Historical and Cultural Forces in the Life of Jane Addams

The historical and cultural forces shaped the life of women during the Progressive Era, where “Jane Addams exemplified the New Woman of the 1890s, who integrated Victorian virtues with an activist social role.” The New Woman had a better awareness of “self, gender, and mission.” The New woman was mainly “middle-class, if not upper class, daughter or wife of a business or professional man, and had a better education than average.” Jane Addams was shaped through the expansion of college education, the women’s club movement, and population growth in the country.

During the Civil War, the mid-western land-grand colleges admitted women. By 1910, “five percent of college-age Americans attended college and forty percent of them were women.” Middle-class young men found more opportunity in business than in professions requiring a higher education. As a result, women students filled these seats. “In 1862, Congress funded higher education through the Morrill Act,” which started the expansion of coeducation. By 1900, there were almost forty colleges that admitted women. Most land-grant colleges welcomed women, because doing so cost less than creati

The period from 1877 to 1914, also called ‘The Reform Era’, was a variety, a range, and a success of women’s efforts in society. The ‘private sphere’ of the home and motherhood was combined with the ‘men’s sphere’. The changes and growth in education, the belonging to Clubs outside the home, and the growth of population stimulated the alternative living arrangements.

What to do after college was a problem for many women. There seemed to be no purposeful role for college-trained women. The Victorian view of the family played a big role in the life after college. Most families wanted their female college-graduate to get married and have a family on her own. Most graduates though were single. If she was unmarried, “she might be employed outside the home, most likely in a profession that was dominated by women, such as teaching.” If she never married, she might maintain her own home, possibly with another woman. If and when she married, she usually gave up salaried work, and devoted herself to household and family.

In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr founded Hull House. It was also known as “ ‘a branch of social science and religious activity.’” Hull House was an organization of clubs, classes, and services that constantly expanded. “All members did something—whether in local societies, autonomous state federation, or the huge national federation.” Through Addams’ and Starr’s publicity and appeals, they got much approval and gained the supp

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