Article
Jane Addams on citizenship
in a democracy
Journal of Classical Sociology
10(3) 217–238
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/1468795X10371714
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Mary Jo Deegan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Abstract
Jane Addams (1860–1935) was passionately committed to citizenship: her own and that of her
neighbors around the world. As a feminist pragmatist she was inspired by the core American
documents of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. Based
on her multilevel approach to democracy, she is honored world-wide as a premier citizen, although
her support of the citizenship of women and African Americans has been criticized, often harshly.
This latter literature on Addams is documented here as unwarranted and inaccurate.
Keywords
Addams, African Americans, citizenship, democracy, education, labor unions, liberal rights, nonviolence,
welfare state, women
Jane Addams (1860–1935) was passionately committed to citizenship: her own and that
of her neighbors around the world. She led a life-long fight for freedom in mind, body,
and spirit, and for equality and social justice for all. She dedicated her life to make this
liberty a reality, particularly for the poor, women, laborers, children, the elderly, and
African Americans. As a feminist pragmatist she was inspired by the core American
documents of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence
(Addams, 1902, 1910, 1930b). When she received an honorary doctorate of laws from
Lombard College, the Unitarian minister Curtis W. Reese introduced her as a ‘[c]itizen
of the world, champion of peace, friend and servant of humanity’ (Reese cited in
Frederick Stock and Jane Addams honored, 1928). Only a sweeping statement such as
this can begin to capture her stature as a leading citizen of the United States and the
world, a Nobel Laureate of peace, and an organic intellectual.
Addams linked citizenship in a democracy to a focus on education through the public
schools and the ‘progressive education’ movement spearheaded by her close friends
John Dewey (1899; Dewey and Dewey, 1915) and George Herbert Mead (1999, 2001).
Corresponding author:
Mary Jo Deegan, Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 704 Oldfather Hall,
Lincoln, NE 68588-0324, USA
Email: [email protected]
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
A major goal of public education, therefore, was the creation of students as strong citizens
who supported a democratic society and process.
Addams’ remarkably successful efforts to work with ethnic immigrants from Europe,
laborers, the elderly, and children is unquestioned,1 but her steadfast faith that racial
prejudice must end has become blurred by the passage of time and aided by the numerous misinterpretations of her work by scholars of American race relations. Similarly, her
feminist commitment was hidden by years of feminists who claimed different epistemologies from hers: for example, Marxist feminists (Gordon, 1994), who did not understand or accept her theory and practice. As a ‘feminist pragmatist’ she radically interpreted
liberal values, and she did not wholly support Marxism, capitalism, conservative liberalism, or any feminism based on anger or conflict to achieve its goals. Because of the
hundreds of complimentary books and articles on her work with immigrants, the poor,
laborers, the aged, and children, I stress here her strengths in the areas of her citizenship
were she is considered the weakest. I thereby correct the flawed scholarship on her work
with some of the most vulnerable citizens, African Americans and women (for example,
Lasch-Quinn, 1993; Lissak, 1989; Mink 1995; Philpott, 1991 [1978]).
Addams’ vision of hope and community empowerment aligns her with the ideas and
practices of other great non-violent theorists and activists: for example, Mahatma Gandhi
(1930), whom she admired and befriended (Addams. 1931); Myles Horton, whom she
mentored (Horton with Kohl and Kohl, 1990); and Martin Luther King, Jr, whom she
inspired through the African American men and women she encouraged (Horton with
Kohl and Kohl, 1990: 49).
My goal is to bring Addams’ unswerving dedication to citizenship for all Americans
once more to public consciousness and allow her voice to inspire us today. Her organic
leadership is rooted in her pacifism, feminism, a cooperative worldview, and an optimistic faith in American ideals. Her pacifism was based on an opposition to all war unless it
was waged against a greater evil than itself; this meant she supported the American Civil
War and its battle to end slavery. Her feminism was born out of her faith in women’s
work within the home, with children, and through unpaid labor in the community, what
she, and many Russians before her, called ‘bread labor’ (Addams, 1910, 1960 [1922]).
She opposed militarism, colonialism, and imperialism (Addams, 1907, 1976). These
related ideas are integral to her anti-racism because they extend her vision beyond the
United States and to people of color around the world.
Nonviolent cooperation is the most stable, enriching, and fruitful method for social
change in a democracy, and Addams argued that women foster it through their everyday
lives. Although women were systematically denied citizenship and human rights in the
United States prior to 1920, this experience of injustice gave them an intimate understanding of America’s failings. Addams argued that women could use their female
values and labor to correct or ameliorate social problems in the neighborhood, city,
nation, and world.
Addams merged citizenship, democracy, nonviolence, and education into one argument: democracies are created and maintained by educated citizens who follow and
renew the customs of their communities and the laws of their states. The public schools
can train each generation in citizenship, and adults in citizenship schools can learn this
material, too.
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Deegan
I organize this paper by first presenting Addams’ understanding of citizenship in a
democracy and then its role in feminist pragmatism which connected democracy, education, and nonviolence. She applied these ideas to numerous political activities, but I
concentrate here on social movement organizations she helped to establish with a focus
on women and African Americans.
Addams, Citizenship, and the Hull-House Schools of Sociology
Addams and her allies created an entire theory and praxis for studying society and
implementing social change called the ‘Hull-House school of sociology’ (HHSS) and
the ‘Hull-House school of race relations’ (HHSRR) (see Key to Abbreviations at end).
Their American theory united liberal values and a belief in a rational public with a cooperative, nurturing, and liberating model of the self, the other, and the community.
Education and democracy are emphasized as significant mechanisms to organize and
improve society, and their praxis is nonviolent in development and implementation
(Deegan, 2002a, 2002b). These schools of thought provided the epistemological basis
for several dozen women and men who were associated with Hull-House, the social
settlement founded in 1889 by Addams and Ellen Gates Starr (Deegan and Wahl, 2003),
and the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, founded in 1892 (Deegan,
1988, 1991). Members of the HHSS documented that inequality existed, and then created social practices to eliminate or ameliorate it through education, writings, speeches,
voluntary organizations, lobbying, legislation, and changed public opinion. In particular, they fought for the rights of the poor, laborers, women, blacks, immigrants, the disabled, the young, and the old.
