Jane Addams, Queer Domesticity, and the History of Art Education

• In Event: The Past Is Present: Ignored Histories of Art Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to center the contributions of Jane Addams: community activist, social organizer, advocate of education, community researcher, and a queer-identified woman (Jackson, 2010) within the history of art education. Working closely with her partners, Ellen Gates Starr and Mary Rozett Smith, Jane Addams founded and then ran the extensive programming at Hull-House in Chicago. Founded in 1889, this settlement house served the needs of immigrants and working class residents of this Chicago neighborhood. Art and education were central to the work of Hull-House as was community-based research.
Working from an intersectional feminist perspective, we discuss her partnerships with women that uniquely situated her focus on the lived experiences of women: a queer domesticity (Jackson, 2010). Through her ongoing and continued work to improve the lives of immigrant and lower class women or “daily lesson(s) in undoing gendered and classed conventions of privacy and publicity, providing a material plane that actuated and was actuated by the movement of people who patently and tacitly redefined their lives” (p. 169) she challenged the status quo of the time.
Through an analysis of published accounts of Jane Addams and Hull-House as well as an investigation of primary source materials we discuss her position within the history of art education. In many publications (Efland, 1990) her innovations and revolutionary tactics are overshadowed by the contributions of men of that era, especially John Dewey. A queer reading of art educational history and praxis asks one to at least consider differently the origins of the work we do and who are the mothers and fathers of the field- or to disrupt the notion of “parentage” altogether. By introducing a queer theoretical framework, queer acts of reframing ask us to interrogate assumptions around meaning-making and identity development related to disclosed history (Smallwood, 2015). We posit the importance of considering the materials being used in teaching about the history of art education to ensure that all our students see themselves reflected in history and to imagine possible futures.
By investigating the existing documents chronologizing the history of art education and doing a comparative analysis of historical accounts of Addams’s contributions in other fields of study (gender and sexuality studies, social work, and craft and material studies) we make connections between Addams’s socially engaged work and art education- and the need for more significant and visible inclusion of her ideologies and her life in art educational study. Inclusion of unacknowledged histories in art education- particularly histories resisting heteronormativity- allow one to consider multiple and intersecting identities and entwined oppressions and the need to “create spaces where students can explore their various queer… experiences” and ideas at all levels of education (Smallwood, 2015, p. 80). This ensures queer intellectual experiences for students with/out regard to their genders and sexualities: experiences that, we posit, are lacking in schools and teacher education.

Authors

• Courtnie N. Wolfgang, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Melanie L. Buffington, Virginia Commonwealth University