Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Photo courtesy of Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

The University of Illinois at Chicago

800 S. Halsted

Chicago, IL

Website:  Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

The Treasure:  Hull-House was America’s most famous settlement house—a place where the ideals of the Progressive Era were put into practice, improving the lives of thousands.

Accessibility:  The museum is open Tuesday through Fridays from 10 to 4 and Sunday from noon to 4.  It’s closed Mondays and Saturdays.

Jane Addams.
Image from Hull-House
Yearbooks, courtesy of
University of Illinois at
Chicago Library.

Background:  Jane Addams took the ideals of the Progressive Era and put them into practice.  Hull-House, a settlement house co-founded by Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, was her incubator.  Through a wide array of programs and activities, Addams and Starr endeavored to improve the lives of the residents of some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.  They fought for better urban living conditions, while creating a safe environment where disadvantaged people could benefit from the free offering of arts, culture, and education.

A reformist social movement that began in London in the middle of the 19th century, the settlement movement sought to bring the upper class and the lower class together in environments of mutual respect.  Largely driven by the idealistic concerns of upper-middle-class and upper-class women, the settlement movement was extremely flexible, ready to engage in social work, cultural and art activities, recreational programs, and education.  Hull-House was not the first American settlement house, but thanks to the drive of Addams and Starr it quickly became a beacon of the movement in the United States.

Known as “residents,” the volunteers who worked at Hull-House offered a buzzing environment of classes, concerts, lectures, theater, and training programs.  They served a local community that was a complex maze of small ethnic neighborhoods.  Initially, they primarily worked with Italians, Irish, Germans, Greeks, Bohemians, and Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants.  As immigration and migration patterns began to change the makeup of the neighborhoods, Hull-House reached out to Mexican-American and African-American families, as well.  It was always the working poor that were the focus of Hull-House—the people who worked long hours as unskilled laborers at the garment industry sweatshops and the factories along the Chicago River.

At the Front Door of Hull House.
Historic photo from Hull-House Yearbooks, courtesy of
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

In the city’s poorest sections, sanitation was poor, wages were low, and young children were recruited for some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.  Hull-House was on the forefront of advocating for improved government services and tougher industry regulations.  Hull-House offered an oasis where families could imagine a better future.  Jane Addams wrote, “To feed the mind of the worker, to lift it above the monotony of his task and connect it with the larger world, outside of his immediate surroundings, has always been the object of art.”  Following her vision, Addams organized and promoted art classes and training programs to unleash creativity and tap latent talents.

Today, the Jane B. Addams Hull-House Museum is an historic site that tells the story of America’s most famous settlement house.  Exhibits explore the lives of neighborhood children, the commitment of the residents who worked at Hull-House, artwork by Chicago artists who trained and taught at Hull-House, historical photographs of the neighborhood, and the restored bedroom of Jane Addams, where you can see her 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, the first ever given to an American woman.

But the real story of Hull-House lies in the thousands of changed and transformed lives that passed through it.  One exhibit explores two of those lives:  Hilda Satt Polachek and Jesús Torres.  Born in Poland, Polachek immigrated to the United States and Chicago when just a little girl.  At the age of 18, she began attending courses at Hull-House and discovered a talent for writing.  Her memoir of her time at Hull-House, I Came a Stranger:  The Story of a Hull-House Girl, was published posthumously in 1989 and is one of the best windows into life inside a settlement house.  A Mexican migrant, Jesús Torres learned ceramics at the Hull-House Kilns, receiving instruction from Russian immigrant artist Morris Topchevksy in the 1930s.  Thanks to his Hull-House training, Torres became a successful and widely admired ceramic artist, doing much work with Chicago’s Carl Street Studios.

