Reorganized Hull-House Museum returns with new exhibits, focus

Historic house museums have long struggled with their mission. When the goal is simply to preserve a piece of history, the result can be a novelty worth visiting once, but rarely returned to.

Now on the 150th anniversary of the birth of social activist Jane Addams, the Hull-House Museum has reopened with a new mission, providing interpretive exhibits and displays showing how the issues of the early 20th century relate to events today.

"We're really hoping people see what a gem this place is," said Lisa Lee, museum director.

The settlement house was built among Chicago's tenement homes and sweat shops in 1860 and was one of the few buildings to survive the Chicago Fire. It served as a home for Addams and a place where diverse groups of immigrants came to eat and learn.

A day-in-the-life section produces a fictional narrative based on historic facts, showing how Addams and a Jewish Polish immigrant might interact for part of a day, but had profoundly different experiences, or how a Hull-House pottery teacher learned from her Mexican immigrant student.

"A large part of this new exhibition is to expand the story to include not only the reformers, but the immigrants," Lee said. "The reformers were transformed by their interactions. It wasn't a one-sided relationship."

Many artifacts previously relegated to storage are on display. A plaque from 1900 commemorating Hull-House's first organized activity is being publicly displayed for the first time. A projector shows what Halsted Street was like in the 1930s near a window where visitors can look out and see what's going on today.

"We just had footage sitting in our archives and it wasn't being used," Lee said. "We thought we had to bring all these beautiful things out."

The museum also worked with a model maker to produce a new model of Hull-House and the other buildings that were once part of the facility, including the city's first public art gallery and a space where the first women's basketball team played.

Other displays trace how working with immigrants led reformers to start a kindergarten, become anti-child labor activists, push for mandatory school laws and start the first juvenile courts.

The museum also expands its focus from Addams to other contemporary reformers. There's a table where visitors can flip over blocks showing pictures and stories, which will be regularly rotated. A mailbox contains cards sharing questions and fast facts about the reformers and visitors are asked to consider what their work means for us today.

Hull House's former library now houses books from Addams' collection, along with books from the era that visitors are welcome to pick up and read through. A gallery features paintings from artists who worked at Hull House.

Another new feature is the sensory history area, an empty room where recordings of typewriters, sewing machines and Fred Astaire music plays, letting visitors experience history with their ears instead of just their eyes.

The second floor of the museum was once office space, but is now open to the public. Addams' bedroom features original wallpaper and clothes and her Nobel Peace Prize sits next to her FBI file.

Another room is dedicated to juvenile justice, encouraging visitors to get involved with regularly changing action stations by listening to stories or sending poems to young prisoners.

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum also offers new attractions for young visitors. Step stools were added for kids to get a better look at displays. A pair of scavenger hunts asks younger and older kids to look for items and consider questions as they tour the museum.

Preservation Detectives will begin in December. Kids will be encouraged to search for details in Hull House and then investigate their own homes. The museum also plans to host Sunday readings of books on social justice.

<p class="factboxtext12col"><b>If you go</b></p>

<p class="factboxtext12col">Jane Addams Hull-House Museum: University of Illinois at Chicago, 800 S. Halsted St., Chicago, (312) 413-5353; uic.edu/jaddams/hull</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col">Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday</p>

<p class="factboxtext12col">Admission: Free</p>