Fate — if there is such a thing — really wanted Liesl Olson, Ross Jordan and Matthew Randle-Bent to end up at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Olson, its director, grew up revering Jane Addams, the social reformer who co-founded the Hull-House settlement. As a student at Connecticut College, Jordan, its longtime curator, was assigned to a dorm at random: Jane Addams House. And associate director Randle-Bent, a Brit, was raised in Chipping Campden, an important crucible for the Arts and Crafts movement — which, by the way, traces its origins to Toynbee Hall, the East London settlement Hull-House was modeled upon. Shortly after Hull-House was razed to make way for the University of Illinois Chicago in 1963, the Hull-House Museum was established in one of the settlement’s two surviving buildings. Historically, however, it tends to get overlooked on UIC’s sprawling campus. Some Chicagoans don’t even know it exists. Director Liesl Olson, from left, associate director Matthew Randle-Bent and curator Ross Jordan, on Dec. 9, 2024, at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune) Though the museum’s budget remains lean, Olson says a recent increase in “engagement and enthusiasm” from its host, UIC, has been a boon to its ambitions. Earlier this year, the Hull-House Museum unveiled “Radical Craft,” an exhibition that transformed much of the museum, and opened its first gift shop and bookstore. Among the items for sale is a scarf with a quote by Hull-House co-founder and bookbinder Ellen Gates Starr woven into the pattern: “I began to feel that, instead of talking, it would be a great deal better to make something myself, ever so little, thoroughly well, and beautiful of its kind.” But what if a museum’s job wasn’t just to tell the stories of do-gooders of yore? What if a museum’s job was to do good today — just as Addams and Starr would, were they still with us? “We revised our mission and values statement last year, and much of what we talked about was around the civically engaged work of Hull-House,” Randle-Bent says. “What does it mean to be a museum that strives to replicate that work in some way?” Related Articles Arts | Chicagoans of the Year for Pop Music: From hit album to a Lollapalooza set, this is Friko’s year Arts | Chicagoan of the Year in Theater: Tim Rater leads Paramount Theatre in transforming Aurora’s downtown Arts | Chicagoan of the Year in Dance: Vershawn Sanders-Ward is still here, doing the thing Arts | Chicagoans of the Year in Books: Javier and Kristin Ramirez of Exile in Bookville are getting good energy back in volumes Arts | Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music: Composer Shawn Okpebholo’s music always means something For the Hull-House Museum, that means hosting glass-blowing workshops for unhoused Chicagoans, as it did in the fall. It looks like inviting migrant families — their circumstances similar to those who filtered through Hull-House’s doors years ago — for ceramic classes in the spring, a throwback to the settlement’s storied kilns. It means being humble enough to ask visitors what they missed, or got wrong. “All of our visitor evaluations ask that question: What stories do you want to see told here?” Olson says. Jordan nods. “People need a history of democracy that feels inclusive.” Their next project: bringing live theater back to Hull-House, whose Hull-House Theatre is believed to be the country’s oldest community company — and, at one point, almost certainly its most diverse. In the spring, the museum collaborates with Court Theatre and other to-be-announced companies for programming inspired by the Hull-House Theatre; It will include panels, workshops and even a screening of a Hull-House Theatre production (Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter,” first broadcast in 1965). A new book about the Hull-House Theatre’s legacy is also forthcoming, set to release in spring 2026. The former auditorium on the Hull-House site, a cozy 200-seater, is long gone. But Olson, Jordan and Randle-Bent often cite a quote — originally by Alexander Pope — that was once emblazoned on its fire curtain, like a mantra: “Act well your part. There all the honour lies.” Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.