100 Years of Professional Social Work

Celebrating the Centennial of the Social Work Profession

Proposal for Obverse of New $1 Coin

Jane Addams
September 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935

June 1, 1998

Michael White
United States Mint
Dollar Coin Design Advisory Committee
633 3rd Street N.W., Room 715
Washington, DC 20220

Dear Mr. White,

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) are pleased to offer a proposal for the Obverse of the new $1 Coin. Our formal proposal is attached for your review. We request approval to make a formal presentation to the Dollar Coin Design Advisory Committee on either June 8 or 9, 1998.

Our proposal: Jane Addams be the design concept selected for the Obverse of the new $1 Coin. It meets stated parameters as follows:

The design shall maintain a dignity befitting the Nation's coinage.

Jane Addams would bring

dignity of a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1931)
respect of a woman called the "Mother of the World", and
strength of an individual chosen by Life Magazine as one of 100 people (10 were women) between 1001 – 2000 who "change[d] more than just a corner of the world … she divert[ed] the great stream of human history."

(b) The design shall have broad appeal to the citizenry of the Nation and shall avoid subjects or symbols that are likely to offend.

Jane Addams

A woman who spent her lifetime promoting positive change in the lives of individuals, groups, communities, the nation and the world. She continues to inspire all people who share her desire for the common good. President Teddy Roosevelt called her the "most useful citizen in America."

(c) The design should not include any inscriptions beyond those required by statute.

No inscriptions are requested.

(d) The design concept shall not depict a living person. In addition, theSecretary has determined that the obverse design should be a representationof one or more women.

Jane Addams, female, September 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl K. Simpson-Whitaker, MSW
NASW Centennial Coordinator

PROPOSAL FOR OBVERSE OF NEW $1 COIN

Jane Addams
September 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935

Proposal Respectfully Submitted

National Association of Social Workers
Josephine Nieves, Executive Director
Proposal Contact:
Cheryl K. Simpson-Whitaker, MSW NASW Centennial Coordinator

750 First Street, NE, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20002-4241 USA
Telephone: 202.408.8600 (454) 1.717.342.2679
FAX: 202.336.8310 centennial@naswdc.org

Council on Social Work Education

Donald W. Beless, Executive Director

1600 Duke Street, Suite 300, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USA
Telephone: 703.683.8080 FAX 703.683.8099 dbeless@cswe.org

June 1, 1998 – The Centennial Year of Professional Social Work

I. Organizations

The National Association of Social Workers, representing 155,000 member social workers, and the Council on Social Work Education, representing 600 college and university social work schools, departments and programs.

Presentation of Proposal
Cheryl K. Simpson-Whitaker, MSW, Centennial Coordinator, National Association of Social Workers, is prepared to make an oral presentation Monday, June 8 or Tuesday, June 9, 1998

III. Merit and Historical Significance

(Laura) Jane Addams won worldwide recognition in the first third of the twentieth century as a pioneer social worker in America, as a feminist, and as an internationalist. More than any other American woman of the 20th century, Jane Addams inspired and mobilized generations of women and men committed to the improvement of their communities, states and the nation as a whole. Her legacy continues today as an inspiration worthy to be carried into the 21st Century. Highlighted below are some of her many achievements.
  • Selected for Life Magazine’s most influential people from 1001 to 2000. "To get on the team a person had to change more than just a corner of the world – he or she had to divert the great stream of human history . . ." -- Life Magazine’s "100 people who made the Millennium," Fall 1997. Fourth of 10 women included in Life’s list. Only Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th century feminist, Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc are listed higher than Addams.
  • Led the American Settlement House Movement, opening Hull-House in 1889 on Chicago’s West Side. This settlement house, where she and others lived among the poor, offered children’s clubs, nurseries, a library, an employment bureau, lunchroom, and classes in history, music, language, painting, dancing and mathematics. By its second year of existence, Hull-House was host to two thousand people every week.
  • Committed to helping people help themselves, to preserving human dignity and to social justice. Addams’ legacy remains alive and well today with over 900

Settlements, Neighborhood Houses and Community Centers offering neighborhood-based services in communities across the nation.
  • Called the "mother of professional social work." and the "mother of the world." Addams’ desire to help poor people and preserve their dignity fostered her development of a systematic, objective, research based approach to helping people help themselves. This philosophy together with the ethics and values that guided Addams’ life became the basis of the 100-year-old social work profession.
  • Elected first woman president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1909. In 1910, the first honorary degree ever awarded to a woman by Yale University.
  • Helped found the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. First president, 1915 to 1929 and honorary president for the remainder of her life.
  • Was an ardent feminist by philosophy. In the days before women's suffrage, Addams believed that women should make their voices heard in legislation and therefore should have the right to vote. Beyond the vote she advocated that women become involved using their talents for social good, establishing kindergartens, public baths, playgrounds, and other innovative programs.
  • Campaigned for universal suffrage, arguing that women needed to be able to vote to for the benefit of their children.
  • Won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize receiving this honor for her many years of devoted activity to champion the cause of peace and rid the world of war. Addams remains as one of the most effective pacifists that the present century has known. "...she struck a chord for reason and ethics that has not been muffled to this day."
  • Advocated for improved social conditions including child labor laws, safe working conditions, the right to organize, unemployment insurance, and civil liberties. President Teddy Roosevelt called her the "most useful citizen in America." Upon her death, The New York Times ran a seven column obituary on it’s front page.

