National Public Housing Museum receives grant, executive director

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has just awarded a $40,000 grant to the National Public Housing Museum, slated to open in 2012 at 1322 W. Taylor St. The money has been provided in order to support the process of planning and staffing that will be necessary for the collection of oral histories (which will be integral elements of both the museum's exhibitions and its archives). The name of the enterprise is "Our Stories: Resident Voices of Public Housing."

"This national oral history-based initiative will enrich the humanities by reflecting on the misunderstood history of public housing residents and communities across America," states Dr. Keith Magee, the founding executive director of the museum.

Magee has recently come aboard as executive director, which is an important milestone in itself: he is the first executive director the museum has had since its genesis in 2007. Until Magee joined the project, the institution had been managed collectively by the board, with the occasional assistance of several outside consultants.

The executive director has an illustrious background: he came to Chicago to serve as a senior advisor for Obama's campaign; before that, Magee had been the senior director for institutional advancement for the Museum of African American History in Boston.

Magee says that the NEH grant is "really the most remarkable milestone thus far in the life of the museum. For the NEH to say 'we believe in what you're doing and we're going to fund it' is very important."

Jennifer Mau, Administration and Operations Consultant for the museum, stresses the significance of the fact that the NEH is, essentially, government funding. The process by which the museum applied for the grant was very rigorous: they had to register through three different government sources, then the museum's application was reviewed by another three different groups (a blind panel composed of several 20th-century historians and museum practitioners; another Congressionally-appointed committee of museum practitioners; and Carole Watson, chairman of the NEH).

The NEH funds are not to be used for general operating costs; they are intended to be used specifically for the planning phase of "Our Stories." However, this grant is a milestone - even a triumph - for the young museum.

"Not only are we talking about drawing on the power of collective memory," said Magee, "we are going to share and reveal narrative stories. The majority of our collection will actually be oral histories [about] the lives of the people who tried - and many did - to come to realize the promise of America through this public housing experience. With the iteration of the stories of Americans that have lived in public housing, we can now create a program and a model whereby we can document these stories and share them with the world."

The new executive director points to the fact that the history of public housing is more diverse than many people realize.

"The one thing that we need people to understand is that public housing is not an African American experience," said Magee, "it is an American experience."

The National Public Housing Museum, which plans to open its doors to the public in 2012, is a one-of-a-kind institution. There is one other similar museum in the U.S., located in New York: the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The Tenement Museum is located inside the actual tenement buildings, just as the National Public Housing Museum is to be located within the only remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes.

The mission statements of both museums invoke a similar spirit: the National Public Housing Museum "draws on the power of place and memory to illuminate the resilience of poor and working class families of every race and ethnicity to realize the promise of America" (www.publichousingmuseum.org/), and the Tenement Museum "promotes tolerance and historical perspective through the presentation and interpretation of the variety of immigrant and migrant experiences" in Manhattan, "a gateway to America" (www.tenement.org/about.html).

However, there are significant distinctions between the two institutions, the most notable one being that the Tenement Museum informs the public about tenements, which were rented in full - albeit at a more affordable price - to the people who inhabited them, whereas the National Public Housing Museum teaches us about the history of subsidized housing. People in subsidized housing generally had lower incomes than people who could afford tenement housing.

Additionally, the tenements in New York were occupied primarily by immigrants. The original occupants of the Jane Addams Homes were Italian Americans; but through the years, the preeminent ethnic group in the Jane Addams Homes - and in public housing across America - changed many times, so that Jews, Mexican Americans and African Americans all made indelible impressions on its history.

Magee asks, "What other cultural institution is dedicated to sharing this history?"

In short, no other cultural institution is doing anything quite like what the National Public Housing Museum has endeavored to do; the closest runner-up is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which evidently is the most visited historic site in Manhattan (www.publichousingmuseum.org/). And if New York's Tenement Museum has had such a positive impact on the city in which it resides, just imagine what the National Public Housing Museum might do for Chicago.