A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams

From this account of her first 39 years, it would appear that pioneering social reformer Jane Addams might have as easily become a chronic invalid as a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which she received in 1931. Diliberto, author of previous biographies of Hadley Hemingway and of debutante Brenda Frazer, situates Addams's dedication to the poor firmly within the context of late-Victorian virtuous womanhood. Drawing upon previously untapped personal papers, Diliberto reveals the enormous toll exacted on Addams by her attempt to reconcile the conflicting claims of her own ambitions and her duty, as she saw it, to her family. Only when she founded the Hull House Settlement to serve Chicago's inner-city immigrants, an enterprise that was both socially useful and under her own control, did she gain a measure of health. She was sustained as well by her deep emotional attachments to other women, especially Mary Rozet Smith, with whom Addams lived in what she called a ""marriage"" for more than 30 years. While acknowledging the implicit sexual content of Addams's friendships with women and documenting the passionate language of her correspondence with Smith, Diliberto is unable to determine if these feelings ever found overt sexual expression, though she is inclined to doubt it. Diliberto makes more of Addams's psychological difficulties than of the objective obstacles she overcame and does not quite account for her extraordinary success. Nevertheless, this accessible book holds revealing insights for both general readers and specialists. (July)