RE-DEFINING DEMOCRACY:
Jane Addams and the Hull-House Settlement
The permanent exhibition at the Hull-House Museum opened the second floor of the Hull home to the public for the first time and recounts never-before-told stories of Hull-House residents and immigrants. Organized by room, each door opens a new collection of artifacts, photographs, and stories that are sure to make the history of the site come to life.
Scale Model
A newly constructed, beautiful, detailed scale model of the Hull-House Settlement as it appeared in 1913, highlighting the work of Chicago architects Irving and Allen Pond.
A Day in the Life
Depicting what life was like for Hilda Satt Polachek, a Polish factory worker who volunteered in the Settlement’s Labor Museum and wrote I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl, and Jesús Torres, a Mexican migrant who worked in the Hull-House Kilns and became a leading Mexican-American artist.
Childhood at Hull-House
An in-depth exploration of what childhood was like in the 19th Ward of Chicago and a multi-media display of Hull-House programs for children.
Architectural Encounters
Restored architectural details throughout the Museum that demonstrate the relationship between social ideals and the decorating choices of the Hull-House reformers.
Meet the Reformers
An exhibition that introduces some of the remarkable women who worked and lived alongside Jane Addams at Hull-House. Displays dedicated to individual reformers explore personal stories, as well as the important economic, political, and cultural contributions that these women made to our society.
Sounds Like History
Sonic landscapes of Hull-House at the turn of the twentieth century.
Salon and Library
Never-before-seen art by ten Chicago artists who lived and worked at Hull-House at the turn of the twentieth century (this portion of the exhibit in current not on view). A collection of books related to Jane Addams and the Hull-House Settlement, as well as a selection of books from Addams’ personal library.
Miss Addams' Bedroom
Jane Addams' Nobel Peace Prize, family photos, childhood drawings, her personal diary, and other personal artifacts.
Wallace Kirkland Gallery
A collection of photographs that capture Hull-House and the surrounding neighborhood by documentary photographer Wallace Kirkland (This portion of the exhibit in current not on view).
Mapping the Neighborhood
An exhibit dedicated to telling the stories of immigrant families who settled in Chicago neighborhoods in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and an exploration of the Hull-House Maps and Papers, a study of the 19th Ward of Chicago published in 1895.
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum renovation was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional funding by the University of Illinois-Chicago, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Driehaus Foundation, the Terra Foundation, the Graham Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, American Tamil Medical Association, the Joyce Foundation, American Association of University Women-Illinois and individual donors.
Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
