The Size of Others' Burdens: Barack Obama, Jane Addams, and the Politics of Helping Others

by Erik Schneiderhan

Overview

Americans have a fierce spirit of individualism. We pride ourselves on self-reliance, on bootstrapping our way to success. Yet, we also believe in helping those in need, and we turn to our neighbors in times of crisis. The tension between these competing values is evident, and how we balance between these competing values holds real consequences for community health and well-being. In his new book, The Size of Others' Burdens, Erik Schneiderhan asks how people can act in the face of competing pressures, and explores the stories of two famous Americans to develop present-day lessons for improving our communities.

Although Jane Addams and Barack Obama are separated by roughly one hundred years, the parallels between their lives are remarkable: Chicago activists-turned-politicians, University of Chicago lecturers, gifted orators, crusaders against discrimination, winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams was the founder of Hull-House, the celebrated American "settlement house" that became the foundation of modern social work. Obama's remarkable rise to the presidency is well known.

Through the stories of Addams's and Obama's early community work, Erik Schneiderhan challenges readers to think about how many of our own struggles are not simply personal challenges, but also social challenges. How do we help others when so much of our day-to-day life is geared toward looking out for ourselves, whether at work or at home? Not everyone can run for president or win a Nobel Prize, but we can help others without sacrificing their dignity or our principles. Great thinkers of the past and present can give us the motivation; Addams and Obama show us how. Schneiderhan highlights the value of combining today's state resources with the innovation and flexibility of Addams's time to encourage community building. Offering a call to action, this book inspires readers to address their own American dilemma and connect to community, starting within our own neighborhoods.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804789172
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	05/27/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Erik Schneiderhan teaches sociology at the University of Toronto. Before becoming an academic, he was a political activist, campaign worker, and policy analyst in New Hampshire. He spends much of his present time trying to deal with the competing pressures of parenting, teaching, and keeping track of the Boston Red Sox.

Table of Contents

Contents and Abstracts

1An American's Dilemma
chapter abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the book's main premise: that the struggle between promoting individual responsibility and helping others in the community has been a hallmark of American culture. It introduces the two main empirical subjects of the book—Jane Addams and Barack Obama—and paints in broad brushstrokes their shared successes and struggles as they tried to do community work in Chicago.

2The Right to Be Heard
chapter abstract

This chapter looks at the early life of Jane Addams before she founded Hull-House. It shows how her cultivation of privilege, her extensive travel, and her college education all contributed to her constructing a social self that did not conform to traditional gender norms. The chapter also sets the stage in Chicago by developing a portrait of existing charity organizations and showing how Addams and her friend Ellen Gates Starr launched a new and different way of helping others at Hull-House.

3The Chicago Scheme
chapter abstract

This chapter starts with the opening of Hull-House in 1889 and goes on to illuminate some of the key successes and struggles of Jane Addams as she tried to help her neighbors in the Nineteenth Ward of Chicago. It shows how Addams's independent and creative work shifted in the early 1890s to include charity organization methods, a more hard-nosed approach to helping others.

4A Clash of Ethical Standards
chapter abstract

This chapter begins in 1894, with Jane Addams struggling to meet the needs of the seemingly endless number of neighbors requiring her help. Hull-House did not have the capacity to address the needs of the city so Addams helped found the Chicago Bureau of Charities (CBC). Her work on behalf of the CBC is contrasted with her efforts at Hull-House, emphasizing her dilemmas as she tried to adjudicate between two very different approaches to helping others. The chapter also chronicles Addams's increasing involvement with Chicago elites, as she entered into politics and needed to raise funds to support her charitable work. It concludes with a brief summary of the three Addams chapters.

5Wake Up! It's Morning in America
chapter abstract

This chapter looks at the early life of Barack Obama. It shows how his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, his elite education, and his extensive travel contributed to his constructing a social self and line of action that did not conform to traditional social expectations. The chapter illuminates Obama's struggles with the dilemma of making a difference in the world versus making a living. It concludes by tracing his trajectory from New York to Chicago, where he would begin his community organizing with the Developing Communities Project.

