Chicago 2011: Jane Addams Hull House Museum

Headed to Chicago and have some spare time on your hands? Consider a trip to the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. From the Museum's website:

"Hull-House, Chicago's first social settlement was not only the private home of Jane Addams and other Hull-House residents, but also a place where immigrants of diverse communities gathered to learn, to eat, to debate, and to acquire the tools necessary to put down roots in their new country. The Museum is comprised of two of the settlement complex's original thirteen buildings, the Hull-Home and the Residents' Dining Hall. These spaces were used variously over the years, including as a nursery school, a library, and a salon for social and political dialogue.

When Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr first opened Hull-House in 1889, they had very modest goals. They imagined a place to offer art and literary education to their less fortunate neighbors. The role of Hull-House, however, quickly grew beyond what either Gates or Addams could have imagined and continuously evolved to meet the needs of their neighbors. The residents of Hull-House, at the request of the surrounding community, began to offer practical classes that might help the new immigrants become more integrated into American society, such as English language, cooking, sewing and technical skills, and American government. The residents were the women and men who chose to live at Hull-House; they paid rent and contributed to the activities and services that the Settlement was committed to providing to their neighbors. These services included, but were not limited to, a nursery and a kindergarten, a public kitchen, and access to public baths and a playground. Hull-House became not only a cultural center with music, art, and theater offerings, but also a safe haven and a place where the immigrants living on Chicago's Near West Side could find companionship and support and the assistance they needed for coping with the modern city."

To get there, jump on the Blue Line west (toward Forest Park) to the UIC/Halsted stop. Walk two blocks south to 800 S Halsted street.

Museum is open Tuesday - Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
Closed Mondays and Saturdays

Categories: conferences, repositories, SAA 2011