Addams sharply criticized the failures of democracy and education to liberate
women and people of color. Education for citizenship, getting it and using it wisely
once won, moreover, is central to the HHSRR. Non-violence, especially in situations of
conflict between different groups and their values, is the correct path to achieve social
justice. Addams’ nonviolent perspective drew on the work of Gandhi, as well as her
family’s Quaker religion, to create a feminist and race relations tradition in sociology
and the nation.
Democracy as Political, Economic, and Social Equality
for Citizens
Addams wanted full political citizenship, economic rights and opportunities, and the
full interaction of all groups as part of a strong society with multiple meanings and
cultures. Communities emerged from all their members; their unique talents and existences created vibrant social life. She also wanted these rights for herself. Addams
argued that democracy was a central idea and practice in all her work, as she noted: ‘No
attempt is made to reach a conclusion, nor to offer advice beyond the assumption that
the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy’ (1902: 11–12) As Louise Knight
explains: ‘The story of Addams’s early life reveals how democracy as an idea and as a
practice reshaped her ambitions and gave her a new understanding of herself as a
citizen’ (2005: 412). Her private trouble as a woman without a vote was a public issue
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(Addams, 1893b, 1910; Mills, 1959). I examine these three aspects of democracy below,
but they can never be fully untangled from the multiple dimensions of her thought.
Political Democracy: Suffrage, Political Representation, and Office-Holding
Addams fought for suffrage for women, immigrants, and blacks. She supported political
representation through political lobbying; proposing legislation; protesting in the streets
with her neighbors, blacks, and women; as well as through her writings. Her social settlement created a praxis for neighborhood empowerment; it was a center for building
democracy. She actively supported other social settlements, and ultimately several hundred social settlements were established in the United States, and more were established
throughout Europe. She was the world-wide leader of the social movement to empower
communities, especially for women (Davis, 1967, 1973).
The struggle to include women in the national political apparatus began with the 1848
Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls, New York. It continued in hundreds of campaigns in different cities and states over the ensuing decades. Although the first step was
clear – to win the vote, which was accomplished in 1920 – the next steps were far more
uncertain. In 1920, citizenship for women was channeled through the establishment of the
League of Women Voters (LWV). This group was intended to represent the interests of all
women and not just one political party. The LWV successfully used education organized
through conferences, classes, and special campaigns to get out the vote and to increase
local and national knowledge about issues. In the 1920s and 1930s it helped women learn
how to become good citizens and develop a voice to represent their special interests.
Addams repeatedly fought for all women to participate in clubwork, and she joined
them in Chicago’s municipal, state, and national struggle for the vote. She was the inspiration for citizenship schools, which she organized first through the Women’s City Club
(WCC) and then through the LWV, and which included black women’s participation.
Addams combated racism through the courts, represented by her work with the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as part of her fight for
full political democracy for black people and women.
Political Democracy: Civil Rights Organizations
Voluntary civil rights organizations were needed to fulfill the democratic promise. For
women, Addams worked and often founded numerous groups to accomplish these goals.
She fought for women’s political, economic, and social rights through the National
American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which she served for several years
as vice-president. She argued for women’s higher education and was closely aligned
with sociology at the University of Chicago (Deegan, 1988). She worked with numerous
groups which focused primarily on women, such as the National Women’s Trade Union
League (NWTUL), the National Consumers’ League (NCL), and the Women’s Peace
Party (WPP). Addams was a leader in many politically active groups, such as the abovementioned WCC, a group devoted to civic issues, rights, protests, and legislation. In
1913 Addams was the president of the WCC, for the newly enfranchised women who
had won the right for the municipal vote, and this group’s membership included black
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and white women. She also chaired and spearheaded the group developing citizenship
schools, discussed more later in this paper. In addition she joined with other women
through the women’s club movement, which pushed the boundaries of women’s rights
to participate in politics, local communities, public schools, and advocated for ‘municipal housekeeping.’ This latter term referred to bringing women’s values and traditional
work in the home into the public streets and cities. She fought repeatedly for black
women to participate in clubwork, including the white-dominated National Federation
of Women’s Clubs (NFWC), and she joined her black sisters in Chicago’s municipal and
national struggles for the vote (Davis, 1973, 129; see also Color line comes up again,
1900; Last battle fought on color line, 1902; Notes of the Biennial: Colored clubs need
not apply, 1902).
Addams worked to establish groups fighting for such rights for African Americans,
such as the NAACP, started in 1909, and the National Urban League (NUL), started in
1914, She helped to found both groups and remained active in them for the rest of her
life. Although she did not live in New York City, where their national headquarters were
located, she regularly attended the meetings of the local branches and served on their
executive boards (Deegan, 2002a). Her respect for law and political democracy was
reflected in the NAACP, and her respect for economic democracy and social opportunities for work, housing, and everyday social access to institutions was reflected in the
NUL. Democracy and education, moreover, were keys to the underlying ideology inspiring both efforts to change public life for African Americans. In addition, Addams helped
organize the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the LWV, groups that all supported civil
rights, especially for women and African Americans.
Economic Democracy:The Feminist Pragmatist Welfare State,
(Fabian Socialism), Housing, Employment, Fair Wages, and Healthcare
Addams is best known as a social worker, but ironically she is absent from almost all
discussions of the American welfare state. The ground-breaking work of feminist scholars has dramatically changed this literature, especially the work of Theda Skocpol (1992)
and her colleagues on the ‘maternalist welfare state’ and of Joanne L. Goodwin (1997)
on ‘the social justice maternal welfare state.’2 Some scholars like Linda Gordon (1994)
and Gwendolyn Mink (1995) interpret Addams’ work on ‘the feminist pragmatist welfare
state’ (Deegan, 2006), emerging from her theory, as limited in scope and not radical
enough. They misinterpret her intentions and the failures in programs instituted by the
government since her day. I do not claim that Addams perceived or instituted a perfect
welfare state that was sufficiently radical, but I do assert, however, that she worked for
the eventual total inclusion of all in a socially just society.
