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Peacemakers and friends: Jane Addams and Gandhi | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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By Tom Gilsenan
[1]
Introduction
Jane Addams and Mahatma Gandhi were friends. They wrote to each other, supported each other and told stories about each other’s work. This paper explores their friendship, a little-known story in the lives of two of the great peacemakers of the 20th century. It is based on correspondence and other materials in print and in archives. Especially important in developing this paper has been the Jane Addams Papers
[2]
.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) is
best known for her role as a founder of social work. Hull House, which she
and Ellen Gates Starr started in 1889, is considered one of the earliest
settings of the social work profession. [3]
This “settlement house” was a social and community centre
with a wide variety of programs and activities for people who lived
nearby. It also became a centre for activists and reformers interested in
a host of issues – from child labour to educational reform, from racism to
feminism.
Hull House was a major
centre for national and international peacemaking in the early part of the
20th century. Addams took her settlement house experiences as
an advocate for healthier and safer neighbourhoods and applied them to
national and global issues. By 1914 she had become a “spokesperson for all
peace loving women of the world.” [4]
She helped found the Women’s Peace Party in the United States. Later, in
1919, she was a founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom.
Addams travelled extensively to promote
peace, including several trips to Europe and a trip around the world in
1923. She wrote about these trips and the people she met in a continuous
stream of books and articles. For example, she discussed Arnold Toynbee in
Twenty Years at Hull House and Leo Tolstoy in
Peace and
Bread in Time of War. [5]
Addams also developed friendships with peacemakers throughout the US and
around the world.
[6]
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) is well known as the leader of
the independence movement in India. He spent more than 30 years organising
and lobbying to free the country from the British. He developed a
philosophy of non-violent resistance, which he named satyagraha…
Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence had influence far
beyond India, both during his lifetime and in the half century since then.
His principles have been embraced by a host of other peacemakers, from
Desmond Tutu in South Africa to Martin Luther King in the United States,
from Tibetan leader Dalai Lama to Cesar Chavez, leader of the United Farm
Workers Union.
Addams’s and Gandhi’s work as peacemakers overlapped in the
first decades of the 20th century. Yet there has been little,
if any, exploration of connections between them…
Mahatma
Gandhi’s Letters to Americans ,
edited by E.S. Reddy, includes letters to W.E.B. DuBois, Franklin
Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger and Upton Sinclair among others. [7]
But there are no letters to Jane Addams.
However, Reddy does make
one mention of Addams in the introduction to the letters of Gandhi to
Reverend John Haynes Holmes. “As a token of his appreciation, he sent to
Dr. Holmes in 1923, through Ms. Jane Addams, a Gandhi cap made out of
cotton cloth spun by his own hands.” This mention of Addams is significant
because by this time she and Holmes had been friends for a number of
years. Holmes, a minister in New York City, had participated with Addams
in many projects. For example, both were among the founders of the NAACP.
And both were also founders of the American Civil Liberties Union. Holmes
had preached sermons about Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence.
Gandhi-Addams letters
And it is here – in the discussion about the cap – that
there is the first mention of Gandhi in the papers of Jane Addams. On an
around the world tour in 1923, she went to India to see Gandhi. He was in
prison, so she didn’t get in to see him. “I have found it impossible to
see Gandhi,” she wrote to Holmes in a February 6 letter from Delhi, India.
“He’s been allowed very few visitors.”
Addams went on to say that
she visited the community of Gandhi followers at Ahmedabad. Her impression
was that it “was like the beginnings of a religious order, as the
Franciscans must have been before St. Francis died.” [8]
And the cap? Despite not being able to see Gandhi, Addams
assured Holmes that she picked up the cap and would bring it back with
her.
Addams had another assignment with Gandhi while
in India. She was supposed to interview him for the Survey
magazine. She wrote to editor Bruno Lasker with the
disappointing news. “I visited the colony at Ahmedabad, but I can’t see
Gandhi.” [9]
Though these are the earliest letters that have
been found in the files of either Addams or Gandhi, they would suggest
earlier correspondence between the two. Before going to India, for
example, it is likely that Addams would have written to Gandhi to make
arrangements to meet him. The discussion about the cap suggests additional
correspondence.
