SOURCE: An introduction to The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, by Jane Addams, University of Illinois Press, 1972, pp. vii-xxx.

In the following essay, Davis introduces a new edition of The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets with a brief recap of Addams's biography, as well as details of the book's history.

Jane Addams always claimed that The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets was her favorite book. Published in 1909, it received praise from sociologists, psychologists, and other critics. William James wrote in the American Journal of Sociology

Certain pages of Miss Addams' book seem to me to contain immortal statements of the fact that the essential and perennial function of the Youth-period is to reaffirm authentically the value and the charm of Life. All the details of the little book flow from this central insight or persuasion. Of how they flow I can give...