-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Maureen A. Flanagan, Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, Journal of American History, Volume 93, Issue 2, September 2006, Page 553, https://doi.org/10.2307/4486315
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
It must be disappointing for an author to have a major scholarly work preceded by the publication of another book on almost the same subject. That is the situation of Louise W. Knight and Citizen, a volume examining the life and intellectual growth of Jane Addams from her birth to 1899. Victoria Bissell Brown's 2004 book, The Education of Jane Addams, covers virtually the same years (to 1895) and asks many of the same questions about how Addams developed her ideas about cooperation, mutuality, social democracy, and the value of experience. On the one hand, both books are excellent contributions to the work of overturning the arguments of previous biographies, which often misrepresent, and sometimes disparage, Addams's work in the settlement house movement and Progressive Era reform generally. On the other hand, the volume under review treads much of the same ground covered in Brown's book. The challenge for the reviewer, then, is discussing this volume on its own merits without comparison.
