American social worker and activist Jane Addams was BOTD in 1860. Born in Cedarville, Illinois, to a prosperous middle-class family, her father was a Senator and colleague of Abraham Lincoln. After her father’s death, she moved to Philadelphia to study medicine, but poor health followed by a nervous breakdown prevented her from completing. In 1889, she and her lover Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House in Chicago, a “settlement house” based on Toynbee Hall in London, providing education and support for poor families. She became involved in campaigns for better housing, improvements in public welfare, stricter child-labour laws, protection of working women and universal suffrage. She also undertook national lecture tours and published books and articles advocating for social reform. A member of the Women’s Peace Party, she chaired the 1915 International Congress of Women in The Hague and travelled extensively promoting pacifism. She also co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union. While her views on gender roles were conservative by modern standards, she promoted “civil housekeeping”, encouraging women to use their domestic roles to improve public hygiene, community engagement and reduce waste. In her private life, she was less conventional, having a long-term relationship with Mary Rozet Smith, a wealthy patroness of Hull House. In 1931, she became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “expression of an essentially American democracy”. She died in 1935, aged 74. She is now viewed as the godmother of the modern social work profession.