Democracy and Social Ethics [Paperback]

Jane Addams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 19, 2001

Nearly a century before the advent of "multiculturalism," Jane Addams put forward her conception of the moral significance of diversity. Each member of a democracy, Addams believed, is under a moral obligation to seek out diverse experiences, making a daily effort to confront others' perspectives. Morality must be seen as a social rather than an individual endeavor, and democracy as a way of life rather than merely a basis for laws. Failing this, both democracy and ethics remain sterile, empty concepts. In this, Addams' earliest book on ethics - presented here with a substantial introduction by Charlene Haddock Seigfried - she reflects on the factors that hinder the ability of all members of society to determine their own well-being. Observing relationships between charitable workers and their clients, between factory owners and their employers, and between household employers and their servants, she identifies sources of friction and shows how conceiving of democracy as a social obligation can lead to new, mutually beneficial lines of conduct. She also considers the proper education of workers, struggles between parents and their adult daughters over conflicting family and social claims, and the merging of politics with the daily lives of constituents. "The sphere of morals is the sphere of action," Addams proclaims. It is not enough to believe passively in the innate dignity of all human beings. Rather, one must work daily to root out racial, gender, class, and other prejudices from personal relationships.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, the first settlement house in the United States. The house was named after Charles Hull, who built the building in 1856. When starting out, all of the funding for the Hull House came from the $50,000 estate she inherited after her father died. Later, the Hull House was sponsored by Helen Culver, the wealthy real estate agent who had initially leased the house to the women. Jane and Ellen were the first two occupants of the house, which would later be the residence of about 25 women. At its height, Hull House was visited each week by around 2000 people. Its facilities included a night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a coffeehouse, a gymnasium, a girls club, bathhouse, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, a library, and labor-related divisions. Her adult night school was a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many universities today. In addition to making available services and cultural opportunities for the largely immigrant population of the neighborhood, Hull House afforded an opportunity for young social workers to acquire training. Eventually, the Hull House became a 13-building settlement, which included a playground and a summer camp. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (November 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252070232
• ISBN-13: 978-0252070235
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Empathetic Look At the Plight of Early 20th Century Poverty-Stricken Immigrants, February 20, 2007

By 

Mark B. Cohen "Improving government for the ... (Philadelphia,PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Democracy and Social Ethics (Paperback)

Hull House founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams spent twenty years working with the poverty-stricken immigrant poor in Chicago. She writes here with understated passion and unqualified empathy for their plight.

Anyone who wants to know why we have a fourty hour work should read this book. Addams writes about the desirablity of factory work over household work for young women, due both to the lack of isolation and the relatively short working hours, "only" from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week.

Anyone who wants to know why we minimum wage laws, social security disability laws, age discrimination laws, social security laws, welfare laws, etc. should read this book. Addams writes about people earning pennies an hour, having their peak earning years in their twenties, being disabled in their thirties, and being dependent on children for financial support. The children, in turn had their education stop before high school so they can support their families.

Anyone who wants to know why governments spend so much money on education should read this book. Addams writes about children having a choose limited to factory employment or household service, with the more intellectually oriented being doomed to spend a lifetime haunting public libraries and public lectures, but having virtually no chance of escaping the circumstance of their birth.

Anyone who wants to know why poverty-stricken people are suspicious of political reform movements should read this book. Addams writes about the major efforts Chicago's political powerhouses made to help individual poverty-stricken people, and the irrelevance of wisdom advocating personal savings to people who could not pay for food for their family, or of wisdom urging them to stay out of taverns when they were a great source of personal help and friendship.

One hundred and five years after Addams wrote this book, the United States is a far better place to live than it was then. But our country's improvements, urged by great progressive leaders like Addams, are under relentless right-wing assaults today. This book is extremely relevant to our country's future, if our future is going to continue to better than our past.

The introduction of Charlene Haddock Seigfried, the past president of the Society for the Advancement of American philosophy, adds a great deal to this work, as it places Addams and her fellow reformers into the context of both their times and the prevailing systems of thought.

Addams saw democracy as a way of life, and not just a series of electoral choices. She sought a major expansion of municipal services, to both improve the living standards of the desperately poor and to wean them away from dependence on corrupt political machines. She advocated the existence of "A reformer who really knew the people and their great human needs, who believed it was the business of government to serve them, and who further recognized the educative power of a sense of responsibility...."

Addams addresses this book to the philanthropic community which provided the base of her financial support. She clearly saw them as providing seed money for demonstration projects to create greater governmental and societal commitment.

It is fashionable in some quarters to say that nothing has been done and nothing can be done to improve the plight of the poverty-stricken. Anyone who believes that, or must deal with others who believe that, should read and quote liberally from this book.