Addams engaged in numerous struggles for fair housing for all, often in conjunction
with the Chicago Urban League (CUL) (for example, Woman’s City Club to have housing meet, 1927). She was part of the ‘City Beautiful Movement’, which included urban
planning, parks, sanitation, and housing, too. She and her colleagues, especially Florence
Kelley, played major roles in establishing the eight-hour day and the minimum wage
(Goldmark, 1953). Hull-House was the home of a ‘well-baby clinic,’ the Mary Crane
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Nursery, and the kindergarten movement in Chicago. Chicago parks and playgrounds
emerged from multiple groups, including the Chicago Woman’s Club (CWC) and the
National Playground Association, in which Addams played leadership roles (Addams
1910, 1930, Davis 1973, Levine 1971; Linn 1935).
Addams supported cooperative, inexpensive housing for working women through the
Jane Club. This cooperative residential club for young working women, started by union
maids, had the advice and assistance of Hull-House in its establishment in 1891:
The club has been, from the beginning, self-governing, the officers being elected by the
members from their own number, and serving for six months gratuitously. The two offices of
treasurer and steward required a generous sacrifice of their limited leisure, and also demands
genuine ability from those holding them. The weekly dues of three dollars, with an occasional
small assessment, have met all current expenses of rent, service, food, and heat. There are
various circles within the club for social and intellectual purposes, the atmosphere of the club
is one of comradeship rather than thrift
(The Jane Club, 1931)
The club held monthly receptions in the Hull-House gymnasium, too.
Hull-House was one of the major, national centers for women’s labor union organizing. It was particularly active in the Women’s Bookbinders’ Union (WBU) and the
Women’s Trade Union League, both nationally (NWTUL) and in Chicago (CWTUL).
During this process, Addams befriended powerful labor leaders: Catherine Breshovsky,
the ‘Little Mother’ of Russia; Mary Kenney O’Sullivan (Kenney, 1969), first of the
WBU and later of the Amalgamated Garment Workers of America (AGWA); and Sidney
Hillman, President of the AGWA. A host of other labor unions met at Hull-House as
well: the Shirt Makers’ Union, the Men and Women’s Cloak Maker’s Union, the Cab
Driver’s Union, representatives of the Retail Clerk Workers strike committees for garment workers, and the Clothing Cutters (Kenney, 1969). The women in these groups
formed alliances with women residents at Hull-House and in women’s clubs; engaged in
‘consciousness raising’ (before this term was coined); and organized for strikes and
protests at the settlement. One of the most important of these unions was the NWTUL.
Their strongest branch was in Chicago, where they published their national organ, Life
and Labor.
Although Addams fought for the state to provide a minimum income, housing, employment, child care, health services, and fair wages, based on Fabian socialism (Deegan,
1988: 263–266), her use of this approach has been dropped from many of the social work
practices that honor her name. Such a capitalistic turn by social workers, especially as
employees of the state, is tragic. A major reason for Addams’ greatness was her drive for
economic democracy. When we lose that understanding of her work, it becomes significantly weaker, if not sentimental. Addams also worked with the NUL and its Chicago
branch (CUL) to implement these economic and democratic goals, specifically for African
Americans. Scholarly misunderstanding of Addams’ work in economic democracy is
exemplified by Adolph L. Reed (1997) who wrote a book on the economic and political
thought of W.E.B. DuBois. Although DuBois and Addams were friends and Fabian
socialists. But Reed depicted Addams as engaged in therapy and as representing a different political stance from DuBois. Ironically, the only group that appeared to understand
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Addams’ commitment to economic democracy were her rabid opponents in the anticommunist movement, who portrayed her as a crazed despot intending to destroy American
democracy. Thus Elizabeth Dilling’s Red Network (1934) accurately documented much of
Addams’ work for economic democracy, but interpreted it as a sign of depravity.
Social Democracy: Bringing Women into the Public Sphere and Actively
Crossing the Color Line
Social equality and cultural pluralism defined Addams and her interactions with her
neighbors. Social settlements were full experiments in neighborhood empowerment.
They became particularly important institutions to make the transition for women from
the ‘family claim,’ which dominated their time and energy primarily in the home, to the
‘social claim’ of serving friends, neighbors, communities, the public, and the state.
Addams (1893a, 1893b) repeatedly wrote about her own struggles to make this change
and to feel justified for her ‘subjective’ and ‘objective necessity’ to live and work in a
social settlement. Her lyrical socioautobiography, Twenty Years at Hull-House (Addams,
1910), is recognized as an extraordinary analysis of the importance of women’s public
labor and social participation in America. It has never been out of print, is taught in high
schools and colleges across the nation and around the world, and articulated feminist
pragmatism for the first time to millions of people. Addams also actively supported several black social settlements in the city and nation (discussed more below).
Addams fought for a strong nation and international alliances. This did not translate
into ‘assimilation’ and the erasure of culture and meaning for all the people in the community, nation, or world. Democracy enhances the mind, self, and community. City life,
for example, is dynamic because of its multiple threads and meanings. Democracy
thrives with diversity and gives it a voice. The most egregious misinterpretation of
Addams’ social democracy and cultural pluralism is Rivka Shpak Lissak’s (1989) confusing book, which equates Addams’ views on cultural pluralism with a whole range of
ideas that she opposed. Lissak (1989: 13), for example, asserts that Addams wanted to
absorb and erase all cultures except the old Anglo-American one; and if she did any
good, it was inadvertent. Similarly, Thomas Philpott (1991 [1978]: 300–301) cannot find
any social equality with African Americans in Addams’ work or in that of her Hull-House
allies: ‘So carefully did McDowell, Addams, and Bowen circumvent the issue of social
inequality that there is only one reference to it in their published works, and even that is
less than direct’ (Philpott, 1991 [1978]: 300).