Those would have been practical letters. It
would seem likely that there were philosophical letters as well --
exchanges between Gandhi and Addams about peace, non-violence and other
topics. Both Gandhi and Addams corresponded with other peacemakers of
their time. Holmes was one example; Leo Tolstoy was another. No letters
have been found to support this. However, it is likely that some
correspondence between Gandhi and Addams was not preserved. Most of the
archived letters pointing to a friendship between Gandhi and Addams were
written after Addams’ trip to
India. Even before her world trip was
finished, she was writing to others about Gandhi and Gandhian thought. For
example, in a March 18 letter (probably sent from Japan), Addams wrote to
her friend Emily Balch about Gandhi’s “movements” in India. [10]
Again, it would seem likely that Addams wrote to Gandhi about her trip to
India either while she was still travelling or after she returned to the
United States. . But no record of such correspondence could be found,
perhaps because Gandhi received it while he was being held in prison.
However, there is a 1929
letter that suggests Gandhi and Addams had been in contact during the
intervening years. Writing on October 8 that year, she tells Gandhi that
she is sending friends to meet him. They are “friends of Hull House and
sympathetic to the outlook on life which you, above all men, represent.” [11]
Addams went on to refer to other friends of hers who had visited Gandhi
earlier.
Strong evidence for a
friendship between Gandhi and Addams is to be found in correspondence
during 1931. Addams wrote to Gandhi and invited him to speak at a European
conference of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
planned for February 1932 [12]
.
Gandhi presumably replied, though no record could be found of this.
There is a record of a
letter from Gandhi to Addams during 1931. He sent it along with a letter
to someone else. A notation of a letter forwarded to Addams still exists,
though the letter could not be found. [13]
In other correspondence
that year Addams referred to Gandhi as “our friend.” That came in a letter
to John Haynes Holmes on October 23. [14]
1931 was also the year Jane Addams received the Nobel Peace
Prize, the first American woman to receive the prize. However, she was not
able to attend the Nobel awards. She was recovering from an operation to
remove an ovarian cyst.
A handwritten letter from Gandhi in October 1932 is more
evidence of their friendship. Gandhi was in prison again and wrote on
prison stationery:
Dear Sister.
My inner being tells me
that spiritual unity can only be attained
by resisting with our whole self
the modern false life.
Your servant,
MK Gandhi [15]
The same month in 1932
Mary Rozet Smith, one of Addams’ closest friends, wrote a ‘wish you were
here letter’ to Addams and Lillian Wald. Smith was at Hull House in
Chicago; Addams and Wald were on the East Coast. “Miss [Muriel]Lester is
here and full of stories of Gandhi in London,”
[16]
she wrote. Lester was head of Kingsley Hall, a settlement house in London
where Gandhi had stayed on a visit to England in 1931. Smith’s letter is
another confirmation of the great interest Addams had in Gandhi.
In 1933, Addams
contributed an essay to the “Golden Book of Gandhi,” a book of tributes
collected by John Haynes Holmes. Also that year, she and Gandhi were
invited to be “honorary presidents” of a Longfellow Centennial celebration
planned by the International Longfellow Society. They were chosen as among
the “truly good and great benefactors of mankind.” [17]
In 1934, Addams was asked to help in a campaign to nominate Gandhi for a
Nobel Peace Prize. A letter from Jerome Davis said her support would be
very valuable because she had earlier received the prize. [18]
Correspondence found connecting Gandhi and Addams ends
there. Addams died in May 1935. There are references to condolences coming
to Hull House from a number of countries, including India, after her
death. But no letter or telegram from India was found in the archives
searched.
Other links
A link between Gandhi and Addams can also be found in the
writing they did about each other. Both were prolific writers; a search of
their writings shows that each cited the other several times. Gandhi
reprinted excerpts from Twenty Years at Hull House in a weekly
publication he edited; Addams wrote about Gandhi for Christian Century
and other publications.
Gandhi
reprinted 10 pages of Chapter 11 (“Immigrants and their children”) of
Addams’ Twenty Years in Young India, a weekly newspaper he
edited for 12 years. He offered this selection to support his efforts to
revive the spinning wheel in India. In an introduction he wrote: “The
following extracts from Miss Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull House
show what a great part handicrafts, especially the spinning wheel, have
played in her experiments at Hull House, and what a cultural asset she has
found in handicrafts. The last passage throws a flood of
light on the moral potentialities
of
the revival of the spinning wheel.”
