There is an old saying that says, “Behind every good man there stands a good woman.”  But throughout history, was that man just standing in the way of the woman?  From the beginning of time, it always seems to be men who start the wars, and in the case of World War I, it was women like Jeanette Rankin, Emily Balch Green, and especially Jane Addams who helped to end the war and did their part in trying to prevent another atrocity like a world war from ever happening again.  Jane Addams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, some 15 years before Emily Balch Green.  Addams was given the award  not only for playing a significant role by lending a helping hand in worldwide disarmament following World War I, but also for her plans to found settlement houses, most notably Hull House, founded in 1889 inside of a rundown mansion in Chicago Illinois.
  Jane Addams was born in 1860 to a family full of politics and altruism, living in Cedarville, Illinois.  Growing up just after the Civil War, Addams’ Quaker father was a strong abolitionist miller who had been a state senator who passed many social reform legislation bills.  As a small child, Addams aspired to be a medical doctor, but a chronic back problem put an end to her hopes for a degree.  Thus she had only a few choices as a woman in this time, she could either marry, have children, and become a matron of society; or she might be able to become a school teacher; or she could simply be an aunt to the children of her elder sisters.  Her sisters and her father pampered her as she grew older, especially after her mother, a woman of German descent, died when she was not yet three years-old.  Five years later, her father remarried a woman whose appreciation of the arts rubbed off on the women of the Addams family.  Her father also paid Jane a wealth of attention which helped her to realize a potential as a woman that was not restricted to the traditional roles of women for that time.
  Jane entered Rockville Female Seminary (which later came to be known as Rockville College) in 1877, a time when the earliest women’s colleges had begun to be founded.  As she progressed through college and became more aware of her surroundings as well as her talents, Jane found the ability within herself to write and speak with authority.  She almost instantaneously became popular among her classmates as they discussed and debated the Darwinian theory, mulled over the roles of women, analyzed Shakespeare’s works, and even went so far as to question some of the doctrine found in religion.  Unfortunately, soon after graduation, Addams became ill and depressed; because, even though her mind was full of knowledge and ideas, the lives of people around her were not open to such a strong female.
  After her father suddenly fell ill and died in 1881, she sought relief in a medical school where she enrolled in when her family moved to Philadelphia.  But just after completing the first semester, her health fell apart and she was kept in a hospital for a period of months.  After her release, she was given another emotional setback following her brother Weber’s mental breakdown.
  In 1883, she and her stepmother took a two year trip to Europe to try and put their lives back in order.  Although the trip was somewhat comforting, Addams returned to the United States still somewhat depressed and in search of a goal.  A second trip to Europe with two college friends set her in the right direction.  A stop in London’s East End showed her a terrible poverty that came with industrialism.  In England she also found Toynbee Hall, a settlement house where students form Oxford and Cambridge helped to teach workingmen.  This set Addams as well as her friend Ellen Gates Starr into a frenzy of reading literature on the works of social reform.  Upon their return from Europe, both Addams and Starr began to consider the possibilities of setting up settlement houses in the many run-down streets of Chicago.  After visiting many locations, they decided on the former mansion of a wealthy businessman which was serving as a roominghouse in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Chicago’s overpopulated West Side.  This became known as Hull House.  (It must be noted that while the predominant reason for doing this was for the poor, another factor that played a significant role in the action was to break away from the traditional roles given to women of that time.)
  Hull House was given plenty of work to do.  Addams and Starr took care of the children of working mothers, they arranged for medical car of the sick, and they even tried to fight against the waste and rubbish in the streets which had spread disease throughout the neighborhoods.  Conditions opened their eyes to the lifestyle these people, these humans were forced to live in, the long hours of work, the horrific child labor that kids had to endure, and the unjustified amount spent on funerals by those who could not even afford to buy their own food or clothes.  However, Addams and Starr attempted to enlighten and educate those who struggled with daily poverty.  Their interest in theater and love of literature rubbed off on many people living in the neighborhood.  Over time, interest in helping the poor had risen a great deal.  Addams traveled and spoke to women’s clubs, church groups, and college students.  Addams was unique not because she was helping the poor, charity was not unheard of, but because of all that she gave up to come and live and help in the slums of Chicago.
  The impulse to reform strengthened in the 1890s as settlement houses became more known and widespread.  Addams’ pioneering efforts made her an obvious leader as her lectures and writings gave her the loudest voice of reform.  Settlement houses demanded recreation facilities in crowded cities, better sanitation facilities, protection for female workers, abolition of child labor, improvement of education, and women’s suffrage.
 

  In the Spring of 1898, Addams became more involved not only with community concerns, but national concerns as well.  After the US declared war on Spain, violent crime had immediately risen in the streets of Chicago and children player war games that sent yells of slaying the Spaniards instead of freeing the Cubans.  Over time, her complaints and protests reached the top rung of the ladder as Charles R. Crane, a close friend of President Woodrow Wilson, sent the President a letter urging him to meet with Addams once he returned from Europe in 1915.  “Of course she is the best we have and has been received everywhere as a spiritual messenger....Added to her great spiritual power is wonderful wisdom ad discretion. Every woman in the land and most men would be cheered by knowing that you and she were in conference.”
  Upon the outbreak of World War I, Addams encouraged mediation among the world powers and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the United States from entering the war.  Addams tried to use reason, but as citizens became more aware of the European horrors, government became nearly deaf to reason.  As the US entered the war, it seemed as if those who tried to stop the war, including Addams, became more hated than applauded for their efforts to prevent worldwide involvement.  She tried to act constructively and not impulsively while challenging the war as she did not want to challenge Secretary of War Newton Baker, a fellow reformer, so the conscientious objectors would not be treated inhumanely.  Her appeals were rejected.  She declined to work with the Red Cross because it had become part of the military and used to war to rally for their own support.
  Despite recurring illnesses, Jane Addams worked for a way to give women a life-affirming role as well as a profound sense of patriotism by keeping peace achievable but not seeming to go against the nation.  Her dream was to give every child the happy childhood she had by giving them the safe feeling of, “being held up in a pair of dusty hands to see the heavy stone mill wheels go around.”