My Father's Girl

Jane Addams was the youngest of eight children born into a prosperous family in Cedarville, Illinois, just over a hundred miles northwest of Chicago. Her father was an agricultural businessman, bank president, state senator, one of the founders of the Republican party in Illinois, and a friend of Lincoln. Spurred by extensive reading and a dream of doing good works, after schooling at Rockford Female Seminary Jane began studying medicine at the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia. But health problems thwarted her efforts. After a period of depression and casting about, her travels in Europe and her compassion for the poor led her to found Hull-House with her intimate friend Ellen Gates Starr. In its unprecedented variety of social services, this Chicago settlement house became a refuge for the poor as well as a symbol of progressive reform in an acquisitive age. Growing up, Jane Addams adored her father, John Huey Addams, whom she considered a shaper of her character. Here she remembers him.