 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226446999
• ISBN-13: 978-0226446998
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louise (Lucy) W. Knight has always liked to have one foot in the present and one in the past. In her younger years she worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and as a fundraiser at Duke University, Wheaton College (Mass.), and United South End Settlements in Boston but her itch to write about history was always there. After publishing magazine and journal articles, book reviews and essays in book collections, in 2005 she published her first book CITIZEN: JANE ADDAMS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY (University of Chicago Press, 2005), about the first half of the life of Jane Addams. Her second book, a full life biography of Addams entitled JANE ADDAMS: SPIRIT IN ACTION, will be published by W. W. Norton in September 2010. While working on CITIZEN, Knight returned to Evanston, where she was born, to support herself as a consultant with nonprofits and foundations. In her lectures, booktalks, and other writings, she explores the connections between early and current progressive civic action.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Hero, August 31, 2006

By 

Howard J. Herskovitz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy (Hardcover)

This is a book about a woman who made a difference. It is also the story of a woman's triumph over Victorian ideas about a woman's place and over personal uncrtainties. Jane Addams became a leading humanitarian and spokesperson for women but she also led struggles which enhanced the notion of democracy in this country and the world. Ms. Addams did not see democracy as neoconservatives see it today. She was not a fighter for capitalism or Republican values but rather for participation and inclusion. She was also a crusader for world peace.

Jane Addams and her colleagues were not like 21st century Americans. She was practically humorless and was moved by moral imperatives almost unknown to us. However, she, aside from being the "real thing", was famous for her kindness to immigrants and children.

This book deals with her early life and her humanitarian efforts in the United States. It discusses the founding of Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in this country, and relates the operation of Hull House to the awakening of Addams' interest in many important causes.

The book is a good read for those who are interested in women's history or in the history of reform and, indeed, radicalism in this country (for she was a radical). It is well researched and written and does not try to turn Addams into a midwestern Mother Teresa.