An important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the US, Jane Addams and her partner Ellen Starr, co-founded Chicago's Hull House to help the plight of recent European immigrants, who lived in deplorable conditions with little hope for a better future. By providing innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became a model in the enlightened treatment of the poor, and by 1920 there were nearly 500 settlement houses on the Hull House pattern.

In 1920, she was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and in 1931 was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is her own account of her efforts to improve conditions for working-class immigrants in Chicago’s West Side slums and increased awareness for the need for social welfare in The Gilded Age.