UIC faculty transform Hull-House legacy into a living classroom
Introduction
Published on UIC Today
July 1, 2025
By Carlos Sadovi
Listen to audio summary
This fall, students in Raphael Magarik’s junior-level English class will learn Shakespeare by using the works of social reformer Jane Addams, namesake of the museum next to Student Center East.
To prepare to teach the class, this summer Magarik joined about 15 other UIC faculty members from a cross-section of disciplines for a first-ever weeklong seminar held at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Liesl Olson, the museum’s director, created the workshop to give UIC faculty the opportunity to use the museum and its archives as a resource to design their courses.
Olson’s hope is that the workshop inspires faculty to tap into the “breathtaking” scope of the settlement house’s history. There are many ways to incorporate Hull-House’s legacy in their classrooms, she said, in areas like urban planning, public health and the role of the arts in a democratic society.
“Hull-House is one of the greatest resources on campus for students to learn about history, architecture, the arts and the complex story of their own university,” said Olson. “Supporting faculty as they design courses that engage with Hull-House is the best way, structurally, to get more UIC students into the museum.”
Learning from history
Magarik’s class, Shakespeare in Revolution, will set readings of the Bard’s works within a framework of how they were used during times of economic upheaval, transformation and revolution.
The assistant professor said his initial plan was to pair an essay Addams wrote about the nationwide Pullman Strike by railway workers in 1894 with Shakespeare’s play “King Lear.” In Addams’ essay, she compared company owner, George Pullman, to Lear and the workers to Lear’s daughter Cordelia, who represents loyalty and justice.
But the workshop at Hull-House broadened Magarik’s scope, he said. Now he’ll focus on the larger role theater played in the settlement, which opened in 1889 to provide social and educational opportunities for working-class and immigrant families.
“When I came to this seminar, I discovered this whole world of Hull-House theater and entirely different contexts of interpretation, instruction and performances of Shakespeare that were happening right here,” said Magarik.
During the workshop, the faculty members toured the museum, which was also Addams’ home, with museum experts who discussed the settlement’s role in the community and how people learned crafts and trades such as ceramics and bookbinding.
Faculty even took part in improvisational acting exercises led by Morgan Lord, a lecturer in the UIC College of Business Administration, in the settlement’s original dining hall. Improv, a modern theatrical and comedic discipline that continues to have a major influence on comedic theater and television internationally, was first developed as a teaching tool for immigrant families at Hull-House.
Digging into the past
As part of the seminar, the UIC faculty sifted through the museum archives at the UIC Richard J. Daley Library to inform their lesson plans and proposed projects. They also discussed Addams’ writings and those by others involved in the settlement house.
Elizabeth Todd-Breland, associate professor of history, said she took the seminar to refresh several classes she will teach in the fall, particularly a class she has taught on the history of Chicago in the early 20th century when Hull-House was active.
“For this fall, when I will be teaching it, I wanted to refresh and get a sense of what other conversations are being had in different disciplines about the same time period and about Hull-House in particular,” she said.
In the library archives, she found first-person accounts from people involved in the early years of the settlement. These accounts give a glimpse of life in Chicago a century ago and reference Chicago landmarks. In one, a girl who was an immigrant describes being fired from her job because she attended a union meeting. These first-person reports will be invaluable resources for her students, Todd-Breland said.
“To have these first-person recollections as a source that brings these things together, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m definitely assigning this,’” she said.
Amira Hegazy, an adjunct assistant professor of design, said she plans to incorporate in her class Hull-House’s history as a training ground for craftspeople, in particular bookbinders and ceramic artists.
Hegazy has noticed that as more digital platforms have sprung up, many of her graphic design students are choosing to return to printed materials created by hand. She compared today’s tension with digital formats and artificial intelligence to what Hull-House was grappling with regarding automation at the height of the industrial revolution.
“I’m developing a course that will help our students see between these histories and hopefully learn what Hull-House was doing and what these craft programs brought to the immigrants and to the folks at Hull-House,” Hegazy said.
A living classroom
During the session at the Daley Library’s special collections, Hegazy reviewed books by Hull-House co-founder Ellen Gates Starr, who started a bookbinding program at the settlement to teach others the craft.
“I’m trained as a bookbinder, so I’m excited to see her papers and see what books she was looking at and what books she cares about,” said Hegazy.
Kyrin Hobson, adjunct assistant professor of art, scoured the archives for case files of social workers to get a deeper sense of the people they served. Her aim was to provide her students with examples they could use to conceptualize their art.
Dianna Frid, professor of art, said she wanted to use the workshop to teach about “house museums” and how the public and private coalesce in museums where the artist once lived. She wants her students to imagine how they would want to be portrayed if their home were to become a museum.
“It’s so great to be with so many brilliant people in this workshop,” Frid said. “I feel like I’m making new friends, and it’s through our curiosity that all of the people have become connected.”