All’alba dell’educazione degli adulti: essere donna e madre secondo Jane Addams

Abstract

In 1889, Jane Addams established a Social Settlement in Chicago, when this, once little town, was becoming a metropolis. Therefore, Chicago, in that period, may be considered a model of the American style of life and, at the same time, an educational laboratory. Jane Addams faced all problems of an open and dynamic society, but also unbalanced as a mix of enterprise, Utopian spirit and corruption, and of a multiethnic community because of the high level of migratory flow from Europe. All they who arrived in Usa, and particularly women, were poor and unlearned. As family and children care was up exclusively to women, Jane Addams tried to educate all migrant workers, but especially women to help them in their role. To women she offered hygienic and medical support; lectures and debates; aesthetical and intellectual occasions of growth. This paper intends to reconstruct this project to define training to maternage and parental task as a tessera in the puzzle of Education.