Chicago has a long history of social change.

Chicago Program students learned about the work of Jane Addams, as we toured the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.   

Jane Addams had this radical idea that you can make change happen by just moving into a neighborhood. (Jody Kretzmann)    She first experienced this radical idea when she toured a settlement house in East London.  In 1889, she and Ellen Gates Starr bought a mansion in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago, back of the stockyards.  The two opened their doors, and, by listening to people, and observing the conditions they faced, they began to create a specific agenda of services and reform.   Hull-House soon offered a day nursery for children, a club for working girls, lectures and cultural programs, and meeting space for neighborhood political groups.   http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/_learn/_aboutjane/aboutjane.html   By it’s second year of existence, Hull House was host to 2,000 people a week.   http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html    

A highlight of the tour was walking into Addams' bedroom and viewing two sides of Addams’ life -- her Nobel Peace Prize… showcased alongside pages of her FBI file.  Addams was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her work in the peace movement.    Her FBI file concerns a treason investigation opened in 1924 involving the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, of which Addams was a founding member.

Next, we headed to the Heirloom Farm of Hull House, an urban farm that, in addition to other projects, provides fresh and organic vegetables for the Re-thinking Soup kitchen.    

Re-thinking Soup Kitchen

Every Tuesday the Hull-House Museum hosts a modern day soup kitchen that is a public and communal event where folks gather together and eat delicious, healthy, soup and have fresh, organic conversation about social justice issues.   We met in a space where the likes of Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gertrude Stein and other important social reformers met to share meals and ideas, debate one another, and conspire to change the world.  http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/_programsevents/_kitchen/_rethinkingsoup/rethinkingsoup.html

The day we dined at the Re-thinking Soup kitchen they served delicious Smokey Sensual Eggplant soup.  We put our taste, touch and hearing senses to work as we closed our eyes and listened to audio documentaries from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.  One story focused on the experiences of a woman who taste-tests  chocolate for a living (yum!).  Another story had us visiting a restaurant in the dark, only able to hear the sound of waiters and clattering dishes, and feeling our way around the table for our bowl, spoon and bread.