The oldest known photograph of Hull-House.
Photo courtesy of Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

Hull-House at it looked in the 1920s.
Photo courtesy of Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

A children's art class at Hull-House.
Image from Hull-House Yearbooks.  These images were
preserved through a 1999 Save America's Treasures grant.
Through this grant, master negatives, use negatives, and
use prints were produced for an estimated 5,000
photographs and 1,500 yearbook images from the
collection of the University of Illinois at Chicago Library.
Image courtesy of the University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Other Recommended Sites:  Many Mexicans came north in the 1920s, looking for work at the Chicago factories.  They settled into neighborhoods, bringing a vibrant culture and traditions with them.  Fittingly, Chicago is now home to the National Museum of Mexican Art located in Pilsen on the Lower West Side.  The museum showcases the beauty and richness of Mexican culture which has flourished not just in the country of Mexico but throughout the Americas.

A painting of Hull-House that served as a basis for the 1960s restoration.
Image courtesy of Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Feehan Library, Mundelein Seminary

© 2013 Lee Price

Unity Temple

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Interior of Unity Temple.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Unity Temple

875 Lake Street

Oak Park, IL

Website:  Unity Temple Restoration Foundation

The Treasure:   Unity Temple was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright’s major public building commissions and he seized the opportunity to create a masterpiece.

Accessibility:  Unity Temple is open for self-guided tours and pre-arranged group tours Monday through Friday from 10:30 to 4:30, on Saturdays from 10 to 2, and on Sundays from 1 to 4.  There is a modest admission fee.

Or… since Unity Temple is the home of an active Unitarian Universalist Congregation, consider experiencing Unity Temple at a Sunday morning worship service at either 9 or 10:45 a.m.

Unity Temple exterior.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple
Restoration Foundation.

Background:  Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple was a game changer.  Completed in 1908 and dedicated by its congregation on September 26, 1909, Unity Temple took the brilliant and innovative ideas that Wright had been lavishing on residential houses for over a decade and integrated them into a sublime public space.  Looking back, Wright later said, “That was my first expression of this eternal idea which is at the center and core of all true modern architecture.  A sense of space, a new sense of space.”  Our built world looks different today because of this building.

For the first time, the relatively new building material of reinforced concrete was celebrated as a bold artistic medium.  Wright made no attempt to hide the concrete under 19th century embellishments;  he ushered in 20th century modern architecture by leaving the concrete exposed and then demonstrating how beautiful it could look, both graceful and austere, with light streaming in.  As Paul Goldberger, chief cultural correspondent of the New York Times, wrote in 1996, “In the temple’s great sanctuary, at once monumental and intimate, all of Wright’s ideas about space and spirituality gain their first mature expression.”

Closeup of the deteriorated
concrete.  Photo courtesy of Unity
Temple Restoration Foundation.

But reinforced concrete posed challenges that were not fully understood in the early years of the 20th century.  As Unity Temple turned 100 in 2008, its preservation needs reached a critical point.  A large section of concrete and plaster broke off the ceiling after several days of rain that September.  A major restoration effort was launched to save the building.

Scaffolding on the east side exterior of Unity Temple
during restoration of the south roof slab.
Photo courtesy of Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Reinstalling Frank Lloyd Wright's beautiful art glass
clerestory windows under the south slab.
Photo courtesy of Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

With funding from Save America’s Treasures, state funds, corporate donations, a generous donation from Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and hundreds of individual supporters, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation took up the challenge to lead a long-term plan to restore Unity Temple both by shoring up the original structure and by complementing it with new systems, such as a state-of-the-art roof drainage system and galvanic anodes to prolong the life of the reinforced concrete.

Because of the extreme deterioration of the concrete and reinforcing steel on Unity Temple’s south roof slab, an enormous section of ceiling had to be nearly entirely rebuilt.  During this process, a rusted horseshoe was discovered embedded in the concrete, lying open side up for good luck.  The workers replaced it with a shiny new horseshoe, now part of the new ceiling at Unity Temple.

Horseshoe found in the south slab concrete,
apparently tucked in when the concrete was
poured in 1908.  Photo courtesy of
Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

A view of the underside of the south roof slab which was repaired and
replaced with funding from Save America's Treasures.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Other Recommended Sites:  Tour America’s Treasures previously visited the Frederick C. Robie House, another of Wright’s architectural masterworks in the Chicago area.  On that entry, I recommended the tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, just a few blocks from Unity Temple.