6A Big City with Big Problems
chapter abstract

In this chapter, the Chicago community work of Barack Obama is presented. The chapter shows how his creativity and experimentalism helped the Developing Communities Project make a difference in people's lives. It also shows how Obama's efforts were stymied, illuminating his struggles to empower community members with limited resources. It concludes with Obama's decision to leave Chicago and attend Harvard Law School so that he might make a difference on a larger scale.

7Balancing a Hard Head with a Big Heart
chapter abstract

This chapter spans several years in Obama's life—from his time at Harvard to his return to Chicago as a political organizer at Project Vote! and his experiences as a lawyer and University of Chicago lecturer. It shows his efforts to balance his own individual goals with his desire to make a difference in Chicago. And it shows how his new wife Michelle contributed to the development of connections to Chicago elites, connections that proved helpful as Obama decided to run for the Illinois State Senate. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of the main ideas of the three Obama chapters.

8Mixing on the Thronged and Common Road
chapter abstract

This chapter begins with a précis, briefly highlighting some key points of the biographies of Addams and Obama after the time period examined in the book. The chapter then returns to the theme of the American's Dilemma, illustrating how Addams and Obama dealt with their everyday struggles to balance their individual and collective goals. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the examples of Addams and Obama might inform our own efforts to move beyond our own social dilemmas and contribute to community growth.

Appendix: On Methods and Theory
chapter abstract

The appendix, more academic in tone, discusses the primary and secondary sources for the data on Addams and Obama. It then moves on to a presentation of the main theory underpinning the book's analysis, including ideas from Sartre, Merton, Lynd, Dewey, and Sumner, to name but a few.

Editorial Reviews

04/27/2015
Sociologist Schneiderhan provides a striking but ultimately unsatisfying exploration of the parallels between the lives of Barack Obama and pioneering social worker Jane Addams (1860–1935). He begins with a checklist of their shared traits, including “Chicago activist,” “University of Chicago lecturer,” “winner of the Nobel Peace Prize,” and, of course, “community organizer.” Schneiderhan clarifies that his interest is in how these two figures addressed what he calls “the American’s dilemma”: figuring out how to help others while also achieving happiness for yourself. Obama’s abandonment of the law for community organizing, and then of community organizing for politics, provides one fascinating example. Did he sell out the communities he intended to help, or gain power for the greater good? Was Addams’s lack of political ambition a missed opportunity to do more, or a purist adherence to her original ideals? Schneiderhan touches deftly on these questions, but his parting thoughts are uninspiringly lightweight: “Don’t get comfortable.” “Connect with your neighbors.” “Watch out for selfish reciprocity.” This book does succeed in highlighting, however inconclusively, common themes from the lives of our current president and his predecessor by a century. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"What distinguishes this book from a number of others is its sociological perspective and comparative approach. By comparing the extraordinary lives of Addams and Obama, Schneiderhan convincingly shows that their struggles are not only personal challenges but also snapshots of social obstacles. The author artfully analyzes the choices made by Addams and Obama in light of their social contexts, and highlights how these two people accessible and pleasant manner, which is not very common in today's academic world . . . Highly recommended."—J. Li, CHOICE

"You wouldn't think there would be many similarities between a wealthy Illinois woman [Jane Addams] and a young, mix-raced political activist [Barack Obama], but their characters and the paths they followed bind them together . . . Schneiderhan is wise to present these biographies back to back rather than point out commonalities one after another. He shows how these two illuminated the American dream even though race and gender loomed large to prevent them . . . His work, like theirs, is inspiring"—Kirkus

"How should we balance the pulls of individualism and community, of realism and idealism? This is the American dilemma. Erik Schneiderhan shows how two Americans—Jane Addams and Barack Obama—struggled to resolve this dilemma for themselves, and helps us all to think about how we each can respond creatively in our own lives. This book is a must read for thoughtful citizens."—Philip Gorski, Yale University

"Jane Addams is a remarkable figure in our history, and the contemporary story of Barack Obama helps us understand why. Taken together, their stories provide an opportunity for deep reflection on what it means to organize for change."—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

