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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Named the foremost living woman in America by the Ladies’ Home Journal, Jane Addams originally garnered fame and admiration for her Hull House settlement, opened in 1889, that served the underprivileged in Chicago. Around the turn of the century, Addams expanded her attention to other realms of reform, including suffrage and pacifism, and even co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| 1905 | Already well known for Hull House, Jane Addams intervenes in a Chicago teamsters’ strike. Supreme Court Justice Brewer also says in a speech that she would make a good mayor of Chicago. |
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| 1907 | Addams serves as a delegate to a contentious peace conference. |
| 1908 | Ladies’ Home Journal names Addams ‘the foremost living woman in America’ for her “practical reform” work. |
| 1909 | Addams attends the second National Peace Congress. |
| 1911 | Addams starts to speak out on behalf of girls forced into sex slavery. |
| 1912 | Addams’ backs Roosevelt and his pro-suffrage Progressive Party. |
| 1913 | Readers select Jane Addams as the most influential woman in America. |
| 1914 | Addams urges the passage of laws forbidding child labor and becomes increasingly involved in the peace movement at the outbreak of World War One. |
| 1915 | Addams becomes President of Woman’s Peace Party, which she represents at a well-publicized peace conference at the Hague held in the summer of 1915. |
| 1916 | Addams backs President Wilson’s reelection effort. |
| 1920 | Addams and other activists form the American Civil Liberties Union. |
