ABSTRACT
Lisa Yun Lee: Welcome to the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. My name is Lisa Lee, and I am the director here. For those of you who may not be familiar with the work of Jane Addams or the museum, Jane Addams is best known as America’s fi rst woman to win the Nobel peace prize, which she won in 1931, not just for her work opposing militarism worldwide, but also for her eff orts to create the conditions for peace to fl ourish in our neighborhoods and communities. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Star founded the Hull House social settlement on Chicago’s multi-ethnic immigrant near west side neighborhood in 1889. And from the Hull House, she lived and worked until her death in 1935. Addams and the residents of the Hull House created opportunities for civic discourse and dialogue and advocated for public health, fair labor practices, full citizenship rights for immigrants, juvenile justice reform, public education, recreational public space, public arts, and free speech. Along with Florence Kelly, Alice Hamilton, and Julia Leithrep-just to mention a few of the extraordinary residents who lived here and ate in this very historic room that you are sitting in-Ida B. Wells, John Dewey, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Eleanor Roosevelt, and more recently peace activist Kathy Kelly, and dancer Maria Tallchief have been in this room. Th ey all passed through these doors, sat in this room, and debated-argued with one another and engaged in civic discourse. And, most importantly, they believed that the world could be made a better place through collaborative thinking and collective action.