Addams repeatedly and frequently ‘crossed the color line’ (DuBois, 1903), and this
was often noted in public ways, especially in newspapers. This was her praxis supporting
social equality, and part of enacting social democracy. Thus she was praised for doing so
in her 1899 luncheon with women from the National Association of Colored Women
(NACW) in Chicago (for example, Colored Club women at Hull-House, 1899; The
Negro Conventions, 1899; Wells-Barnett, 1970: 259), and again in 1911 with a reception
for Janie Harris Barrett, black clubwoman and social settlement leader from the Hampton
Institute (Mrs Barrett entertained at tea by Jane Addams, 1911). Again, in 1924 with a
second luncheon with African American women from the NACW (Colored women in
Convention, 1924), she crossed the color line. She ventured the dangerous Chicago
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streets during the 1919 race riots arm-in-arm with Mary McDowell and Ada McKinley,
the black founder of the South Side Settlement House (Lampkin, 2001). She spoke at the
black men’s Sunday Forum in 1897 (Colored Men’s Sunday Club, 1897, www), and at
the Institutional Church and Social Settlement’s opening ceremonies in 1900 (To help
Negro race, 1900), and in 1925 (Sutherland, 1925) she again addressed the Chicago
Forum at the Apollo Theater in support of social tolerance. She lunched with black
women in Memphis in 1899 and 1904, leading to her social condemnation in the Memphis
popular press (The religious world, 1899, www). Addams and Hull-House also held
receptions for the NAACP when the annual meetings were held in Chicago in 1912 and
1926. Black and white women helped to organize these receptions for men and women
attending the conferences (Deegan, 2002b; NAACP opens 17th yearly meet, 1926). One
of the discouraging facts of the literature asserting Addams’ racist or indifferent behavior
toward black people is how thoroughly these and other multicultural events have been
forgotten.
Addams unremittingly opposed segregation and the justification of Jim Crow patterns
within the community. For example, she signed a petition, which she probably helped
formulate, that was sent to President Woodrow Wilson opposing his initiation of federal
segregation in the civil service, violating all the intent behind fair employment standards
and hiring practices for social justice in government employment. The protest listed four
reasons for opposition:
1. Segregation means discrimination against the Negro employees and consequently, less
favorable conditions of work and those that have been enjoyed in the past, than well be
continued to be enjoyed by white employees in the future. ... 2. This discrimination is wholly
undeserved on account of any failure of duty on the part of the Negro civil servants. … 3. Such
discrimination violates the principles of fair play and equal treatment. ... 4. Such discrimination
will tend to lower the efficiency of the service.
(Underlining in petition; Addams, Thomas W. Allison, C.E.
Bentley, S.P. Breckinrdige, E.O. Brown and Robert McMurdy,
26 August 1913, LC, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Jane Addams
Microfilm reel 7-frame 1052)
Addams’ social democracy included cultural pluralism: free social interactions are
part of a free society. Addams captured this cultural exchange in the following passage
when she spoke with passion about this inclusiveness and interpersonal joy:
Because we are no longer stirred as the Abolitionists were, to remove fetters, to prevent cruelty,
to lead the humblest to the banquets of civilization, we have allowed ourselves to become
indifferent to the gravest situation in our American life. The Abolitionists grappled with an evil
entrenched since the beginning of recorded history and it seems at moments that we are not
even preserving what was so hardly won. To continually suspect, suppress or fear any large
group in a community must finally result in a loss of enthusiasm for that type of government
which gives free play to the self-development of a majority of its citizens. It means an
enormous loss of capacity to the nation when great ranges of human life are hedged about with
antagonism. We forget that whatever is spontaneous in a people, in an individual, a class or a
nation, is always a source of life.
(1930b: 401)
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Addams was steeped in the consensual social change that leads to social democracy. She
led a life inspired by Gandhi’s (1954 [1928]) concept of Satyagraha, a life of truth and
spiritual renewal (discussed more below).
Social Democracy:The Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, African American
Culture/Gifts, and the Chicago Renaissance
The arts and crafts movement in England, especially the writings of John Ruskin, the
designs of Williams Morris, and the craftsmanship of Charles Ashbee, informed Addams’
understanding of the connections between art, religion, beauty, everyday life, and community. Addams helped to establish these ideas in America through the Chicago Arts and
Crafts Society (CAACS), founded at Hull-House in 1898 (Deegan and Wahl, 2003). This
social movement was linked to the Public School Art Society, which taught schoolchildren to appreciate art within their daily lives. Addams and Hull-House also enacted the
public library movement, initiated by Ruskin, by opening a branch at Hull-House, and
they started a new art movement by being the first group to rent art to patrons through
this branch.
‘Municipal housekeeping,’ as noted, defended women’s way of doing things and
expanding their values into the public realm. Addams (1913a) displayed this argument in
a satirical essay where she imagined that if women had the franchise they would not
extend it to men because the latter ignored dirt and pollution, did not cherish the values
taught in the home, and were untrustworthy in their interactions. They were competitive
and violent, the major perpetrator of violent crimes, and passionate advocates for wars.
In contrast to the patriarchal view, according to Addams in The Long Road of Woman’s
Memory (1916), women’s approach was a cross-cultural, world-wide process honoring
the connections between women, the home, family, and state.
Addams’ belief in the importance of folk stories in women’s culture is reflected in ‘A
Modern Devil Baby’ (Addams, 1930a [1914]), where she ponders the meaning of a
rumor that Satan’s baby had been born at Hull-House. This incredible gossip had the
virtue of being a mythical promise to women that a baby would punish men for the evil
they did and influence them to do better: women wanted to believe in some social justice
for their many unrewarded sacrifices for men.
Addams also applied these ideas to her understanding of African American culture.
Although many cultural ties were severed by slavery, many ethnic identifications continued, too. Addams (1909: 122–123) saw this continuity in the life of a young black factory
worker who drew patterns in her work that were derived from Egypt. Addams again
celebrated black culture and its expression in this passage:
There is, without doubt, the sense of humor, unique and spontaneous, so different from the wit
of the Yankee, or the inimitable story telling prized in the South; the Negro melodies which are
the only American folk-songs; the persistent love of color expressing itself in the bright curtains
and window boxes in the dullest and grayest parts of our cities; the executive and organizing
capacity so often exhibited by the head waiter in a huge hotel or by the colored woman who
administers a complicated household; the gift of eloquence, the mellowed voice, the use of
rhythm and onomatopoeia which now so often [is] travestied in a grotesque use of long words.
(1913b: 566, italics added)
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
Her reference to black music in this passage is emphasized in DuBois’ writings (for
example, ‘sorrow songs’ in DuBois, 1903: 188–199). Addams (1915b) recognized the
unique musical heritage of blacks long before many other scholars. She linked this to
melodious speech, where music and the oral tradition created folk songs, speeches, singing, and a love of language as part of the cultural gifts of black Americans. Addams
(1910) deeply admired orators, a respect that characterized people in her generation, and
she assiduously worked to improve her own skills as a speaker.3 Taken out of context,
this passage could be seen as an example of stereotyping, which James Grossman (1989:
170) and Philpott (1991 [1978]: 294) do. Gwendolyn Mink (1995) also cites a similar
speech as evidence of Addams’ perfidity, but Mink misreads Addams’ sympathy for the
former slaves who were wrested from their homes and culture and lost their independence because of the racism of white slave owners. Read in context, this passage
embraces cultural strengths to celebrate, many of which are honored by DuBois in his
magnificent Souls of Black Folk (1903), which she alludes to in this essay.
