Month: March 2026

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It’s Women’s History Month at the Jane Addams Papers!

A collage of historical black-and-white and sepia portraits of women, each photographed individually, showcasing a variety of hairstyles, clothing, and expressions from different eras.

A collage of historical black-and-white and sepia portraits of women, each photographed individually, showcasing a variety of hairstyles, clothing, and expressions from different eras.

At the Jane Addams Papers Project every month is women’s history month, but in March we take the time to officially recognize it! Addams is an icon of women’s history, famous in her time as a social worker, social reformer, philosopher and advocate for peace, equality, and social justice. If we have learned anything while working on her papers, it has been the sheer breadth of her work — the connections that she had with women from every continent as they tried to better the world through cooperation, community, and charity.

The Jane Addams Papers tells the story not just of Jane Addams, but the women who worked with her, who were inspired by her, and who opposed her. It offers a deep understanding of the wide variety of women’s experiences in a pivotal time in world history. Over 9,000 women have been named in Addams’s papers, ranging from rank and file members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, settlement workers in New Orleans and Minnesota, and child labor activists in Chicago and New York. They include Japanese and Chinese feminists, Italian peace workers, Mexican social workers, and Dutch suffragists.

Please support the Jane Addams Papers Project!

The National Endowment for the Humanities will match donations dollar-for-dollar to the Project! The past year has been a challenging one financially for the project. Funding for the humanities is in short supply, and for projects that document the work of women, especially those who worked for equality and social justice, support has been tough to find. We lost an editor in 2025 due to federal funding cuts and have been short-staffed as we try to stay on task. Private support is needed in order to meet the costs of student researcher salaries, research, and web development. For that we need you!

Our goal is to raise $5,000 during this Women’s History Month. Can you help?  

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Transcribing the Addams Papers!

A woman in a formal, ornate dress with puffed sleeves sits on a large, intricately carved chair with lion heads on the armrests and decorative figures on the backrest. She looks to the side, holding her hands in her lap.

We have partnered with From the Page to invite the public to transcribe Addams documents from 1877 to 1899. Using this innovative platform, you can transcribe Addams’s speeches, articles and other writings, transcribe her incoming letters, and if you are feeling brave, tackle Jane Addams’s handwriting yourself!

Screenshot of a digital archive webpage displaying a handwritten letter from 1887. The left side shows the letter, while the right side has a typed transcript and options to edit, save, and mark the text as complete.
Transcription interface on From the Page.

When the Project came to Ramapo College ten years ago, our two goals were to complete the Selected Papers of Jane Addams and to create the digital archive. We started our work with the year 1901, where Volume 4 of the Selected Papers began. As we are getting close to completing the years 1901-1935, we are turning back to the first three reels of correspondence and to Addams’s early writings. These years include, Addams’s college years, her travels abroad as a young woman, and the first ten years of Hull-House.

A woman in a formal, ornate dress with puffed sleeves sits on a large, intricately carved chair with lion heads on the armrests and decorative figures on the backrest. She looks to the side, holding her hands in her lap.
Jane Addams in 1896 (Swarthmore College Archives)

Crowdsourcing is a great way to engage those interested in Addams’s life and work, and by transcribing you get an experience of close reading unlike any other.  Puzzling out the names, finding archaic terms and spellings brings us closer to the authors and gives a real sense of what it was like to be alive in the late 19th century.

From the Page’s interface is easy to use. All you need to do is create an account and then find the Jane Addams Papers. You will see documents that need to be transcribed and can select any that interest you, or you can press the Start Transcribing button and get a random page!

We started adding documents to the portal last month, and even before a day was out, volunteers hooked on transcription rolled up their sleeves and got to work.  As of this morning, 360 pages of material have already been transcribed, from 71 of the 868 works we mounted. We haven’t even advertised it yet!

Once these are transcribed we will import them into our digital archive and students working the the project will attach metadata and link the names of people, organizations and events to the text, just as we have done with those created by project staff. The work of volunteers will make it easier for us to make these documents freely accessible to the public.

So if you would like to try your hand at transcription, dive on in!

A red oval button with white text that says, Start Transcribing!.