While Unity Temple is the most famous of Wright’s buildings of worship, he did build some others.  Very early in his career, Wright collaborated on Unity Chapel in Spring Green, Wisconsin, helping to design the interior when he was just 21.  Much later in his career (1949-51), Wright designed the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin.  The Beth Shalom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania is the only Wright-designed synagogue, dedicated in 1959, five months after Wright’s death.  Also completed posthumously, the Church of the Annunciation (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) was dedicated as a Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961.

A view of the columns on the exterior of Unity Temple.
© Lisa Kelly and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

© 2013 Lee Price

Fountain of Time

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

The Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft on the Midway Plaisance
in Washington Park.  Photo courtesy of Chicago Park District.

Fountain of Time

Washington Park

Cottage Grove Avenue and 59th Street

Chicago, IL

Website:  Chicago Park District: Web Based Guide to Fountains, Sculptures and Monuments

Chicago Park District: Washington Park

The Treasure:   The Fountain of Time, a huge sculptural monument by Lorado Taft, was described by art historian Patrick Reynolds as “an unforgettable burst of sculpture at the west end of the Midway Plaisance.”

Accessibility:  Washington Park (where the Fountain of Time is located) is open on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Background:   Created by Chicago’s pre-eminent sculptor, Lorado Taft (1860-1936), the Fountain of Time is an enormous work—it extends over 125 feet and its central sculptural figure towers 24 feet above the ground.  In addition to its official function as a commemoration of the centennial of the 1814 Treaty of Ghent between the U.S. and Canada, the sculptural monument functions as a meditation on the nature of time.  Inspired by a poem by Henry Austin Dobson entitled “The Paradox of Time,” it consists of 100 symbolic human figures solemnly passing a huge sculpture of Father Time.  The reflecting pool runs along the entire length of the monument, forming an integral part of Taft’s original conception.

Father Time and the reflecting pool.
© James Iska

The Fountain of Time is located on Chicago’s Midway Plaisance (which joins Washington Park and Jackson Park).  This mile-long boulevard was an important site of the famed 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.  When that World’s Fair closed, the huge buildings were soon either torn down or lost to fire.  In the early years of the 20th century, Taft and other Chicago leaders became intent on revitalizing the Midway Plaisance.  Taft proposed two monumental sculptures, with a Fountain of Time on the west end and a complementary Fountain of Creation on the east.  Only the Fountain of Time was ever fully realized.

In order to create the very ambitious work cost-effectively, Taft seized upon the idea of using new concrete processes to cast the figures.  For the most part, this experimental approach proved very successful, saving much money while providing the appearance of carved stone.  But the extremes of Chicago weather and the porous nature of the material created long-term conservation headaches.  Over the past two decades, the Chicago Park District and the Art Institute of Chicago (administrator of the  B.F. Ferguson Fund)  have worked together to carefully conserve the monument.  In the first phase, sculpture conservator Andrzej Dajnowski  repaired and restored the fountain’s concrete figurative sculptures.

But water continued to penetrate into the severely deteriorated reflecting pool—threatening the integrity of the restored elements of the monument.  The Chicago Park District received 2003 Save America’s Treasures funding to address this problem. After fully conserving the reflecting basin, water was returned to the sculptural fountain for first time in many decades. Today, the colossal Fountain of Time monument looks much like it did when it was completed in 1922, a grand old-fashioned reminder that we are all just passers-by on the world’s stage.

Historic photo of the Fountain of Time, circa 1935.
Photo courtesy Chicago Park District Special Collections.

Other Recommended Sites:  Washington Park is on the west side of the Midway Plaisance and Jackson Park is on the east, with the University of Chicago to the north.  Lorado Taft’s Midway Studio is a National Historic Landmark owned and operated by the University of Chicago.  In Washington Park, you can find an original Frederick Law Olmsted landscape with an arboretum as well as plenty of recreational activities including a Harvest Garden.  Jackson Park borders Lake Michigan and is home to another Save America’s Treasures site, the Museum of Science and Industry.