In fact, Addams uses DuBois’ concepts in this article, including ‘behind the veil,’4 but
her use of his ideas has been misinterpreted by some scholars, though not by the popular
press. Thus a segment of this particular article was quoted positively in a newspaper (see
Jane Addams writes on Negro question, 1913). Because of this wide public audience,
the passage was read by everyday people as well as by experts reading The Survey.
Abraham Lincoln Lee, an African American, for example, wrote Addams about his
moving response to this essay and her work with his community (Lee to Addams,
February 12, 1913, LC, Sophonisba Breckinridge papers, Jane Addams Microfilm, reel 7,
frame 0764). Addams is developing a ‘cultural diversity’ argument here and elsewhere
(Kallen, 1915a,1915b).
Addams’ work in the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society and with music, art, the oral
tradition, and theater combined with the black experience to help start the Chicago
Renaissance, a cultural movement which remains significantly understudied in comparison to the Harlem Renaissance. For one difference in the two cultural movements, black
and white women in Chicago worked together more closely than they did in New York
City (Knupfer, 2006). For another difference, interracial people in Chicago often united
to create a transnational foundation for both genders.
Addams drew from her own experience to appreciate the verbal skills of black
Southerners. As a result she proposed on a visit to the Tuskegee Institute in 1915
(Addams, 1915a, 1915b) that ‘The Tuskegee School of Oratory’ should be established.
The Tuskegee Student enthusiastically reported: ‘Miss Addams’ idea of a School of
Oratory for Tuskegee Institute bids fair to be realized as anyone who heard the addresses
last night, and [the] night before, I am sure, must appreciate’ (Addams, 1915b). Booker
T. Washington, the head of Tuskegee, died the following November, however, before he
could enact any plans for this school. Addams’ suggestion made front-page headlines in
the black newspaper The New York Age (A new school of Amer. oratory, 1915) and was
interpreted positively within its pages.
Acting and the theater are linked to oratorical skills (Goffman, 1959, 1977), and
Addams established the most important community theater in the world at Hull-House.
She was committed to plays and literature that expressed the ideas and values of the
neighborhood. This sociological approach to drama articulates the community voice
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through plays, songs, and dance. This ‘little theater movement’ was crucial to the growth
of the Chicago Renaissance and Addams’ Hull-House Theater honed the skills of the artists and actors in that city. Addams had a sophisticated and critical understanding of the
power of drama and the movies to distort social relations. Thus she organized a protest
against the production of the racist drama The Clansman when it appeared on a Chicago
stage in 1906 (Wells, 1906) and in the 1915 movie Birth of a Nation (Birth of a Nation
arouses ire of Miss Jane Addams, 1915).
Although black culture survived slavery, the impact of human brutality cannot be
minimized. Slavery resulted in a ‘broken inheritance’ in social customs, families, homes,
and authority over institutions. Immigrants from the Old World brought their customs
and family patterns with them and often re-established them through their own neighborhood institutions, creating ethnic churches, restaurants, and clubs. These forms of ‘social
control’ – meaning social unity and rules, not inhibitions and manipulations – created
and maintained families and communities. Many of these cultural resources and organizations were damaged, if not annihilated, through slavery. The sexual exploitation of
African American women, moreover, was wrought through seduction, kidnapping, rape,
legal ownership, and a web of lies. Addams argued that the end of African American
slavery demonstrated that ‘a new conscience’ had been fostered and victorious, and that
‘social reconstruction’ called for a new model to eliminate the international traffic in
women (Addams, 1912a; Hochschild and Ehrenreich, 2003).
Addams’ commitment to social democracy in race relations reflected her knowledge
that Americans continued to struggle with racist behaviors, ideas, and institutions that
make the promises of justice and democracy hollow ideals. Although she advocated nonviolence in all human interactions, it was needed especially in conflicts over opportunities for women and African Americans. Her nonviolent position originated in the work of
John Huy Addams, her father, who was a Hicksite Quaker who chose to support the Civil
War in order to end slavery, in her devotion to ending the conflict begun by his friend and
leader, Abraham Lincoln. She was inspired also by the nonviolent female leaders of the
nineteenth century who fought for true love and a perfect union (Leach, 1989), especially
as they articulated their position in the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments. She followed in
their footsteps and those of the Abolitionists, continuing their fight in a new era.
Nonviolence (Satyagraha) as Integral to Attaining Democracy
Nonviolence is the only governing mechanism that allows all voices to be heard in a
democracy. America is ruled by a dominant majority, however, and not by consensus and
inclusiveness. As a result, usually only the most powerful voice is heard. When the
majority is wrong, as is the case with patriarchy and white racism, then the voice of the
oppressed is stifled over and over again. Economic democracy is limited, moreover, in a
capitalist society. The wealthiest class controls the means of production, wages, natural
resources, land, and other forms of capital. The proletariat suffers. Unionization and antitrust legislation, both supported by Addams, mitigate the power of capitalists but only in
a limited way. Fabian socialism and the feminist pragmatist welfare state are nonviolent
paths to establish economic democracy, as noted above. Thus majority rule and capitalism can lead to ‘might makes right’ instead of social justice and a democratic society.
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
Gandhi’s term for nonviolence, Satyagraha, refers to the search for truth in action,
the spiritual force accompanying nonviolence and cooperation, especially by people
of color and by the wretched of the earth. Satyagraha inspired her and allows cultural
pluralism to flourish. In addition, ‘crucial movement organizations’ (Morris, 1984),
such as the NAACP, NUL, and women’s clubs, nonviolently organize a minority community’s views to appeal to the majority’s beliefs in democratic values, such as free
speech, the pursuit of happiness, and equal opportunities, to obtain social representation for all.
