Marilyn Fischer - Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy

Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy

Edited by

MARILYN FISCHER, CAROL NACKENOFF, AND WENDY CHMIELEWSKI

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Urbana and Chicago

2009 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jane Addams and the practice of democracy / edited by

Marilyn Fischer, Carol Nackenoff, and Wendy Chmielewski.

p. cm.

Chapters based on presentations at two conferences held in 2002.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-252-03406-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-252-07612-1 pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Addams, Jane, 18601935Congresses. 2. Women social workersUnited StatesBiographyCongresses. 3. Women social reformersUnited StatesBiographyCongresses. 4. DemocracyCongresses. 5. Civil societyCongresses.

I. Fischer, Marilyn. II. Nackenoff, Carol.

III. Chmielewski, Wendy E.

HV28.A35J362009

361.92dc22 [B]2008032920

Contents

Marilyn Fischer, Carol Nackenoff, Wendy Chmielewski

Victoria Bissell Brown

Charlene Haddock Seigfried

Louise W. Knight

Camilla Stivers

Karen Pastorello

Carol Nackenoff

Shannon Jackson

Marilyn Fischer

Wendy Sarvasy

Harriet Hyman Alonso

Acknowledgments

Jane Addams (18601935), an extraordinary activist and thinker in many ways ahead of her time, has been speaking to many of us. Two interdisciplinary conferences in 2002 brought together a wide range of scholars who have been drawn to Addams. The symposium Rediscovering Jane Addams was held at Swarthmore College on February 12, 2002, with twenty presenters and discussants. The second conference, Exploring Jane Addams, was held at the University of Dayton on November 89, 2002, with twenty-seven presenters. The chapters in this volume grew out of these conferences.

We would like to thank the William J. Cooper Foundation, the DOlier Foundation, and the William I. Hull Fund for their generous support of the Swarthmore symposium. This event also received support from the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, the Departments of Political Science and History, the Womens Studies Program, the Office of the President, and the Forum for Free Speech. Without the superb and tireless assistance of Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes, this symposium would not have been possible. We also thank the late Judy Lord, administrative assistant for the Cooper Foundation, for all her assistance. The University of Dayton conference was the twenty-ninth annual Richard R. Baker Philosophy Colloquium. We are grateful for additional financial support for this colloquium from the Departments of Philosophy, History, and Sociology/Anthropology/Social Work, and from the American Studies Program and the School of Education at the University of Dayton. We also thank Linda McKinley, the Philosophy Department administrative assistant, who devoted much time and skill to organizing the conference, and Cindy King, who prepared this manuscript for publication with a keen eye and great care. We thank Joan Catapano, associate director and editor in chief of the University of Illinois Press, who has been interested in this project from its inception and attended both conferences. We also thank the anonymous reviewers from the University of Illinois Press for their assistance in making Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy a better book.

Marilyn Fischer

Carol Nackenoff

Wendy Chmielewski

Introduction

In 2006, the General Assembly of the State of Illinois designated December 10 Jane Addams Day, a day to remember her and teach about her great accomplishments, compassion, and social conscience. In the past few decades, interest in Jane Addams has grown among scholars, activists, and the general public. In addition to remembering her accomplishments, compassion, and social conscience, scholars today are exploring her intellect and her powers as a theorist of democracy. Bringing recent scholarly methodologies and resources to their work, these scholars are finding startlingly fresh resources in Addamss life and thought, applicable to contemporary challenges of war and peace, social and economic inequalities, and the responsibilities of citizenship.

By focusing on Addams as a theorist and an intellectual, this volume contributes to this new scholarship. Addamss life, actions, and writings defy simple disciplinary classification, as does human experience itself. Thus, it is appropriate that this volume be multidisciplinary in character. New scholarship on Addams may be found in many disciplines ranging from the social sciences, such as sociology and political science, to fields in the humanities, including history, philosophy, and literature. Research on Addams also fits comfortably in inherently cross-disciplinary fields such as women and gender studies, peace studies, international relations theory, queer theory, and performance theory.

Addamss primary commitment was to the theory and practice of democracy. Classical political and economic liberalism, with their stress on the autonomous individual, did not take social interdependencies adequately into account, and so were ill-suited, Addams believed, for a rapidly industrializing, urban society. She was particularly concerned that new immigrants be able to contribute their cultural inheritance and experiential knowledge to the practice of democracy. Addamss lifelong project of constructing a theory and practice of social democracy, grounded in concrete experience and built through sympathetic understanding, is one that still vigorously engages scholars and social policy makers.

Emphasizing the centrality of lived experience for theorizing, Addams was an important precursor of a later generation of scholars who have emphasized the situatedness and contingency of knowledge. Like John Dewey, G. H. Mead, and other classical American pragmatists with whom she worked, Addams defined experience in terms of peoples concrete, day-by-day interactions, immersed in their social and physical environment. For Addams, theories were ways of interpreting and navigating experience. The worth of these theories is tested by how well they illuminate that experience. Addams believed the goal and final test for all theories is their contribution to the practice of democracy. Emerging from particular histories, forging particular futures, persons and environment continually influence and change each other. Because each individuals situations and experiences differ, Addams believed that each persons understanding of and contribution to knowledge also differs.

In her writings, her activism with Hull-House, the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and countless voluntary organizations, Addams gave central focus to the experiences of women and resisted identification with traditional gender roles. There was a complementary transformation by the women residents of Hull-House, where they created a practical and philosophical community. Addams focused closely on the concerns and perspectives of poor and immigrant women and men who had little political power or voice in an industrializing democracy. She insisted that the voices and experiences of those whose knowledge had been discounted by dominant paradigms and political institutions be added to create the kind of civic citizenship and democracy she envisioned. To achieve all this became womens business, and in the process helped transform social policy.