Cathedral of Compassion: Dramatic Outline of the Life of Jane Addams 1860-1935.
[Addams, Jane] Oakley, Violet. Cathedral of Compassion: Dramatic Outline of the Life of Jane Addams 1860-1935. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Privately Printed by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1955.
8vo., 104pp; beige cloth stamped in red at front cover; some soiling to binding; very good condition.
Only edition. Limited edition, privately printed and distributed, signed by Violet Oakley at the colophon .
Violet Oakley (1874-1961) is better known as an artist than a writer. Born in New Jersey into a family with several generations of artists on both sides, Oakley studied in New York and in Paris, but it was in Pennsylvania at the Drexel Institute that she found her mentor in the great illustrator Howard Pyle. With fellow students Jessie Willcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green, Oakley formed a women's cooperative. Her first major commission came in 1902 when she was asked to paint 18 murals in the new capital to be built at Harrisburg—"the first time any public mural assignment on such a grand scale had been given to a woman" (American Women Artists, p. 159-161). The murals, when unveiled in 1906, secured her reputation and her career. She continued to paint murals and fulfill other commissions, yet the cause of world peace drew her attention. In 1927 she went to Geneva to observe deliberations for the ill-fated League of Nations, and to sketch and paint them as well. It proved a watershed event for the artist who decided to dedicate the rest of her life to the peace movement.
This book honors the Fortieth Anniversary of The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which in 1915 had elected Jane Addams as president. Addams' work on behalf of world peace led to her being awarded (with Nicholas Butler) the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931. Oakley traces Addams' career through dramatic narrative. Seven episodes recreate turning points in Addams' life. A handsome volume, scarce given its private printing and distribution.
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