Jane Addams and traveling companions, London, October 1883. Seated, left to right: Alida Young and Anna Haldeman Addams. Standing, left to right: Harriet Ellwood, Jane Addams, Sarah Hostetter, and Mary Ellwood.  When Harriet Ellwood sent this photograph home, she wrote on the verso: “The two in the ‘frontepiece’ we call our ‘Chaperones.’ The four in the back-ground are the ‘Angels without wings.’ The one standing up next to Mary is Sarah Hostetter. The one next to ‘Yours Truly’ is Jane Addams and the Lady sitting in front of Mary is Mrs. Addams. The rest you will probably recognize. None of Them do This honorable party justice of course not. How could they? Do you remember the dresses Aunt L.[Alida Young] and I have on?” (Elliott and Fry, London; Ellwood House Museum, DeKalb, Illinois; JAP, 2: 271)

Jane Addams Traveling Party, 1883-84

At a time when European peasants were crossing the Atlantic for a new life in America in the early 1880s, Jane Addams was exploring the culture of the Old World.  Like other middle-class young American women of her generation, she traveled in an all-female party that included a good friend from college, Mary Ellwood, and Jane’s stepmother, Anna Haldeman Addams.