Jane Addams, the Settlement Women of Hull House, and the Feminist Pragmatist Orientation

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

11-20-2023

Abstract

Jane Addams and the settlement women of Hull House lived and acted as public intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century but were written out of many of the professions and fields of study they shaped. With special attention to the work and writings of Jane Addams, this chapter offers an overview of the feminist pragmatist orientation that defined these women’s public intellectualism, delineating five themes that frame this orientation and the kind of community engagement and public intellectualism that Jane Addams and the settlement women of Hull House exemplified. These five themes are the relationally interconnected self, democracy as a way of life, place-based and empathetic inquiry through cooperative action, narrative-informed social scientific method, and lateral progress toward cosmopolitan humanitarianism. The chapter closes with a discussion of the value of recovering a feminist pragmatist orientation for contemporary public-facing scholarship.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197558898.013.18

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