"What do those who seek to make a better world actually do? In The Size of Others' Burdens, Erik Schneiderhan reconstructs the paths taken by two community organizers, Jane Addams and Barack Obama, illuminating how obstacles and contradictions prompted strategic creativity. The result is a book that is at once engaging, inspiring, and a challenge to move from analysis to action."—Elisabeth Clemens, coeditor of Politics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America's Political Past and Present

"The lives of Jane Addams and Barack Obama show how great achievements may come from grappling with ambivalence, not from crystalline clarity. A lesson of particular importance for those who work to bring change within a profoundly unequal society, it is nowhere more true than in navigating the American dilemma where poverty and racism coexist in a society of plenty and partial freedoms. The Size of Others' Burdens deserves to be widely read."—Craig Calhoun, President, London School of Economics and Political Science

From the Publisher

"Jane Addams is a remarkable figure in our history, and the contemporary story of Barack Obama helps us understand why. Taken together, their stories provide an opportunity for deep reflection on what it means to organize for change."

author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - Bill McKibben

"What distinguishes this book from a number of others is its sociological perspective and comparative approach. By comparing the extraordinary lives of Addams and Obama, Schneiderhan convincingly shows that their struggles are not only personal challenges but also snapshots of social obstacles. The author artfully analyzes the choices made by Addams and Obama in light of their social contexts, and highlights how these two people accessible and pleasant manner, which is not very common in today's academic world . . . Highly recommended."

CHOICE - J. Li

"How should we balance the pulls of individualism and community, of realism and idealism? This is the American dilemma. Erik Schneiderhan shows how two Americans—Jane Addams and Barack Obama—struggled to resolve this dilemma for themselves, and helps us all to think about how we each can respond creatively in our own lives. This book is a must read for thoughtful citizens."

Yale University - Philip Gorski

"What do those who seek to make a better world actually do? In The Size of Others' Burdens, Erik Schneiderhan reconstructs the paths taken by two community organizers, Jane Addams and Barack Obama, illuminating how obstacles and contradictions prompted strategic creativity. The result is a book that is at once engaging, inspiring, and a challenge to move from analysis to action."

coeditor of Politics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America's Political Past and Present - Elisabeth Clemens

"The lives of Jane Addams and Barack Obama show how great achievements may come from grappling with ambivalence, not from crystalline clarity. A lesson of particular importance for those who work to bring change within a profoundly unequal society, it is nowhere more true than in navigating the American dilemma where poverty and racism coexist in a society of plenty and partial freedoms. The Size of Others' Burdens deserves to be widely read."

London School of Economics and Political Science - Craig Calhoun

2015-03-05
Schneiderhan's (Sociology/Univ. of Toronto) biographical comparison of Jane Addams (1860-1935) and Barack Obama illustrates how little has changed regarding the difficulties of community building. You wouldn't think there would be many similarities between a wealthy Illinois woman and a young, mixed-race political activist, but their characters and the paths they followed bind them together. Both had traveled widely and could have enjoyed a comfortable life, but something drove them to the Chicago neighborhoods. Addams was educated only to a point, and she was independently wealthy but knew she had a calling to help the poor. Emulating Toynbee Hall social settlement in London's East End, she learned the usefulness of living amid the poor and helping them as neighbors. Obama was lucky in securing a place at Hawaii's most prestigious private school. His excellent education there and at Columbia and Harvard socialized him into the privileged world Addams knew. Both needed that education and socialization to mix with business and the elite to achieve their goals. Schneiderhan is wise to present these biographies back to back rather than point out commonalities one after another. He shows how these two illuminated the American dream even though race and gender loomed large to prevent them. They both saw communities where neighbors helped out in small ways, but neighbors often couldn't help in securing jobs, education, child care, or a central gathering place. Addams' Hull House led the way in the settlement movement, which directly addressed the problem. She fought against the stingy relief of charity organizations and helped neighbors help each other. Obama did likewise, convincing his community to speak up for themselves, getting voters registered, and, like Addams, believing in people. Schneiderhan leaves it to us to continue the journey these two began. His work, like theirs, is inspiring.

Kirkus Reviews