User:Keithlmagee/National Public Housing Museum

The National Public Housing Museum and Center for the Study of Housing and Society is inspired by public housing residents who envisioned a place where their history could be told. It tells the stories of residents and fosters a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted history of public housing and the effects of history on individual families in Chicago and other American cities. Modeled after the very successful Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City and other historic sites across the world, the Museum, through its exhibits and academic center promote the values of tolerance and diversity.

No other cultural institution is devoted to telling the story of public housing. This far-reaching policy, grown out of the Great Depression, has had a profound impact on hundreds of thousands of Americans throughout the 20th century. Chicago has been home to some of the first urban public housing efforts in the nation, including some of the largest and most significant developments. It is home to immigrants, migrants and thousands of other families who have been in need of subsidized housing. And though no city has had a more dramatic connection to public housing than Chicago, the Museum will tell American stories of “home” across the country.

Physical place has unique power to move people deeply. As a historic site, the National Public Housing Museum will be located in one of the Chicago Housing Authority’s historically significant buildings, the Jane Addams Homes, at 1322-24 West Taylor Street in a West Side Chicago neighborhood. Designed by a team of architects led by John Holabird, this three-story building housed thousands of families between 1938 and 2002. It was one of three demonstration projects in Chicago built under the Public Works Administration Act, which was created to provide jobs and help revive the Depression-era economy. The Jane Addams Homes not only provided housing, but also offered childcare, employment counseling and a variety of other pioneering social services.

The Museum provides a compelling and authentic context from which to understand the reality of public housing residents and how public attitudes, policies, and politics affected their lives. Visitors to the Museum will experience living spaces of public housing apartments during seven consecutive decades (1938–2000) based on the stories of actual families who lived in the Jane Addams Homes and other public housing developments across America. Using material objects, artifacts, oral histories and original documents, it will incorporate art and music of the periods, the politics and economics, all through the lives of the residents.

The Museum is slated to have a phase opening beginning in 2012.

www.publichousingmuseum.org