An example of the union of Satyagraha and democracy was the establishment of the
first Juvenile Court, in 1899 in Chicago. Addams and her allies, primarily disenfranchised clubwomen, pleaded for more kindness and generosity toward children who break
laws than that displayed toward adults. Satyagraha also explains Addams’ opposition to
capital punishment and fueled her opposition to militarism. Similarly, it explains her
pacifism during the First World War. Democracy must express the will of the people, not
of the people in power. Another example of the spiritual dimension to democracy
appeared when Addams (1912b) called for the ‘communion of the ballot,’ a term recognizing the political and social aspects of voting as well as its deep spirituality.
Finally, Satyagraha is part of a ‘prophetic feminist pragmatism’ (for an analysis of
‘prophetic pragmatism,’ see West, 1989). The core US documents, such as the Bill of
Rights and the US Constitution, were sacred to Addams, and citizens involved in
democracy engaged in sacred action. The will of the people was also sacred to
Addams, but when it was controlled by the powerful or expressed hatred and violence, then it had to be resisted. Addams, like Gandhi and King, lived by the assumptions of a nonviolent, spiritual force. Her pacifist practice of democracy and admiration
of Gandhi help us understand one major method for empowering citizens. Another
method is education.
Education and Democracy Generated by Citizenship Schools
Addams worked with white ethnic groups for decades to teach them how to obtain citizenship and how to have the government respond to their community needs. These
training centers, ‘citizenship schools,’ were not an effort to erase cultural heritages but
a way to create new citizens from diverse backgrounds with an effective voice, especially for black Americans (Mary McDowell papers, box 1, folder 11) and women new
to the right to vote. Thus Chicago women first gained the right to vote for a university
trustee in 1893, then the municipal suffrage in 1913, and finally the national suffrage in
1920. Throughout these campaigns for the vote, Chicago women systematically offered
training on how to participate and become heard in a democracy. Addams, in addition,
worked with several biracial women’s clubs, such as the Cook County League and the
CWC, to develop citizenship schools (for example, Walters, 1913; Women develop new
ward ‘boss’, 1913; Women perfect vote class, 1913; Women plan evening citizenship
class, 1913). Citizenship schools emerged from Addams’ belief in democracy and education, and they proliferated in Illinois through the LWV. Black women’s work on
behalf of themselves and their communities was organized through the Douglass branch
of the LWV.5
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Addams, Black and White Women’s Clubwork, and the
Feminist Pragmatist Welfare State
Addams always saw the fate of oppressed groups as united. When one group was treated
unfairly, it operated as a point of entry to justify treating another group in this way. Thus
when she worked for women’s rights, she tied them to the struggles for black rights and
workers’ rights. For example, on June 5, 1912, Addams reported to the board of the
NAWSA that there was ‘a great need of work among the colored people’ in Missouri
where she had recently visited. She also noted that the socialists there did not support
women’s suffrage (LC, NAWSA Records, p. 1, Minutes of the Official Board Meeting).
This is a theme in her work with African American women. She did more, however, than
connect race, class, and gender; she connected oppressions wherever she found them,
perhaps by religion, disability, age, colonial status, or any other social category.
Addams believed women’s clubwork could and did transform the state. Her feminist
pragmatist welfare state emerged from black and white women’s clubwork and their
voices on behalf of their communities. She worked with numerous black women on
terms of social equality. She worked diligently for the racial integration of women’s
clubwork, supporting it over and over again. Many Chicago women’s clubs were integrated as a result: for example, the WCC, the Political Equality League, the Social
Economics Club, and the Cook County Federation of Clubs. Addams’ outstanding support of black women’s clubs and unrelenting opposition to white racism in clubwork
resulted in her invitations to join the black sororitities Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta
Sigma Theta (Giddings, 1988). She was also the first white woman invited to join the
NACW, and she spoke at the Alpha Suffrage Club, organized by the militant civil rights
activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Knupfer, 1996: 54).
Addams is portrayed, however, as not understanding African American women. Linda
Gordon, for example, wrote: ‘Many scholars, particularly black sociologists, understood
that single motherhood was quite common among poor working-class and rural blacks.
But southern blacks seems a world apart to the northern elite whites who dominated the
national welfare discourse’ (1994: 34). Thus Gordon does not include Addams in the
sociological discourse; does not note Addams’ many alliances with African American
women, Northern and Southern, rural and urban; and even states that Addams and her
feminist allies lived in ‘a world apart’ from their neighbors.
Gordon continues her argument that Addams and other Hull-House women were elitist snobs (1994: 47) who used hypocritical double standards for their independent lives
versus the male-dominated lives of the poor (1994: 107). Gordon argued that Addams
employed a framework that isolated gender, race, and class issues (1994: 113). Gordon
repeats these views throughout her book. In my text here, supported by Addams’ writings, organizational work, correspondence, and protests, I repeatedly document the false
basis of Gordon’s statements.
Gwendolyn Mink (1995: 117) shares Gordon’s hostility to Addams and views Addams
as an author whose writings preceded and supported a ‘culture of poverty’ perspective
that blamed the poor for being poor. Mink writes that ‘the maternalists [including Addams]
did not offer an economically redistributive program’ (1995: 115) and ignores Addams’
commitment to Fabian socialism and her role in the feminist pragmatist welfare state.
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
Mink (see especially 1995: 97–120) depicts Addams and her Hull-House colleagues as
forcing assimilation and cultural conformity and as opposing cultural pluralism. This
flies in the face of all the evidence I have documented in this paper.
In contrast to this literature, I document how Addams profoundly understood the difficulty of being poor, a mother, and having children who came in contact with the courts.
Her rural childhood and domestic Abolitionism, moreover, generated a deep understanding of the African American experience in the South. Her commitment to urban blacks
was equally powerful.
Addams, Citizenship, and Her Interracial Work with Black
Social Settlements
Almost all of the black social settlements in Chicago that worked to empower black citizens based their work on Addams and Hull-House. This includes her influence on those
established by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which founded two
short-lived, but important, social settlements. The first, the Institutional Church and
Social Settlement (ICSS), operated from 1900 to 1904. It was founded by Reverdy
Cassius Ransom, an active clergyman who supported the social gospel movement and
the work of the sociologist W.E.B. DuBois. He was assisted by Richard R. Wright, Jr
(1965), the Chicago sociologist and later a bishop in the AME Church (Deegan, 2002a).