Detail of the Fountain of Time on the Midway Plaisance in Washington Park.
© James Iska

Tour America's History Itinerary

Wednesday’s destination:  Unity Temple

© 2013 Lee Price

Columbus Park

View Columbus Park in a larger map

Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

The circle ring at Columbus Park, designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen.
© James Iska

Columbus Park

500 South Central Avenue

Chicago, IL

Website:  Chicago Park District – Columbus Park

Columbus Park:  The Prairie Idealized

The Treasure:  Celebrated landscape architect Jens Jensen considered this 135-acre park to be his finest achievement.

Accessibility:  Columbus Park is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.

Background:  “You cannot put a French garden or an English garden or a German or an Italian garden in America and have it express America…  Nor can you transpose a Florida or Iowa garden to California and have it feel true, or a New England garden to Maine.  Each type of landscape must have its own individual expression.”

                                                Jens Jensen (1860-1951)

                                                Quoted in the Saturday Evening Post,

March 8, 1930

The children's shelter in the playground area
at Columbus Park.  © James Iska

One of only a few urban parks listed in its entirety as a National Historic Landmark, Columbus Park is Jens Jensen’s iconic Chicago park.  Nearly all the groundbreaking ideas that Jensen pioneered were integrated into the landscape design that Jensen realized in this park on the western side of the city.  In Columbus Park, he incorporated native plants, molded existing features of the landscape to heighten their effects, celebrated American ideals of democracy and community, and provided opportunities for recreation, relaxation, and even spirituality for city dwellers.  Jensen had a larger canvas to work with than usual (144 acres in its original conception) and he took full advantage of the opportunities presented.

Originally farmland, the property was acquired by Chicago’s West Park Commission with the intention of creating a major park to serve Chicago’s fast-growing west side.  Jensen was the biggest name in the region when it came to landscape architecture, having served as West Park Commission General Superintendent and Chief Landscape Architect and then moved on to acclaimed work in private practice.  He was a man ahead of his time, with a very distinctive vision of the future of American landscape architecture.

The creation of Columbus Park was a five-year project running from 1915 through 1920.  In designing the park, Jensen carefully studied the existing landscape to build upon its natural attributes.  He placed a nine-hole golf course and other athletic fields within a relatively flat expanse that was to recall the native prairies.  Along the outskirts, he planted small groves of native trees and vegetation.  Inspired by traces of ancient sand dunes, he introduced an artificial prairie river, two attractive waterfalls, and two brooks.  Jensen incorporated a children’s playground area, a wading pool, an outdoor theater, and one of his most distinctive elements—a council ring where local folk could gather for talk and entertainment.

The council ring before restoration.
Photo courtesy of
Chicago Park District

By its nature, landscape architecture is difficult to preserve.  This has been particularly true for Columbus Park which was significantly changed by the construction of the Eisenhower Expressway in the 1950s which lopped off some southern acreage and led to rearrangement of the athletic facilities.  The 2002 Save America’s Treasures grant offered a rallying point for renewal, meshing nicely with other city and neighborhood initiatives.  Save America’s Treasures work focused upon the restoration of the historic children’s playground area, the brooks and the paths around them, and the council ring.

The council ring after restoration.  © James Iska

Historic photo of the wading pool at Columbus Park.
Photo courtesy of  Chicago Park District Special Collections.

Notes from the Editor:  With nearly 100 blog entries to date, this is the first time that Tour America’s History has focused on the same artist twice.  Find more information on Jens Jensen in our entry on Jens Jensen Park in Highland Park, Illinois.

Other Recommended Sites:  Pay further Other examples of Jens Jensen’s landscape design can be appreciated at the Chicago Park District’s Humboldt Park, Garfield Park, and Douglas Park, as well as Lincoln Memorial Garden in Springfield, Illinois.

Pay further respect to the visionary genius of Jens Jensen by visiting Forest Preserve District of Cook County and the Indiana Dunes State Park and National Lakeshore.  A deeply committed conservationist, Jensen was a potent force in organizing for the preservation of natural landscapes like these in the early years of the conservation movement.