[19]
In other issues Gandhi
notes efforts of the peace movement in the United States and Europe,
especially of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an
organisation Addams helped found and which she headed for a number of
years. He no doubt had Addams in mind when he wrote, “Women of the west
are playing a most important, if not the leading, part in the movement.” [20]
Addams also wrote about
Gandhi in several articles. In Tolstoy and Gandhi, she outlined
Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and Tolstoy’s influence on this. She
applauded Gandhi, noted that she visited his “ashram,” and said his
philosophy represents a great alternative to the “classic pattern of
domination and conflict” predominant in the West.
[21]
Writing about
human rights in another essay, Addams said, “no man living on the planet
today has done more than has Mahatma Gandhi.” She says that his approach
offers a model that can be used in all countries to solve “problems of
race relations.”
[22]
Besides the essays and articles that were published, Addams submitted several others about Gandhi that were rejected. The Jane Addams Papers include rejections from several magazine editors for such articles, including Good Housekeeping,
Atlantic Monthly and
Pictorial Review. [23]
Jane Addams and Gandhi were friends. The correspondence and
writings cited in this paper show the outlines of a friendship between
them, which stretched over a number of years – from at least the early
1920s until Addams’ death in 1935. This friendship of two of the great
peacemakers of the 20th century is a little-known story that
has potential educational significance in the following ways:
First, it may help enrich our understanding of the
importance of personal relationships in social change movements. Second, it could add to our perspective on peace movements
by showing connections across national and cultural lines. Third, it suggests a commitment to gender equity in one
circle of early 20th century leaders – an alternative to the
view that the opinions of women were always dismissed as misguided or
uninformed. Fourth, it adds to our understanding of the role of Jane
Addams in American history.
December 2001
[1]
Mr. Gilsenan is a student at the University of Iowa.
[2]
Jane Addams Papers is the most comprehensive archive of
materials about Jane Addams and Hull House currently available. It
includes 82 rolls of microfilm as well as a reference book index. This
was a ten-year project led by Mary Lynn McCree Bryan. The index was
published in 1996 by Indiana University Press.
[3]
Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at
Hull House (New York: Macmillan Co, 1910). Also see “Jane Addams and the vocation
of sociology” by Thomas O’Connell in Sociological
Imagination, 36 (1), 18-24.
[4]
Schugurensky, Daniel (2001). “Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, is
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in History of Education: Selected
Moments in the 20th Century. Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
[5]
Addams, Jane (1922). Peace and Bread in Time of War. New York:
Macmillan Co.
[6]
For more on Addams’ friendships with other peacemakers, see “Jane
Addams” by Michael Lutzker in Peace Heroes in 20th
Century America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986)
and Women Champion of Human Rights by Moira Davison Reynolds
(London: McFarland and Co., 1991)
[7]
Excerpts of these and other letters in Reddy’s book, published in 1998
by Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan (New York), are available online at:
www.mkgandhi.org/correspondence.htm
[8]
Addams Papers, 15-564
[9]
Addams Papers, 15-621
[10]
Addams
Papers ,
21-703
[11]
Addams
Papers ,
20-1513
[12]
Addams
Papers , 22-735
[13]
Addams
Papers ,
25-1331
[14]
Addams
Papers ,
22-1088
[15]
Swarthmore College Peace
Collection
[16]
Addams
Papers ,
24-329
[17]
Addams
Papers ,
25-149
[18]
Addams Papers ,
25-1058
[19]
Sept. 5,
1929 issue, p. 294 . In Vol. XI of Young
India, 1919-1931
(Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, reprinted 1981).
[20]
March 21,
1929 issue, p. 92-3. Vol. XI of Young
India .
[21]
Christian Century ,
Nov. 25, 1931, p. 1488
[22]
Education by current event,
p. 221-222. In
Jane Addams on Education. Edited by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann.
(New York: Teachers College Press 1985)
[23]
Addams
Papers , 22-922,
22-1019, 22-1108.
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