March is Women's History Month!

Jane Addams, right, demonstrates with republican convention delegates during the 1912 republican party convention in Chicago. The banner on the car reads, “votes for women” featured in JAHHM current exhibition “Why Women Should Vote” (Jane Addams Hull-House Museum Collection)

Hull-House has always been known predominantly as a women’s space, providing a launchpad for women to work progressively to promote social justice and community growth. Much of the work done by the Hull-House Residents was centered around safety and public health.  Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, and Florence Kelley are just a few of the Residents who advocated for access to medical care, safe working conditions, and the prevention of infectious diseases that were sweeping through Chicago at the turn of the century. 

This past year found us in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the needs of communities centering around public health resources and social justice reforms. Women, especially women of color, have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, in all areas of life, and have responded by advocating for protections and resources. In September 2020, members of the Illinois Nurse Association, including University of Illinois Hospital nurses, went on strike to procure safer working conditions and better pay in the wake of hardships faced by medical professionals due to the pandemic. Members of the Chicago Teachers Union also led efforts to garner better safety resources and infrastructural changes as schools reopen in the city. These efforts have been predominantly organized and led by women, much in the way that Hull-House's Residents did so historically. Join us this month as we celebrate and highlight more stories like these! 

March Virtual Events
at Hull-House

Sarah-Ji's photography of the 2019 Chicago Teacher Union Strike in JAHHM current exhibition True Peace: The Presence of Justice (Image: Sarah Larson/JAHHM)

Hull-House: Arts and Community with Aram Han Sifuentes and
Sarah-Ji

Saturday, March 6th, 2021
3:00-4:20PM (CST)

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum has partnered with the National Art Education Association's Community Arts Caucus  to present a discussions with artist Aram Han Sifuentes and photographer Sarah-Ji.  Sarah-Ji will be highlighting her work with the Hull-House in our current exhibition True Peace: The Presence of Justice, which features her photography of a decade of social justice actions and movements in Chicago. She will also be reflecting on work done by women of color as leaders in social justice movements, and her own activism and organizing efforts. 

Aram Han Sifuentes, who collaborated with Hull-House in 2016 for Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can't and the Protest Banner Lending Library,  will be discussing these community engagement projects that challenge social and racial injustices by presenting ideas for greater inclusivity in civic relations and connections. Educators and arts educators can register for the conference to attend the event live on March 6th. Follow JAHHM on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to learn when the video of these presentations is launched. 

"Ida B. the Queen": Michelle Duster in Conversation with Essence McDowell

Monday, March 22, 2021
6:00-7:30 PM (CST)

Join Hull-House for a virtual public program celebrating Women’s History Month featuring Michelle Duster, author of the new book “Ida B. the Queen” a visually stunning portrait of the Duster family, Black life in Chicago, and the life and legacy of Duster's great grandmother, journalist and anti-lynching activist, Ida B. Wells. 

Duster will be joined in conversation by Essence McDowell, co-author of “Lifting As They Climbed”, a book and walking tour and virtual interactive that maps the significant Black women activists on the South Side of Chicago. The book’s title is inspired by the motto of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club, co-founded by Ida B. Wells.

Watch Hull-House's previous events featuring Michelle Duster on our YouTube channel!

To The Museums of the Future

Guillermo Gómez-Peña, by zen Cohen, Courtesy of the artist. 

Send Hull-House a letter!

“I invite you, dear foreigner in my performance country, to dream with me and send me your own letters imagining a better art world, or rather a myriad of art worlds, coexisting in synergy with nature, radical imagination, and community—you're surrounding multiple communities. Do you have ideas to propose for a museum of the future?” - Guillermo Gómez-Peña, “An Open Letter to the Museums of the Future” 
 
At the start of 2021, rebel artist and Mac Arthur Fellow Guillermo Gómez-Peña presented a performance keynote and call to action: "An Open Letter to the Museums of the Future". Now he is inviting the public to share their own open letters. As an insider/outsider artist, Gómez-Peña has had an obsession with rewriting and re-staging so-called “Western Art History” while highlighting colonial legacies of systematic exclusion, demonization and fetishization of Brown, Black and indigenous people. This performance keynote challenges contemporary art museum practices and calls for an open discussion regarding radical restructuring from within. Click the link to watch Gómez-Peña’s open letter and add your voice by emailing tomuseumsofthefuture@gmail.com or leaving a message at (773) 823-9700. 

Hull-House is one of the partner institutions participating in Toward a Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, a multi-venue exhibition and program series organized by the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago featuring twenty-eight MacArthur Fellows happening throughout 2021. Click below to learn about about Gómez-Peña and JAHHM upcoming exhibition.