Transcripts For CSPAN3 Interpreting Womens History For The Public 20150131

Understanding of history and its impact on the world today. To develop an Educational Initiative for young people, students, and adults. She recently led the historical campaign, which raised more than 100 million. Under her directions the New York Historical society has lost groundbreaking exhibitions. In recent years she has been honored with the woman of distinction metal, the deans metal in 2005, education and student advocacy award. And many many other awards we do not have time to read today because we want to hear what she has to say. She also has done research that focus on the creation of the historical narrative. Without further a do, louise mirrer. Thank you for organizing this panel. As some of you may be aware of the New York Historical society has been developing a brandnew center for the study of womens history. So i am very interested today to learn about the work of my fellow panelist and also to hear the views of those of you in the audience. At the New York Historical society, one of our greatest challenges in thinking of how to test advance the very complex story of womens history is a public that ranges from 200,000 Public School students to learn history with us each year chiefly with the aim of improving their performance on the various statewide benchmark examinations, to a demographic that skews on one hand to older visitors and on the other toward children and their parents to scholars who are pushing for the frontiers of knowledge in their particular fields of interest and study. So we have a challenge of addressing this story we decided after a good bit of discussion and debate that we would do what we have always done best, to play to the strength of our institution. Those are our collections, our colleagues, our locations, and our donors. I want to say a few words about each one of these and then i would like to show you a very brief demonstration of where we are in our work. The seeds of our determination to create this new center for the study of womens history resides in one of our most important Decorative Arts collection. A collection that consists of 130 two exquisite pieces that were given to us in the 1980s by the new york dentist. Under any circumstances our collection would be worthy of its own display. Our interest in this instance was not driven by asked that x but by the story behind the lamp area less than a decade ago three scholars made an astonishing discovery, and that is many of tiffanys lamps and many of those in our collection as well were designed by women. Ahead of the all Women Glass Cutting Department was a young woman who originally came to new york from a small town in ohio to try to become an artist. She studied briefly at the metropolitan museum of art and was offered a job at tiffanys studios in manhattan. She became one of the best compensated women in new york city. I know it wont come as a surprise to this group that by 1903 her male colleagues were threatening to strike to downgrade her all women department. And then following the custom of her day in 1909 she left tiffany studios when she got married. The discoveries gave such rich evidence of womens history and certainly of womens struggle for it and advancement towards full participation in the American Society was the motivation enough to think more broadly about how we could connect to the story of womens history with our institution. We reasoned we could develop a spectacular tiffany display that would dazzle our multiple audiences and tell this story we thought it would be possible to use this as a springboard for both looking backwards towards the earlier Suffragist Movement which new york city Public School students have to learn about, and forward toward women eventual securing of the right to vote. We saw the potential given our tiffany collection for telling the story of womens history and we hired a great architect to design a great all Glass Gallery for us that would be infused with the story of womens history focused on the late 20th century did new york. I said colleagues are another great strength of our institution. One of my colleagues is actually one of the three scholars that made this discovery. And i also want to say we have been able to depend on other great colleagues. And we formed an Advisory Committee headed by our collie to the north of columbia. Location is another great strength of our institution and we consider ourselves to be more of an American History museum than a local Historical Society. We are pretty good at telling local history. As claridges ghost story was a great new york story and it wasnt all that different from the stories of other women at the time, some of them completely unsought, but others quite it better known, for example frances perkins, eleanor roosevelt, that we would do what we have done before quite successfully, develop a multimedia film. This story would be unfamiliar to many of our visitors and particularly to our students but would provide a kind of orientation to what they went this what it would see on display. We hired the film maker who helped us with the film we have on film on view in our auditorium. Im going to show you a brief trailer at the end of my remarks for that. Donors are another great strength of our institution. Our trustees are smart and knowledgeable and very generous. I want to say a few words about a couple of them. The chair of our board at the time that we began developing this project, roger was always interested in the story of mary driscoll. He became something of an expert on late 19th century new york women because his wifes biographer was writing a book on the topic. He became a great champion for this project. Roger was succeeded by a pom as chair of our board pam chaffler and she became very engaged in the project and gave us a major lead gift to make it happen. This all came together in a way that allowed our ambitions to evolve now from telling ow story in glass and words, in film into telling our story in a fullblown center for the study of womens history. And we apply to the Mellon Foundation for a grant that would enable us to attract a cadre of fellows and scholars working in the field who would Work Together with New York Historical Society Staff to make this now great grand ambition come true. We envisaged seminars, and lively discussions, and debates, and enriching the audience that we already enjoy and have, which is a great audience of scholars who use our collections. Happily, we were successful with our application to the Mellon Foundation. And perhaps some of you will be interested in joining