Early life and education
Born in Cedarville, Illinois,[3] Jane Addams was the youngest of nine children born into a prosperous northern Illinois family of English-American descent which traced back to colonial New England; her father was politically prominent. Three of her siblings died in infancy, and another died at sixteen, leaving only four by the time Addams was age eight.[4]Her mother, Sarah Addams[3] (née Weber), died in childbirth when Jane was two years old.[5]
Addams spent her childhood playing outdoors, reading indoors, and attending Sunday school. When she was four, she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, Potts's disease, which caused a curvature in her spine and lifelong health problems. This made it complicated as a child to function with the other children, considering she had a limp and could not run as well.[6] As a child, she thought she was "ugly" and later remembered wanting not to embarrass her father, when he was dressed in his