Jane Addams

Jane Addams founded the first settlement house in the U.S. in 1889 and would later go on to become the first American woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in pushing for peace during World War I. 

Addams founded Hull House in Chicago’s west side in 1889, along with her friend Ellen Gates Starr. Addams had visited the Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London, with Starr and decided to bring that model to the U.S. as the nation underwent its early years of escalating industrialization and immigration, according to the National Women’s History Museum. 

The Hull House provided services to thousands of people each week, including a day care for working mothers and job training. 

Addams was a founding member of the National Child Labor Committee, which played a role in passing the federal child labor law in 1916. She also pushed for women’s suffrage as an officer in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and was a founder of the NAACP, according to the National Women’s History Museum. 

Addams advocated for peace during World War I, which earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, four years before her death. She founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915 and had tried to push President Wilson to mediate peace between warring countries. She loudly spoke against the U.S. instead entering the war and was considered a dangerous radical and a threat to U.S. security, according to the Nobel Prize organization. 

— Rebecca Klar