MOUNT VERNON — Grinnell College history professor Victoria Brown will speak at Cornell College on Thursday, March 17, on “The Education of Jane Addams,” the title of her 2004 book on the founder of Chicago’s Hull-House social settlement in 1889.
Brown’s lecture is at 11:10 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.
Brown’s areas of expertise include America after 1865, women’s history and immigration. Also the author of “Going to the Source: The Bedford Reader in American History,” published last year, Brown has appeared on the PBS series “American Experience” in documentaries on Woodrow Wilson and on the history of Chicago.
“The Education of Jane Addams” details a privileged prairie childhood, years as the competent spinster daughter in a demanding fatherless family and her early seasoning on the Chicago reform scene. Like other social settlements in the late 1800s, Hull-House attracted educated men and women to live in poor urban areas. The residents became a powerful lobbying tool for protective measures for women and children, and Addams’ settlement work, writing and peace efforts made her the country’s most prominent woman. She founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Brown’s talk is one of many events during the second half of the academic year to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the
women’s studies program at Cornell.
