Jane Addams is best known as the founder of Hull-House, one of this country's first settlement houses, in the immigrant heart of late Victorian Chicago. This biography chronicles her privileged childhood in rural Illinois, her thirst for a first-class education, and her search for purpose and self-fulfillment, although constrained by notions of the proper role for females. It chronicles Addams' tireless work to better the lives of urban immigrants and her growing national and international role in social reform.