Gr 5-9 Addams is America's preeminent example of the get-down-in-the-slums-and-live-it school of social work, and the first chapter of this lucid biography plunges right into the events in Addams' life that snapped her passivity. Her story then moves back and continues chronologically, tracing her childhood and early influences, the opening and running of Hull House (still operating today), and continues through her gradual involvement in international affairs and pacifism, not stinting her fall from saintly grace in the public's eye and her consequent vilification for her opposition to World War I. Her 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, marking her return to national reverence and acclaim, opens the final chapter, which closes with her death in 1935 and her legacy of practical idealism.