Background -- Jane Addams (1860-1935)

A. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081 U.S.A. Swarthmore College Peace Collection www2.swarthmore.edu/peace/exhibits/addams

Laura Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois, the youngest of four living children. She was the daughter of John Huy Addams, a wealthy gristmill owner and Illinois state senator (1854-1870), and Sarah Weber, who died in 1863. Her father married Anna Hostetter Haldeman in 1864, which brought two stepbrothers into the family.

Jane Addams graduated as valedictorian from Rockford Female Seminary (Illinois) in 1881, and was granted a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1882. In 1883-1885, and again in 1887-1888, Addams toured Europe, seeing the sights and -- unlike most tourists -- viewing the poverty in the cities' slums and the efforts (such as Toynbee Hall) being made to alleviate it.

In September 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull-House to serve the immigrants in Chicago's nineteenth ward. By 1893, Hull-House had become a center for a wide variety of clubs, functions, classes and activities for the neighborhood. During the next forty years that Jane Addams resided there, Hull-House was to assume international significance as Addams and her associates championed the protection of immigrants, child labor laws and recreation facilities for children, industrial safety, juvenile courts, recognition of labor unions, woman suffrage, and world peace. Addams never drew a salary from Hull-House, but instead used her inheritance and the proceeds from her many books and articles to live on as well as to underwrite these causes.

With the publication of Newer Ideals of Peace in 1907, Jane Addams became known as a pacifist, a stand which brought her much ridicule and censure when the United States finally entered World War I. Yet by 1931, public opinion had swayed to embrace her ideas and that year she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Nicholas Murray Butler. By then, her reputation as the Mother of the World was firmly established. She received letters from people around the world not only praising her for her inspirational work, but asking her to intervene on their behalf as they struggled against hunger, poverty and oppression.

Early in 1915, Addams was elected chairman of the recently formed Woman's Peace Party of the United States. Later that year she was selected as president of the International Congress of Women at The Hague. She was chairman of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (1915-1919), a temporary organization which later became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Elected president of WILPF at its founding in 1919, Jane Addams presided over the League's many international meetings and in 1929 was made the organization's honorary president for life. She also served as a board member or on the advisory council of many peace organizations.

"Jane Addams" by Dwight W. Hoover Biographical Dictionary of Social Welfare in America Walter I. Trattner, Editor

Hull-House earned a deserved reputation as a training ground for social workers, many of whom became famous in their own right. Included in this category were Edith and Grace Abbott, Alice Hamilton, Florence Kelly, Julia

Lathrop. [Francis Hackett, William Lyon Mackenzie King (later prime minister of Canada), John Dewey, Sophonisba Breakinridge, Jessie Binford – Encyclopedia of Social Work, 19th Edition] Hull-House, because of its programs and personnel, became a recognized leader in the settlement house movement.

As the fame of Hull-House grew, so did the fame of Jane Addams. She became involved in politics as a municipal reformer. Her year as inspector of streets and alleys in the Hull-House ward won her national attention in 1895, but she had served on the mediation commission for the Pullman strike a year earlier. Later she served on the Chicago School Board and became involved in the building trades strike in 1900, the national anthracite strike of 1902, the Chicago Stockyards strike of 1904, and the textile strike of 1910.

"Jane Addams" by Jean K. Quam Encyclopedia of Social Work, 19th Edition, 1995, NASW Press, Washington, DC

Addams’ efforts to advocate nationally for improved social conditions led her to the presidency of the National Conference of Charities and Correction and memberships in the National Child Labor Committee, the National Recreation Association, the National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education, and the National Conference of Social Work.

Concerned about the effects of war on social progress, Addams played a prominent part in the formation of both the National Progressive Party in 1912 and the Women’s Peace Party, the latter of which she became president in 1915. She was a delegate to similar congresses in Zurich (1919), Vienna (1921), The Hague (1922), Washington, DC (1924), Dublin (1926), and Prague (1929). …urged the United States to join the League of Nations and the World Court. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, sharing the award with the American educator Nicholas Murray Butler.

Among her books are Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), The Long Road of Women’s Memory (1916), Peace and Bread in the Time of War (1922), and two autobiographical pieces, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House: September 1909 to September 1929 (1930). The many biographies of Jane Addams include American Heroine (1973), by Allen F. Davis; Jane Addams: A Biography (1937), by James Weber Linn; and Jane Addams of Hull House, 1960-1935 (1961), by Margaret Tims.

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