Rhetoric Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, 135–152, 2011 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0735-0198 print / 1532-7981 online DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2011.551499 WILLIAM DUFFY University of North Carolina–Greensboro Remembering Is the Remedy: Jane Addams’s Response to Conflicted Discourse In The Long Road of Woman’s Memory, Addams develops a theory of mem- ory that accounts for the rhetorical function of reminiscence. Drawing on I. A. Richards’s conception of rhetoric as the study of misunderstanding, this essay offers an analysis of Addams’s theory in relationship to her attempts at rational discourse with a group of immigrant women who believed there was a “Devil Baby” in residence at Hull House. Her successes and failures during these con- versations prompted Addams to consider the rhetorical function of memory as a theoretical tool both to understand and remedy discursive conflict. Jane Addams valued reciprocal discourse, the give-and-take between speak- ers who equally contribute to a dialogue and share mutual interest in its progression. 1 For Addams this was a discursive ethic as well as a democratic one she used to explain the political function of social settlements. A few years after cofounding Hull House in 1889, Addams was a featured speaker at the School of Applied Ethics in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where she lectured on the then emerging settlement movement. “Hull House endeavors to make social intercourse express the growing economic unity of society,” she said, just before uttering what is now one of her most quoted lines: “It is an effort to add the social function to democracy” (“Subjective” 14). Addams would develop this concept in her first book, Democracy and Social Ethics, but all of her published work reflects this philosophy, what Maurice Hamington describes as her “feminist sensibili- ties [combined] with an unwavering commitment to social improvement through cooperative efforts” (“Addams”). Democracy for Addams is rooted in social ethics that promote reciprocal discourse and interaction; it is the social condition through 135 Downloaded By: [University of North Carolina Greensboro] At: 15:30 26 March 2011