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Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 - May 21, 1935) was a founder of the U.S. Settlement House Movement and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Born in Cedarville, Illinois, Jane Addams was the eighth of nine children born into a prosperous miller family. Her father was future state senator John H. Addams. She was first cousin twice removed to Charles Addams, noted macabre cartoonist for The New Yorker. Addams was educated in the United States and Europe, graduating from the Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford College) in Rockford, Illinois. While in London, she was influenced by Andrew Mearn's essay, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, which highlighted slum conditions. She visited Europe when she was 27 years old, visiting Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in the East End of London.
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