Crafting Americans: Immigrants and textile crafts at the Hull House Labor Museum, 1900-1935
Date
2013
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Social reformers Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull House in 1889 to serve working-class residents of Chicago’s ethnically diverse West Side through a variety of programs. Among these, Addams established the Labor Museum in 1900 as a public space in which neighborhood immigrants could demonstrate the preindustrial craft practices they had brought from their countries of origin. Addams hoped the museum would give the Americanized children of immigrants greater respect for their parents, as well as connect workers in the city’s factories and sweatshops with the long history of handcraft behind their labor. Because much of the local population worked in the garment industry, the museum’s textile demonstrations were central to its mission.
This thesis explores the extent to which the Labor Museum followed or diverged from its stated purposes by examining the representation and reality of its textile craft practices. Past scholarship has focused largely on the museum’s founding mission as articulated in writings by Addams and other reformers. However, reformers’ accounts tell an incomplete story of how the museum operated during its 35-year lifespan and leave little room for immigrant perspectives. Previously underutilized forms of evidence such as photographs, textiles, financial records, and oral histories flesh out the Labor Museum’s history by suggesting the complexity of the cultural work it performed. They offer fresh insight into the museum’s treatment of national identity and immigrant cultures, and they show that the sale of handcrafted products represented a significant economic opportunity for local immigrants.
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Keywords
Immigrants, Textiles, Craft, Hull House Labor Museum, Chicago, Illinois