Jane Addams’s Education, Hull House, and Current-Day Civic-Engagement Practices in Higher Education

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines how Jane Addams’s education at Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford University) foreshadowed her later work, especially as related to Hull House initiatives, and influenced the development of civic-engagement practices in higher education. Looking contextually to parental and 19th-century societal attitudes about charity and benevolence, the chapter details the impact of her studies on her attitudes about a woman’s active participation in society and the evolution of Addams’s public, civic voice. At Rockford, Addams met Hull House cofounder Ellen Gates Starr and was influenced by principal Anna Peck Sill, who charged students with using their education to serve their communities. Addams and her fellow Hull House residents served their community by creating experiential, democratic, educational, and social opportunities for neighboring immigrants. Community needs were assessed and addressed through the lens of feminist pragmatism. The chapter shows how Addams’s approach to civic engagement, developed at Hull House and Rockford Female Seminary, is relevant to contemporary civic-engagement practices at institutions of higher education. These practices include campus-community partnerships, service learning, and participatory action research. Addams’s ideas on the importance of experience, sympathetic understanding, and reciprocity are woven throughout the chapter, and a description of the Jane Addams Center for Civic Engagement at Rockford University brings the legacy of Jane Addams full circle.