Jane Addams Jane Addams was a United States social worker, reformer, and peace advocate. During her active career of 46 years she made Hull House in Chicago world famous as a social settlement. An outspoken pacifist, Miss Addams shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize with President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University. Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, and graduated from Rockford College. She began the Study of medicine but her health broke down, and for two years she was an invalid. During several years of unhappy indecision she found her purpose when she visited Toynbee Hall, a social settlement in London. In 1889