UI Press | Jane Addams Edited by Mary Lynn McCree Bryan, Barbara Bair, and Maree de Angury | The Selected Papers of Jane Addams: vol. 1: Preparing to Lead, 1860-81

The Selected Papers of Jane Addams

vol. 1: Preparing to Lead, 1860-81

Awards and Recognition:

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2004.

Filling a void in Jane Addams scholarship, this first volume of The Selected Papers of Jane Addams collects extant documents from the formative years of the major American historical figure, intellectual, social activist, and author. Documenting the early development of Addams's social principles, the documents reveal the leadership skills that led her into a life of public commitment.

For all her compassion and her visibility as an outspoken paci?st, Progressive reformer, and founder of Hull-House, Addams was an intensely private person who revealed herself personally only to family and close friends. Drawing on letters, diaries, and other writings from her childhood in Cedarville, Illinois, and her years at the Rockford Female Seminary, this volume provides heretofore unavailable insight into her educational experiences, developing ideas, and personal relationships.

More than just biographical records, The Selected Papers of Jane Addams defines the era in which Addams lived. Unique yet representative of the spiritual ideals and political sensibilities of educated post-Civil War women and society, Addams's lesser-known, more personal writings are important reading for scholars, historians, and the general public. The editors' rich annotations on the individuals and events featured in the documents and an appendix of biographical profiles represent a trove of primary research and place the papers in historical context.

"A deeply researched, compelling collection of documents." --Journal of American History

"This first volume of what promises to be a magisterial series of The Selected Papers of Jane Addams goes beyond documenting Addams's formative years. The series of biographical essays conveys the full cast of characters in Addams's family circle and the political, social and cultural texture of the world in which she grew up. The selection is comprehensive, and the presentation splendidly documented."--Jill Ker Conway

"The publication of volume 1 of The Selected Papers of Jane Addams is an important landmark. It takes its place alongside the papers of Woodrow Wilson and Benjamin Franklin in terms of scholarship and readability. The most famous woman of her generation, Jane Addams was important as a reformer, peace advocate and writer. This volume reveals her formative years and her complex family in more fascinating detail than we have had before. It will not only be important for those interested in Jane Addams and her circle, but it will also be invaluable to those concerned with the migration of families west, domestic life in the nineteenth century, education, religion, the first generation of American college women, and a great many other topics."--Allen F. Davis, author of American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams

"This first volume of The Selected Papers of Jane Addams makes a wonderful contribution to the history of American women by offering extraordinary documents of the early life of Jane Addams. Historians will gain new insights into her childhood, family, and education by reading the editors' superb sectional introductions and the accompanying selection of Addams's writings. This is a gem of a collection."--Mari Jo Buhle, William R. Kenan Jr. University Professor of History at Brown University

Mary Lynn McCree Bryan, editor of the Jane Addams Papers in the Department of History at Duke University, led the team of editors that produced The Jane Addams Papers: A Comprehensive Guide. She is also coeditor, with Allen F. Davis, of 100 Years at Hull-House and former curator of the Jane Addams Hull-House at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Barbara Bair is associate editor of the Jane Addams Papers in the Department of History at Duke University and a historian in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. A longtime documentary editor and specialist in social movements, she is the author of Though Justice Sleeps: African Americans, 1880-1900 and an editor of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Maree de Angury has worked on the Jane Addams Papers Project for more than a decade and is a member of the editorial team that produced The Jane Addams Papers: A Comprehensive Guide.

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