Historic photo of one of the waterfalls at Columbus Park.
Photo courtesy of Chicago Park District Special Collections.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Monday’s destination:  Fountain of Time

© 2013 Lee Price

Chicago Urban League Records

View Chicago Urban League Records in a larger map

Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

Children on the staircase of the Chicago Urban League headquarters,
4500 South Michigan Avenue (at Grand Boulevard).
Photo 74, Chicago Urban League Records, University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Chicago Urban League Records

Richard J. Daley Library

Special Collections and University Archives Department

University of Illinois at Chicago

801 South Morgan Street

Chicago, IL 61301

Website:  Chicago Urban League Records

The Treasure:  The vast files of the Chicago Urban League, serving African Americans in Chicago since 1916, depict a city on the forefront of powerful social and cultural movements.

Accessibility:  The library is open daily, but you can access a great deal of information and images without even leaving your computer.  The finding aid for the full Chicago Urban League collection is here.  Go to the Chicago Urban League Photo page and select Browse Collection on the left to view 255 digitized images from the collection.  And there’s a fascinating online exhibit, “Fight School Segregation,” that showcases documents from the records of the Chicago Urban League.

Background:  Background:  The demographics of Chicago changed fast in the early years of the 20th century.  In a movement often called the Great Migration, African Americans traveled from the South to Chicago in search of expanded economic opportunities and a better life.  The Chicago Urban League formed in 1916, just as this migration began in earnest.  Word quickly spread through the South that Chicago’s industries were hiring to meet new World War I demands for manufactured goods.  The black population of Chicago rapidly expanded, establishing a new culture within the city that reflected many southern and rural traditions. The Chicago Urban League worked with organizations like Travelers’ Aid societies to welcome the new arrivals and offer advice and resources.  From November 1917 to October 1918, nearly 21,000 people came to the Chicago Urban League’s Bureau of Advice and Information, most of them looking for help with housing and jobs.

Black Power movement at the Chicago Freedom Movement
Rally, Soldier Field (Freedom Sunday), July 10, 1966.
Photo 54, Chicago Urban League Records,
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Preserved through a 2005 Save America’s Treasures grant, the records of the Chicago Urban League tell the story of the institution from its founding to the very recent past. The records reflect a volatile city and society in constant transformation.  From the early days, the Chicago Urban League worked closed with the University of Chicago’s School of Sociology to document and study urban change as it occurred, as well as to identify and develop solutions to emerging problems.

It was a turbulent century and Chicago was frequently at the center of things.  The Chicago Urban League records cover the brutal five days of race riots in July 1919, the toll of the depression upon the city, the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, and the ongoing struggles for economic empowerment.

Under the care of the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the collection includes correspondence, research papers, photographs, artifacts, and news clippings, originally brought to the library in about 400 cartons.  All of the history is valuable, but the black and white photographs are particularly inspiring. Browse through the 255 digital images on the library’s website to get a feel for black Chicago in the mid-20th century, as community members fought for full equality, forged new political connections, and endeavored to make a better life in the city.

Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks from a car.
Photo 168, Chicago Urban League Records,
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Alley clean up.
Photo 14, Chicago Urban League Records,
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Chicago Urban League volunteer Glenn Harston distributes
Membership Campaign worker's kits at First National Bank, April 19, 1974.
From left: Rev. Lucretia Smith, Third Vice President of the Council
of Religious Leaders; Veronica Fickling; Willie Pittman;
William O. Stewart; and Maude Tancil.
Photo 94, Chicago Urban League Records,
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Other Recommended Sites:  Chicago is home to the DuSable Museum of African American History, the first and oldest museum in the country dedicated to the study and preservation of African American history, culture, and art.

To Be Equal by Whitney M. Young, published in 1964.
Photo 225, Chicago Urban League Records,
University of Illinois at Chicago Library.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Tuesday’s destination:  Columbus Park

© 2013 Lee Price