The Long Endeavor: The Early Fight Against Fast Fashion at the Hull-House Settlement

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The Long Endeavor: The Early Fight Against Fast Fashion at the Hull-House Settlement

Look at the clothing you are currently wearing. Do you know where it was made? Can you trace the fiber’s path from its origin to your wardrobe? Most people in the United States likely could not—a reality in an age of fast fashion. Explained by Ethical Consumer, “‘Fast fashion’ is ‘fast’ in a number of senses: the changes in fashion are fast, the rate of production is fast; the customer’s decision to purchase is fast; delivery is fast; and garments are worn fast—usually only a few times before being discarded.” But the push for faster fashion—and associated practices, especially exploitation of workers in the garment industry—is not new. While the term “fast fashion” wasn’t used until 1990 in the New York Times, the garment industry began adopting “fast” manufacturing in the Industrial Revolution.

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Chicago's Sculptor: Jesús Torres and Mexican Art at Hull-House

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Chicago's Sculptor: Jesús Torres and Mexican Art at Hull-House

Among the burial sites of significant Chicagoans at Graceland Cemetery—those of the architects Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan and the industrialist George Pullman—is the grave of Jesús Torres. Though his name is not well known, Torres was a popular and important figure in the Chicago arts community during the 1930s and 1940s. He was self-taught and never received formal training, having discovered his talents in classes held at the Hull-House settlement. His style and pieces gained acclaim throughout the city, both for the beauty of his work and because of his identity as a Mexican artist...

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Alice Kellogg Tyler: “The Choicest Spirit of Western Art”

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Alice Kellogg Tyler: “The Choicest Spirit of Western Art”

Alice Kellogg Tyler (1862-1900) was a Chicago-born artist and arts educator. A celebrated figure in the American art world, she had works exhibited at the World’s Fair in both Paris and Chicago. She was also the first Chicago artist to begin working with Hull-House, both by exhibiting her artwork at the Settlement, mainly in the Butler Art Gallery, and by holding art classes and presenting lectures.

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"Finding Folklore": Jane Addams and Hull-House's Supernatural History

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"Finding Folklore": Jane Addams and Hull-House's Supernatural History

While it has not been presented or discussed often here at the Museum, Hull-House’s extensive supernatural history is well-known within the paranormal community. Modern ghost-hunters, paranormal investigators, and ghost tour attendees contact the museum regularly, wanting to carry out investigations or overnight stays. After over a century, Chicagoans are still entranced by the tales of ghosts and demons, even at such a place of hope, reform, and cultural celebration. This year, we as an institution seek to reclaim and re-envision the way we talk about Hull-House’s paranormal history. The stories themselves are fun and eerie, and they create vivid snapshots of what Hull-House Neighbors experienced at the turn of the century.

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Who was Enella Benedict?

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Who was Enella Benedict?

One of the most influential Residents of Hull-House was artist and arts educator Enella Benedict. She was the founder and long-time director of the Hull-House Art School. She was also the longest Resident of the Hull-House Settlement after Jane Addams, living and working there for nearly 50 years. Her work was intrinsic to the growth of Hull-House as an arts institution and laid the foundations for Hull-House's most important artists-in-residence.

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Learning Together: Exploring the Origins of Arts Education at Hull-House

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Learning Together: Exploring the Origins of Arts Education at Hull-House

A weeklong educators institute included presentations and art sessions that deepened existing relationships among Chicago-based arts educators and created new connections with United Kingdom based cultural institutions. Read to learn more about JAHHM and UIC’s Gallery 400 exploration of arts education and its origins at Hull-House.

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The Hidden Legacy of May Morris

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The Hidden Legacy of May Morris

On the second floor of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is Jane Addams’ bedroom. Many elements of the space have been fashioned to invoke how it may have looked when Ms. Addams was still alive. Several original furniture pieces reside in the room, but perhaps what stands out the most is the striking design on the walls. For many decades, it was believed that the design had been created by William Morris, a renowned textile artist, writer, and Socialist activist. In recent years, it has been discovered that many designs attributed to him were actually created by his daughter, May Morris.

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Jane Addams & Mary Rozet Smith: More Than "Gal Pals"

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Jane Addams & Mary Rozet Smith: More Than "Gal Pals"

The Hull-House Settlement was considered a “Queer Domesticity,” a term created by author and academic, Shannon Jackson. This phrase described how industrialization of the city changed the relationship between people and domestic space. Industrialization led people away from their families to come together and live communally outside of typical family situations during the late 1800s and early 1900s. While many people were married with children, people in the Hull-House neighborhood and in the settlement house were creating their own meaning of family.

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Who was Rachelle Slobodinsky Yarros?

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Who was Rachelle Slobodinsky Yarros?

Hull-House Resident Dr. Rachelle Slobodinsky Yarros (May 18, 1869 – March 17, 1946) was an early pioneer in what would become the field of reproductive justice. Yarros immigrated at the age of 18 to the United States out of fear of the Russian government, due to her ties with revolutionary groups. In the US, she worked in a sweatshop before becoming the first woman to enroll in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston. She went on to complete her MD at Philadelphia’s Women’s Medical College in 1893. Yarros met future fellow Hull-House Resident Alice Hamilton while they were both interning at New England Hospital for Women and Children. She and Hamilton would go on to be revolutionaries in the field of public health, working both in their own respective areas of expertise as well as combining efforts for wider access to basic health care for women and children.

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Who was Florence Kelley?

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Who was Florence Kelley?

Florence Kelley (1859-1932) came from a wealthy Quaker and Unitarian family in Philadelphia, her parents both staunch abolitionists and advocates for women’s rights. All five of her sisters died in childhood, leaving her the lone girl in the family with two brothers. Click to learn more about the national leader for childrens’ and workers’ rights!

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Who was Ellen Gates Starr?

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Who was Ellen Gates Starr?

Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull-House with Jane Addams in 1889. She was influenced by her father, Caleb Starr, an abolitionist, supporter of collective farming, and an advocate for women's rights. Starr met Addams at Rockford Female Seminary. Due to her family’s lack of finances, Starr could not stay to complete her degree, but eagerly partnered with Addams to establish a settlement house in Chicago. Despite differences in background and temperament, Starr and Addams were lifelong friends, sharing a desire to find meaningful work.

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Who was Dewey Roscoe Jones?

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Who was Dewey Roscoe Jones?

Jones moved to Chicago in 1923 and became a reporter for the Chicago Defender, a leading black-owned weekly newspaper that encourage Black people to leave the violence in the American South and move to northern urban centers like Chicago. A little over ten years later Jones became the first black assistant director at Hull-House.

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Where can I learn more about Hull-House?

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Where can I learn more about Hull-House?

Do you have an upcoming paper or research project about Hull-House, and you just don’t know where to start? Do you want to know more about Jane Addams’ life, or learn more about the other Reformers and Residents who worked at Hull-House? Are you hoping to include fascinating facts about them in your new lesson plan? In this inaugural post of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum blog, “From the Desk of Jane Addams”, we’re going to show you just where to find those answers!

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