Both Ransom and Wright knew Addams, and she supported them and their work
(Goddard, 1999). In fact the ICSS was modeled after Hull-House. After the ICSS closed,
Wright founded Trinity Mission in 1904 (Williams, 1905), though this ended a year later.
In addition, Addams and Hull-House were fundamental to the establishment and
funding of the Charles Sumner Settlement in 1907 and its rebirth in 1911 (Lewis, 1911)
under the name of the Wendell Phillips Social Settlement (WPSS). Addams worked with
the WPSS until it ended in the mid-1920s. She similarly inspired and aided the Frederick
Douglass Centre as one of its founding members in 1904. In 1908 she met with the
African American college students who came to Chicago each summer for advance education that was unattainable in the South (for example, Williams, 1908). They formed
new friendships and networks here, and Addams participated in this national gathering of
the talented tenth (DuBois, 1903). She also worked closely with the Abraham Lincoln
Centre (ALC), which was allied with African Americans, from its founding in 1904 until
her death in 1935. Its often noble work in race relations during these years has yet to be
documented fully.6 Because of her friendship and frequent alliance with Wells-Barnett,
Addams influenced the development of Wells-Barnett’s Negro Fellowship League, too.
She also inspired the work of Fannie Emanual at Emanual Settlement and Ada S.
McKinley at the McKinley Community Center. Addams worked repeatedly with the
‘urban Negro’ through social settlements, and this major activity anchored her presence
in the black community and their struggle for full citizenship (Williams, 2002).
Unsurprisingly, Philpott (1991 [1978]) and Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn (1993) argue that
Addams had little contact with these settlements, assertions easily shown to be incorrect.
What is surprising, however, is how popular these and other false ideas have been in literature committed to understanding race and gender in America.
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Citizenship, Praxis, and African Americans: Addams’ Influence
on the Modern Civil Rights Movement
Addams’ administrative, tactical, and intellectual skills were fundamental to the establishment of the major organizations behind the civil rights movement of the 1950s and
1960s. Addams helped to start a series of organizations to institutionalize nonviolent
social change that directly and indirectly improved American race relations. These
included the ACLU, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the Friends Service
Committee, the LWV, the NAACP, the NUL, and the WILPF. The legislative and legal
processes were important tools here – as were letters, hearings, petitions, speeches, law
suits, parades, pamphlets, and protest marches – to create a public voice for social equality. The FOR, moreover, ‘was instrumental in the founding of CORE (Congress of Race
Equality)’ (Glazer, 1972: 598). During the 1940s, CORE became a crucial organization
in the modern civil rights movement.
The race relations work of Myles Horton, who founded the citizenship schools at
the Highlander Folk School (HFS), which were taken over by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, documents the steps between Addams and the modern civil
rights movement:
Maybe you don’t know it, but Myles [Horton] illustrates how people are part of a process of
influencing people. He was influenced by Jane Addams, and Jane Addams’ father was
influenced by Lincoln, so Lincoln through her father influenced Jane Addams, and Jane
Addams influenced Myles Horton [who] influenced Martin Luther King.
(Page Smith cited by Horton with Kohl and Kohl, 1990: 49)
Addams and the new women of color also established citizenship schools for
women, and these organizations were another inspiration for the HFS and the development of these schools in the 1950s. Aldon Morris (1984: 100–119) considers citizenship schools to be fundamental to the civil rights movement, and what he calls a
‘movement center’ (Morris, 1984: 100), but because he was unaware of the central
roles of Addams and the new women of color (Williams, 2002), he does not discuss
either early black women or Addams.
In addition to these organizations, Addams helped to found the ACLU, which also
played a role in the later civil rights movement. Addams, moreover, was crucial to the
establishment of WILPF, a friend of Gandhi, and part of the nonviolent heritage in
America leading up to the work of King. In fact, Addams spoke in 1924 to black audiences in Chicago and Washington, DC, on the topic of interracial peace and Gandhi,
clearly bringing her message specifically to black citizens (Jane Addams in speech before
Lyceum crowd, 1924; Jane Addams in talk at Howard, 1924).
Despite her precedence in laying the foundations for the work of Martin Luther King,
Jr, and other civil rights leaders, Addams is invisible in the literature and popular understanding of this sweeping change in American life and race relations. Here I explicitly
connect Addams, feminist pragmatism, ‘crucial movement organizations,’ and the modern
civil rights movement. Although she is a founding sister of this movement, she is not
only forgotten, an absence in our ‘collective memory,’ she sometimes is categorized as
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
an opponent to the full citizenship of African Americans (for example, Allen, 1974;
Blackwell, 2004; Lasch-Quinn, 1993; Philpott, 1991 [1978]; Sullivan, 2003). Contrary
to this scholarship, we know that
Addams’s development into a full-fledged citizen was an achievement that she and the world
accomplished together, and she would not have had it otherwise. Believing deeply in the
ideals of cooperation and democracy, she had turned them into a way of life that brought
many rewards.
(Knight, 2005: 404)
Conclusion
Citizenship is a key concept in Addams’ ideas and practices. As a person who could not
vote until she was sixty years of age, she yearned for the communion of the ballot. Being
an equal member of the community required full rights and obligations, and attaining
these rights called for cooperation and struggle. Citizenship was rooted in democracy
and multidimensional, embracing politics, economics, and social interaction. It emerged
from the people, the group she identified as her own.
Nonviolence is a key concept in her ideas and praxis: feminist pragmatism. Addams
started with this commitment from her father’s background as a Hicksite Quaker, and she
expanded this through her years of theory and praxis in cooperation, reflection, and
neighborliness. She connected Lincoln with the domestic Abolitionism of her home and
family. She was a friend and student of several great practitioners of nonviolence, but the
work of Gandhi particularly inspired her struggles for freedom for women and African
Americans. Her life in a vibrant yet troubled neighborhood pushed her to understand
cultural difference and the opportunities available in a changing America. Gandhi’s struggle with British colonialism, racism, and poverty concretely mirrored many of her own
confrontations with similar problems. Satyagraha called for a searing search for truth and
faith in the power of nonviolence to establish the full dream of American democracy.