us as a fellow, or you may make introductions to others who might be, and were actually beginning our recruitment right now. So were in a very, very exciting point, and we actually will be moving forward with a physical project, which consumes substantially the fourth floor of our institution, and an intellectual project, which is a center that, as i said, will be pushing forward the frontiers of scholarship. Grand ambition. But a good one. So, i brought with me a very brief trailer, very conceptual for the film that were working on. Im going to show it. Id like you to bear in mind that it is very conceptual. Gives that very small hors doeuvre of what it is were thinking of doing. I hope it will be a pretext for you to help us as we as we move forward because this is very much a work in progress. So im going to press the space bar and magically. Good. New York Historical society will soon open its stunning new tiffany gallery. In an intimate, yet transporting theater setting, new york women in a new light will take you into the surprising history behind the art. music music we join the story in the first two decades of the 20th century. Forces welling up across the country are intensifying and unleashed in new york, setting up conditions for profound change. Out of this dazzling, turbulent, and transformative moment in new yorks history, a generation of women, working without the vote, take actions that will affect the course of the nation. Many young women like claire are driscoll, a talented artist from ohio, are drawn to new york to pursue opportunities now open to unmarried women. Others, working in tenement buildings and halls of power, on the factory floor, and in settlement houses, on a stage, and in the street, set in motion changes that will reverberate across the 20th century. Until now, many of these stories have been largely lost to history. As the story evolves, we witness a unique time in our countrys history, and meet women who seize that moment and change the course of a nation. Finally, we hear the voices of leaders on similar stages today, reflecting on the creative inspiration and insight we may draw from these remarkable figures in American History. [applause] so our next speaker is karen offen. Karen offen whoa. Is that okay . Everybody . Is a historian and independent scholar at stanford university. She publishes on the history of modern new york, especially france and its global influence with reference to family gender, and the relative status of women womens history and many others. In 2010 she was elected to the bureau of the International Committee for the Historical Sciences based in paris. Shes a founder and past secretary treasurer of the International Federation for research in womens history. And its past president of the western association of women historians. She has held fellowships from the johns Simon Guggenheim memorial fellowship for a study in research to the Rockefeller Foundation as well as the neh. She has directed four disciplinary neh summer seminars focusing on the women question for college teacher, she has organized a cluster of original historical text and translation and codirected one, another seminar on motherhood and the nation state at stanford in 2002. She is a widely published author, and scholarly reviews in many languages. Many of you, im sure, no doubt have read her foundational article defining feminism and comparative historical analysis that came out in 1988. Her latest monograph was well latest until the one she just finished was a european feminism 1700 to 1950 a political history which came up with stanford in 2000. And has just been translated in french, as well. In addition to that work and many other articles and collected volumes she publiced an edited volume globalizing feminism 1789 to 1945 which i highly recommend to anybody in this field. She lives in stanford and there she just completed a book on the women question debate in france. You have a title for us . Debating the woman question. Debating the woman question. Wourt further he ado and of course the other important thing to say about karen offen is that she was involved and still is involved in the development of a project in San Francisco, an International Womens History Museum, and i think we will hear about that now. Thank you, maria. Can you all hear me . Okay. Thanks for the nice introduction, and also for inviting me to be on this panel. The reason im actually here is not because of the his for cal scholarship piece but because of my experience at the International Museum of women. From 1998 to 2011 i was a member of the working board of the International Museum of women, a private initiative based in San Francisco i played a key role in the launch of what has since become a Virtual Museum at www. Imow. Org. Which since march of this year this last year has joined forces with the equally innovative global fund for women. Which many of you may be familiar with. Coming to the project and to the board as a scholar historian in 1999 i received a crash course in museum building, museum culture, and museum costs. I chaired the committee for over five years until we hired a Vice President , paid, of course, who took over those duties and brought in professional curators and educators. I worked closely with our founder and president Elizabeth Colton on every aspect of development from concept definition to site location to fundraising, to working with, guiding and educating exhibition content developers to interviewing architects and Exhibition Development firms and to crafting the interpretive plan for the potential brick and mortar museum project. By 2004 we thought we had all the pieces in place. Site, architects, content developer, project manager, et cetera. Then, we sent the divers down underneath the pier on the San Francisco waterfront. And when they came up and filed their reports, it became clear that this pier, which belonged to the San Francisco Port Authority had major structural problems. A little louder please. Had major structural problems underneath. And the estimate for retro fitting the sub structure was somewhere running around 20 million. We decided to rethink the project at that point because private donors are not terribly interested in funding substructures. And you cant put plaques on steel beams that are under water. That anyone will ever be able to see, unless they happen to have a diving suit. So we spent nine months rethinking the project. And what we came up with eventually was a very different direction for the museum, an avantgarde virtually project that has since won honors from the museum community. And we have now no