About Louise W. Knight
Louise (Lucy) W. Knight has always liked to have one foot in the present and one in the past. In her younger years she worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and as a fundraiser at Duke University, Wheaton College (Mass.), and United South End Settlements in Boston but her itch to write about history was always there. After publishing magazine and journal articles, book reviews and essays in book collections, in 2005 she published her first book CITIZEN: JANE ADDAMS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY (University of Chicago Press, 2005), about the first half of the life of Jane Addams.
Her second book, a full life biography of Addams entitled JANE ADDAMS: SPIRIT IN ACTION, will be published by W. W. Norton in September 2010. While working on CITIZEN, Knight returned to Evanston, where she was born, to support herself as a consultant with nonprofits and foundations. In her lectures, booktalks, and other writings, she explores the connections between early and current progressive civic action.
Other Writings
"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.
Works in Progress
"Jane Addams's Early Theory and Practice of Cooperation" in an essay collection on Addams to be published by the University of Illinois Press.
Contact
To reach the author, write lwk@louisewknight.com
or call 847-733-0736 (Chicago area)
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