It would have been much easier to build the National Public Housing Museum from scratch instead of retrofitting it in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, the first public housing development in Chicago. But doing so would have undermined one of the core principles of the museum: that place has power. Robert J. Smith III, the associate director of the National Public Housing Museum, describes the mission of the museum as preserving, promoting, and propelling housing as a human right. In this epsiode, he describes the history of the Jane Addams Homes, how national public policy connects to the lives of public housing residents, and some ongoing decisions about what the museum will look like when it opens next year.
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Topics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Robert J. Smith III00:24: The Mission of the Museum01:00: Preserving a Building of the Jane Addams Homes02:18: The Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation03:05: Deverra Beverly04:41: Beyond Preservation06:25: Docent-Guided Tours07:00: Apartment Tours9:50: Demand the Impossible11:05: Housing as a Human Right


Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 37. Museum Archipelago is produced for the ear and the only the audio of the episode is canonical. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.


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Robert Smith: Good afternoon. My name is Robert Smith and I am associate director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago. So the mission of the museum is to preserve, promote and propel Housing is a human right, and we do that through exhibitions, public programs and by bringing arts and culture together with public policy to create, You know, we hope for creative and lasting solutions of housing in security.


The National Public Housing Museum, which is not yet open, was founded in 2007 as the result of years of organizing by public housing residents. The original intent was to save the last remaining building of the Jane Adams Homes, a public housing development in Chicago, from demolition and preserve it as a museum.


Robert Smith: So the Holmes is one of the first developments of public housing built in Chicago. They were opened in 1938 as part of the Public Works Administration, and the goal of the Public Works Administration was to basically spend money to stimulate the economy. Public housing, construction. Have you had a benefit? Of course? Housing, poor and working class families who were suffering in a really serious housing crisis that gripped the country and the genetics homes sort of contrary to the typical understanding of public housing is mostly served on white, working class families. Eventually, by the time it closes, it houses nearly all African American families. And really, you know, the story of race could be charted in the ways that the Jane Adams homes change over time, from a place that house mostly white immigrants to a place that houses mostly the black urban poor and the Janus Holmes is made up of rage building 52 rowhouses, all of those air demolished. But for 13 22 West Taylor Street, which is the building man, will be the National Public Housing Museum.


The Jane Adams Holmes was targeted for demolition by the Chicago Housing Authorities Plan for Transformation


Robert Smith: n Chicago under the second Mayor, Daley Richard J. Daley, the conventional wisdom of the state and the philanthropic sector. The private sector was to launch something called the plane for transformation, which resulted in the demolition of all of the quote unquote notorious public housing dev