Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy [Hardcover]

Jean Bethke Elshtain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 2001

The founder of the famed Chicago institution Hull House and first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize has for too long been misunderstood as a mere "do-gooder," argues Jean Bethke Elshtain in this eagerly anticipated new interpretation of the life and work of Jane Addams. Like her biographer, Addams (1860-1935) was a quintessential "public intellectual." Under her hand, Hull House became a cultural and intellectual center, a place where beauty was served, where University of Chicago professors lectured and debate and discussion filled the auditorium.Elshtain examines Addams's life chronologically and thematically, exploring Addams's embrace of "social feminism" and her challenge to the usual cleavage between "conservative" and "liberal"-themes Elshtain brilliantly explores in her own writings. Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy is a rich and revealing portrait of one of the most extraordinary figures in American history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Today Jane Addams is one of those people whose name "rings a bell," writes biographer Jean Bethke Elshtain. At the time of her death in 1935, however, she was more than the answer to a trivia question--she was "America's best-known and most widely hailed female public figure." Addams had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize and was famous for her social work as the founder of Hull-House in Chicago. Elshtain's innovation is to treat Addams like the protofeminist intellectual she was, a thinker whose "vision of generosity and hopefulness ... made the American democracy more decent and more welcoming today than it would otherwise be." Hull-House, for instance, was not merely a poorhouse for immigrants struggling to become citizens; it was a major cultural center that hosted speeches and debates. Because of the many books Addams wrote (including the classic Twenty Years at Hull-House) and her political activism, "her name is attached to every major social reform between 1890 and 1925," writes Elshtain. Addams has deserved a book of this caliber for quite some time; readers drawn to her are fortunate that an intellectual figure of Elshtain's stature took up the project. As the author says of her subject near the end of Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: "Such a tremendous force." --John Miller

From Publishers Weekly

erhaps as a consequence of the current governmental retreat from public welfare programs, there has been a notable resurgence of interest in that icon of private charity, Jane Addams, founder of Hull-House. Unlike Gioia Diliberto, who in her recent biography investigated some of the conflicts in Addams's personal development, Elshtain (Democracy on Trial; etc.), a professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago, undertakes to present an account of Addams's public thought grounded firmly in extensive paraphrase of her writing. Though she subtitles this volume "A Life," Elshtain is not especially interested in the details of Addams's psychological, emotional or even political development. Rather she presents her subject, to whom she is clearly devoted, as a woman who came to moral consciousness early and who acted upon that consciousness with energy and devotion in every area that she felt demanded her attention. Elshtain is at great pains to defend her heroine against modern interpretations, against, for example, the charges of cultural insensitivity leveled by Jill Ker Conway or the suggestions of lesbianism prompted by Addams's 30-year relationship with Mary Rozet Smith. As a result of the author's resolute refusal to speculate on the private Jane Addams, the woman who emerges from these pages is the familiar public figure noble, generous, empathetic but not altogether engaging and one who, despite Elshtain's best efforts, emerges as heroic but faintly irrelevant to the present. A companion volume, The Jane Addams Reader, edited by Elshtain, will be published simultaneously. 8 pages of illus. not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (December 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465019129
• ISBN-13: 978-0465019120
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #602,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book about a good person, February 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Hardcover)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a deep, analytical biography, February 17, 2009

By 

W. Barber - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life (Paperback)

This ia a rather deep, psycho-analytical and intellectual biography of Jane Addams, a great visionary, tireless ball of energy, and one of the most admirable humanitarians of our time. It probes into Jane's upbringing and how her early experiences contributed to her thoughts on society and her motives. The author interviewed people who knew Jane, went to places she lived, and studied the archives of Hull House. All statements are well documented with footnotes in the back. I would recommend this book for adults instead of teenage readers, because it is so intellectually deep. Teenagers should choose a simpler book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative Biography, January 15, 2012

By 

lanlynk (Fairbanks, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Jane Addams And The Dream Of American Democracy (Kindle Edition)

Describes the vast contributions made by Addams through her work at Hull House settlement in Chicago during the late 1880's through 1935 and her work with the women's international peace movement. Addams' early and later life is documented through her own words and those of others, along with Elshtain's insightful commentaries. The author offers a detailed picture of the various areas of Addams' work, from her role as Chicago's garbage inspector to international delegate in a war-torn Europe. I read this in combination with The Jane Addams Reader.