The book covers the first half of Jane Addams's life, from 1860 to 1899. Part I, "The Given Life," takes the story from birth to 1888. These are the years when she was making her home among her family, attending school or travelling. Part II, "The Chosen Life," tells the story of her first ten years living in an industrial neighborhood of West Chicago, from 1889 to 1899. These are the first years she spent living at the settlement house Hull House that she co-founded with Ellen Gates Starr.

The biography, while a work of original scholarship, is written to be enjoyed as well by the general reader. The story is told with narrative pace and enriched by thoughtful interpretation. In the endnotes, those interested will be able to trace the extensive original sources that Knight has consulted and to consider some of the issues of scholarship related to writing a biography of Addams or, in some cases, biography in general. There is an extensive bibliography and index. The "Afterword" gives an overview of earlier biographical work on Addams and the contributions that various fields of scholarship have made to understanding some of the issues that a biography of Addams today needs to address

Louise (Lucy) W. Knight, an independent scholar, has worked on this book for two decades. She first became interested in Jane Addams in college after reading Addams's memoir Twenty Years at Hull House. Determined to understand her better, she began by investigating the early years of the settlement movement and Addams's place in it. Along the way she publishing articles on Addams's management style, her leadership of the settlement house movement, her views on the responsibilities of philanthropy, her famous speech on the Pullman Strike, and her college education in the skills of oratory. While working on the book, Knight was also fundraising for Duke University, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and a Boston settlement house, United South End Settlements. Earlier in her career she covered federal education policy and politics as a journalist in Washington, D.C. A resident of Evanston, Illinois, she currently consults on management and planning for foundations and nonprofit organizations and teaches a course in the history of public persuasion in the Communication Studies Department of the School of Communication at Northwestern University.

"Harriet Alleyne Rice," in Women Building Chicago, 1790-1990 Rima Lumin Schultz et. al., eds. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001).

"An Authoritative Voice: Jane Addams and the Oratorical Tradition," Gender & History 10 (August 1998) 2: 217-251.

"Biography's Window on Social Change: Benevolence and Justice in Jane Addams' 'A Modern Lear,' " The Journal of Women's History 9 (Spring, l997) 1: 111-138.

"Jane Addams and the Settlement House Movement," in American Reform and Reformers. Eds. Paul Cimbala and Randall Miller (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996). Reprinted in Against the Tide: Women Reformers in American Society (Westport, CT: Praeger Press, l997).

"Jane Addams and Hull House: Historical Lessons in Leadership," Nonprofit Management and Leadership 2 (Winter, l992) 2: 125-141.

"Jane Addams's Early Theory and Practice of Cooperation" in an essay collection on Addams to be published by the University of Illinois Press.