Louise Knight: "Jane Addams: Spirit in Action" (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-09/louise-knight-jane-addams-spirit-action-w-w-norton-company-inc
The true legacy of social reformer, Jane Addams, is often overlooked today, but a century ago she was one of the nation's most radical progressives. A new biography of the first American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Guests
Louise Knight
writer and consultant. Author of "Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy."
Comments
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Appreciate this book and the story. I cannot wait to read the new book.
I recently read my second biography of Jane Addams and put her on a par with MLK and Gandhi. Recently, on Cspan, I found out she was a good friend of Frances Perkins who became FDR's Sec'y. of Labor and was responsible for the New Deal. It is humbling to read of such people who should be held up as beacons of light for our society.
Thank you so much for bringing Ms. Adams' story to the broader public - we in Social Work are honored to have her as a role model and advocate through her life's work. We truly think of her as the founder of social work! Thanks again, Dana NC
Jane Adams is the Mother of Social Work. We all consider her as the beginning of a proud professional lineage.
I remember reading biographies as a child about famous people when they were young. These bios were written for children and may not have been very accurate. One of them was about Jane Addams. I remember feeling that she was very interested in public health . She seemed to be very focused on her goals and would not be swayed despite setbacks and obstacles.
So here is one person who has heard of Jane Addams.
KITTY KNIGHT
BALTIMORE, MD.
On the fun side...
comment on Jane Addams and the infamous "Devil Baby"?
I am a social worker, and was required to do a paper on "pioneers of social work" during my masters of social work graduate study. I chose Ellen Gates Starr, who is less well-known than Jane Addams, but had a very interesting life and influence on some of the same issues that Addams is now famous. How does you book address Ms. Starr and her longtime partnership with Jane Addams and the settlement movement?
Something for listeners to check out is the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards. The Jane Addams Peace Association awards them annually to the children's books that promote peace, social justice, world community, and gender and racial equality. Past winning authors include Faith Ringgold, Patricia Polacco, Leo Lionni, Ossie Davis, Katherine Paterson and Virginia Hamilton. There are categories for picture books and for older children's books. JAPA picks wonderful books each year.
Thanks so much for featuring Louise Knight, I cannot WAIT to read this biography. I'm proud to be Addams' successor in social work.
Jane Addams demonstrated through her work that poverty blights human potential. She was also the first prominent U.S. social justice advocate to absolutely hold that NOBODY is undeserving of help or care. Noblesse oblige only extended to the "deserving" and she expanded the obligation to all people.
I admit to being doubtful about contemporary Americans who call themselves feminists. Perhaps the root of this was early acquaintance with Jane Addams -- who was and is the real thing! When I was about eight (long ago!) I was given a book on Addams and Hull House. The experience of reading that book has lasted all these years. Never got over it!
She was the best of the best: ornery, generous, relentlessly giving of self, demanding -- a fully formed person. It's wonderful she was given the Nobel Prize, but another important badge of honor came in the form of the attention given to her by one of our most deplorable public figures, J. Edgar Hoover!
Thanks to Louise Knight for her books about Addams. The first is wonderful; the second will be an extra treat.
Inspired by this morning's show, we did a little digging in our archives. We found a diverse collection of historical document about Addams, including an FBI case file from 1920: http://blog.footnote.com/jane-addams-american-pacifist-and-radical/
Thanks for this story! Jane Addams has been a hero of mine since I read a children's biography of her when I was six years old. Her work has inspired me, and I have regularly volunteered from a young age, now with school children as a volunteer tutor.
I didn't hear the whole conversation, but I found myself thinking that Jane Addams work with Hull House sounds very much like the fictional account in the 1890's evangelical tract "In His Steps" by Charles Sheldon and perhaps she drew some inspiration from that very popular book.
(Evangelicals were social progressives 100 years ago....)
It is wonderful to be a social worker.
WWW.lifeshineson.com
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Kitty Knight and others, I too read biographies as a kid and that's where I discovered Jane Addams. An anthology published by "Jack and Jill" in 1958 was my absolute favorite. I always turned to it when I wanted to relax and read for fun. I read the biographies again and again and learned about Jane Addams and Rosa Bonheur, Booker T. Washington and Mendelssohn, Louis Braille and Edward Lear. My fascination with Addams has been lifelong.