Addams set a foundation for inclusive American citizenship in the face of powerful
opponents to American rights guaranteed in our national covenants. Lincoln knew that a
divided country cannot stand, and Addams continued his fight in her efforts to finish both
the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to obtain full citizenship for all the disenfranchised,
especially for women and African Americans.
Key to Abbreviations
ACLU
ALC
AGWA
AME
CAACS
CORE
CUL
CWC
CWTUL
FOR
American Civil Liberties Union
Abraham Lincoln Centre
Amalgamated Garment Workers of America
African Methodist Episcopal [Church]
Chicago Arts and Crafts Society
Congress of Racial Equality
Chicago Urban League
Chicago Woman’s Club
Chicago Women’s Trade Union League
Fellowship of Reconciliation
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HFS
HHSRR
HHSS
ICSS
LWV
NAACP
NACW
NAWSA
NCL
NFWC
NUL
NWTUL
WCC
WILPF
WPP
WPSS
Highlander Folk School
Hull-House school of race relations
Hull-House school of sociology
Institutional Church and Social Settlement
League of Women Voters
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association of Colored Women
National American Woman’s Suffrage Association
National Consumers’ League
National Federation of Women’s Clubs
National Urban League
National Women’s Trade Union League
Woman’s City Club
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Woman’s Peace Party
Wendell Phillips Social Settlement
Notes
1. There is a vast literature on Addams; most of it is interesting for background information,
interpretations of her social work, and documentation of her public role in American society. One of the best, easily available bibliographies on Addams and her era can be found in
John C. Farrell’s Beloved Lady (1967: 217–261). He also provides an excellent overview of
Addams’ life, public career, and applied ideas. Although Farrell’s book is well written and well
researched, it lacks a compelling narrative. Mary Lynn McCree (Bryan) spent years organizing, traveling, and reading original, archival material to generate a comprehensive microfilm
of the Jane Addams Papers. This meticulous labor provides expanded access to archival documents concerning her ideas and contributions in dozens of areas. Allen F. Davis and Mary Lynn
McCree (Davis and Bryan, 1969; Bryan and Davis, 1990) collaborated on two helpful anthologies containing major writings about Hull-House written by many of its allies, residents, and
critics. James Weber Linn (1935), who was Addams’ nephew, sometimes a Hull-House resident, always a frequent visitor, and a Professor of English at the University of Chicago, wrote
the most reliable, albeit family-oriented and popular, biography. My own work on Addams is
referenced throughout this introduction, with the major items being my book on her and male
Chicago sociologists, another on Addams and Chicago race relations, and related books on
Fannie Barrier Williams, George H. Mead, and women in sociology (Deegan, 1988, 1999,
1991, 2002a, 2002b).
There is a serious lack of study of Addams’ intellectual apparatus: her theory of the arts,
including the theater, pageants, drama, literature, sculpture, pottery, and the aesthetics of
nature; her life-long commitment to political theory; her vast influence in American race relations, especially between whites, Mexican-Americans, and African Americans; and other significant areas of study and practice. This dearth of scholarship in these major areas of her work
significantly limits our understanding of her ideas and accomplishments. As I discuss in detail
later, there is a large hostile literature on Addams’ relationship with African Americans.
2. Considerable scholarly debate concerns the state’s relation to the HHSS. Thus Robin Muncy
(1991) labels this state process part of ‘the female dominion,’ but women never had a dominion,
in the past or present, within the United States. Kathryn Kish Sklar (1995) calls this process
‘women’s political culture.’ There was a female political culture, but it was part of the much
broadly defined process of feminist pragmatism and based on the feminist pragmatist welfare
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234
3.
4.
5.
6.
Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
state. The practices of this culture were more materially ‘realpolitik’ than Sklar envisions.
Maternalists, whom Skocpol (1992) discusses, were often more conservative politically and
supportive of traditional roles of wives and mothers than the feminist pragmatists, Feminist
pragmatism also concerns the general processes of becoming human, forming a self, generating meaning, and so forth.
Addams’ role as one of the first women to debate publicly in Illinois forms an amusing story
in her autobiography (Addams, 1910). Her college friends needed to coach her to project her
voice and practice her delivery. Their biting criticism revealed her many weaknesses as a
speaker, and she had to work diligently to improve her skills (Knight, 1998).
The concept ‘behind the veil’ refers to the divided lives and consciousness of African Americans
who experience the distortion of racial prejudice. This idea permeates Du Bois’ Souls of Black
Folk (1903). Addams’ view of a harmonious community is found throughout her work and in
Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (1934) and Play, School, and Society (1999; Deegan, 1999).
They chose to form a separate branch due to their shared neighborhood and common interests
and not because of racial desegregation.
In fact, the ALC is often criticized as racist during the years from 1904 until 1918 in some
literature (for example, Philpott, 1991 [1978]; Schweninger, 1998).
Bibliography
Achival Collections
* Chicago, Illinois
Chicago Historical Society
Mary McDowell Papers
University of Chicago, Regenstein Library, The Research Center and Special Collections
Rosenwald Papers, Scrapbook, 14
* Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress
Sophonisba Breckinridge Papers
NAWSA Records, Minutes of the Official Board Meeting
Woodrow Wilson Papers
Internet Resources
Colored Men’s Sunday Club (1897) Chicago Times Herald (October 24). http://tigger.uic.edu/
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The religious world (1899) Advance (December 21). http://tigger.uic.edu/cgiwrap/main. egi?file=
new/show_doc.ptt&doc=26, captured April 26, 2005.
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Journal of Classical Sociology 10(3)
Author biography
Mary Jo Deegan is Professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is
the author of over 175 articles and the author or editor of twenty books, including Jane
Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892–1918 (Transaction, 1988), The American
Ritual Tapestry (Greenwood Press, 1998), and Race, Hull-House, and the University of
Chicago (Praeger, 2002). Her Journal of Classical Sociology article ‘The Human Drama
Behind the Study of People as Potato Bugs: The Curious Marriage of Robert E. Park and
Clara Cahill Park’ was awarded the ASA, History of Sociology Section, ‘Distinguished
Scholarly Publication Award of 2008.’ She has written or edited three books on George
Herbert Mead, and her most recent one, Self, War, and Society: George Herbert Mead’s
Macrosociology (Transaction, 2008), was awarded the ASA, History of Sociology Section,
‘Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award of 2009.’
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