Hull-House Museum looks for alternative labels

Hull-House Museum looks for alternative labels
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum's Alternative Labeling Project encourages visitors to view history from a fresh perspective. AP/Charles Rex Arbogast
Hull-House Museum looks for alternative labels
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum's Alternative Labeling Project encourages visitors to view history from a fresh perspective. AP/Charles Rex Arbogast

Hull-House Museum looks for alternative labels

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Most people have probably seen a museum label or two in their time—usually a small explainer of the object: title, date created, artist or origin. That can do the trick for those looking for information. But what if visitors had the ability to go into a museum and create their own label–-one without restrictions to its size or content? That experiment has been underway at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

The museum debuted its newest label, an essay by artist and scholar Terri Kapsalis Tuesday. Kapsalis chose to write about a small travel medicine kit owned by Jane Addams. When Eight Forty-Eight met the artist at the museum recently, Kapsalis started by talking about the connection between the kit and Addam’s own health.