collection, no objects, but we have a huge number of exhibits, and things that are available on the website, and the exhibits that we have put together economica a number of others, are all Still Available on that website. So you can see them from wherever are you in the world if you have an internet connection. Elizabeth and i copublished a handful of articles about our prob lick internationally including in the Unesco Museum International and in spain and italy. Our staff has developed Worldwide Networks and has been coproducing events with partners on the ground all over the world. So, thats the background. Next we come to the context questions. And we took a stand for Simultaneous Development of both the structure and the content. As a ph. D. Historian and published author ive also confronted the joys and difficulties of incorporating for a lay audience Sophisticated Concepts such as gender analysis. That have developed during the years with the International Womens history scholarship. I have wrestled with the problem of how to convey, not always satisfactorily, deep scholarship as sound bites or short paragraphs. And Museum People deal with this sort of thing all the time. But for historians who write long books and articles, it is kind of a new experience. And also the question of how to make content entertaining, as well as educational. The businessification of the museum if you will. I helped establish a womens history Advisory Board in parallel with the Global Council of women world leaders. And helped organize exhibit content development in europe and the United States. Which brought together various interesting people not all of bhom were historians clearly but from the world of museum culture. I quickly learned, after attempting to educate not only nonwomens history people, but especially the museum staff as it was growing, that what we really needed were several fulltime womens history experts in the office. Working hand in glove with the administrative and curette oriole staff and with the interns in particular to imbed a historical consciousness which many of them did not have. To inform and integrate the most interesting and pertinent findings of womens history and not least to teach fact checking. And double sourcing to young people who would rather consult wikipedia to read substantive books by scholars. Without historians on site our project relentlessly morphed toward a contemporary social action project targeted primarily at young adult women. This is not a bad thing. But because there were no womens historians on staff, imow did not become the womens History Museum that it might have become and Elizabeth Colton and i wanted it to become. What i see now about imow is that our online exhibits are making history. For contemporary women around the world. And our website has hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and going up. The material archives on this website is spectacular, and it will in its turn become a historical resource, including for teachers, and weve already had courses that spaced around some of the exhibit material. You should check out the exhibits, imagining ourselves, women power and politics economica which i mentioned, mama, and muslima. Were currently working on an exhibition that has to do with s. T. E. M. , women in technology, science and engineering around the world. And that i think will be out pretty soon although im not involved in it. Now my small but continuing contribution to the womens history aspect is linked to imows blog for blueprint which since 2007 ive published a periodic blog called cleo talks back. I had to explain who cleo was, of course. Of course indicates the desperate impatience of the so kohled muse of history as being for century merely an inspiration. And who decided to speak for herself. And therefore i put up all sorts of entertaining how mostly historical documents, but also commentaries, beginning with one that identified the french writer degouge author of the declaration of the rights of women as the first female blogger. She had no internet but she put up posters with her declaration all over the city of paris. That was the way you blogged in those days. 1792. As to the concept and content development, its my Firm Conviction that in any kind of Historical Museum situation it must not be put off. Decisions must be made at the outset. And i made the decision to be edgy. We had a we tried to figure out, you know, what sort of character out there we might like to emulate. And Oprah Winfrey came up but especially whoopi goldberg. It was our kind of model for developing what we wanted to do. We based our effort in a forwardlooking concept that would incorporate gender analysis, that is to say the intertwined development of the feminine and masculine, and the complex interactions between women and men. We decided we would offer a feminist perspective on womens past and present and we did not limit imows scope to rehearsing a catalog achieving women or the Success Story version of womens rights campaigns. Granted public audiences certainly want to learn about achieving women and womens rights campaigns. But that is not enough. It may also be that they have they need to know and let other people know, our audience, about the conditions that blocked womens achievement. The conditions that permitted their achievement. Visitors also want to know, and we did a lot of audience information as well about how women challenge and struggle against the patriarchal status quo. How they confronted the politics of knowledge. How they engaged with the major issues of the day, in the past and in our own time. They also want to know about women who were content with the status quo, and why and how they defended it. This is perhaps the lest popular side of womens history but it is a part of the story. The museum that simply celebrates women, that is unanalytical or provides only a showcase for the hat worn by mrs. So and so or when she did such and such, cannot satisfy either museum or funders or todays Museum Audiences. At least in our opinion. It sad mittedly fun to look at the stuff of famous women, taking from examples of womens exhibitions in museums outside of the United States that princess dianas ball gowns at kensington palace. Or eva perons dresses in the extraordinary Eva Peron Museum in buenos aires. Or even in the Smithsonian National museum of American History, the inaugural gowns of the first ladies. Which i gather have gone back up. But, the real challenge is to present context rich muses into womens ideas and actions. It does not go without saying that focusing on womens history necessarily does rewrite history. And