After graduating from Rockford College in 1882 and having traveled extensively in Europe, he founded, together with his friend Hellen, the Social Settlement Hull-House (1889), one of the first foster homes in the United States, located in one of the most degraded neighborhoods of Chicago.
His goal was to make each man and woman more aware of their abilities, as well as good citizens capable of contributing to society. During these years, Jane addams she was impressed by the idea of a united world, an idea that dissolved with the start of the First World War.
In 1915 Addams was one of the protagonists of the Peace Conference, held in The Hague by the Dutch suffragette Aletta Jacobs. She is responsible for the founding of the International League of Women for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a women’s only association that, between April and June 1915, toured the European countries to ask all Heads of State to end war. Not through an armistice, but by tacit agreement.
Jane addams he also co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was also a member of the American Anti-Imperialist League and the American Association and Sociology; actively participating in the women’s suffrage movement.
For the results of his work in 1931 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, a prize shared with Nicholas Murray Butler.
In his personal life he had a romantic relationship with Mary Rozet Smith, which she described as marriage. Jane addams She passed away on May 21, 1935 in Chicago and was buried in the family home in Cedarville.