rewrites peoples perceptions so it can be disturbing and jarring. But now the literature in womens and gender history has provided the materials to shatter the old stories. Whether the local, national, international, or transnational levels. And we have such a rich body of scholarship now and the findings have been so humongous, both here in the United States, and abroad, that the to build any museum today without integrating this Knowledge Base or retro fitting the museum that exists without going to this knowledge is to throw away an incredible opportunity. Let me conclude by quoting from an editorial which appeared in Time Magazine a few years ago when a columnist was thinking about a possible memorial to the 9 11 bombing here in new york city. And this is a story about yale. When the Sterling Library was going up at yale in the 1930s, there was a big todo over the building. Because it was one of the more impressive modern edifices of its kind in the world before the guggenheim museum, of course, or frank gearys productions. Someone who had his values straight proposed posting a sign outside the entrance when the building opened that read, this is not the library. The library is inside. And indeed the same thing is true for museums. The museum is inside. The concept and content, the exhibitions, and their ability to challenge view ersers to make us think and reflect and to learn from womens past lessons that will serve us in the present and the future, these are important things. It is my conviction that Museum Audiences these days, and this is based on my eleven years with imow, need to be provoked not placated. They need to see women in the experience of any society including American Society, as they have never been seen before. Museums, present or future, that take on the challenge of history, womens history, womens experiences, and the politics of knowledge in which womens history is embedded, will do their audiences a great service. And will challenge visitors to indeed, see womens experience as it has never been seen before. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much. We move now to vicki ruiz who is the president elect, well i guess at 3 00 p. M. Or sometime like around then she becomes the president . Lexus 6 00 p. M. Picks up 6 00 p. M. She becomes the president of the aha in realtime today. Theres so many things to say about profeeser ruiz. Shes a professor of history at the university of california irvine, and she has been one of the towering figures pioneering, developing, enriching chickena history, and the last 30plus years. She is the author of over 50 essays and one dozen books including cannery women, cannery lives. Im sure you know this book. Its so important. From out of the shadows, mexican women in 20th century america. Just path breaking. She edited collections that include unequal sisters an inclusive reader in u. S. Womens history, and the amazing three volume latinas in the United States. A historical encyclopedia. A committed educator dr. Ruiz contributed to numerous public history projects, including documentaries, museum exhibits oral history programs, high school workshops, and teacher seminars. She also was the president of the burks for a good long time and served in various capacities as an administrator at the university to the pleasure and satisfaction of our colleagues. I have some friends there who tell me good things. And we cannot wait to be led by dr. Ruiz in the aha. The floor is yours. Thank you. Im going to talk to the podium because i do better at the podium. I can see everyone. Im short. Id like to talk our discussion sort of in a larger discussion about public history in general. And what our roles are as historians. The next time you find yourself in atlanta, perhaps for our 2016 annual meeting, i encourage you to visit the National Center for civil and human rights. Take your seat at the wool worth lunch counter in greensboro, north carolina, circa 1960. Prepare yourself for a virtual onslaught of racial taunts and threats that rise in volume as the seconds tick by. One leaves the exhibit shaken with a visual sense of jim crow in the everyday. Along with a profound appreciation for those courageous Young Americans who took their seats in history. Many examples abound of the historical immediacy conveyed in museums, National Parks, and city streets, to mention a few. As innovators and storytellers public historians sal brat and transform academic scholarship into journeys for a lighter audience. Although i lack formal training in this vital field public history has touched my scholarship and teaching at every turn. At times intensely satisfying or frustrating, my participation in over 70 projects, including National Park service theme studies, museum exhibits documentaries, and even an illfated historical themed Amusement Park has reinforced my belief that our professional responsibility extend past the confines of the campus. Each project took on a life of its own. Well beyond the purview of a single consultant. Showing how meaningful collaborations are rooted in Mutual Respect and shared goals. With this in mind i offer a few guidelines revolving around communication and audience awareness to consider when were presented with opportunities for public engagement. The things that i think sort of guidelines to consider when asked to participate. First of all, set expectations. Please set your expectations from start. Meaningful collaborations begin with setting clear parameters for the project, and your potential participation. Can you realistically invest the effort given your current commitments . Once i scoured archival sources for an exhibition only to learn later that i had been recruited less as a historical consultant and more as a Research Assistant for the senior scholar who wrote the exhibition catalog. And to rub salt in the wound this is a scholar who had been publicly critical of my work. Although i did receive compensation, if i had understood my role more clearly i could have at least made a more informed decision about my involvement. But expectations cut both ways. I once deeply disappointed a public history team when i could not devote the time and travel the project required. So set expectations. The second one is own your words. For an oncamera interview, prepare, prepare, prepare. Request the questions in advance, or at least anticipate them. Approach a taping session as though you are on a job interview. Mindful of what you say, and how you say it. You may have to deflect temps to feed you lines. Ive been told more than once by a filmmaker youre not giving me what i need. Remember, your words will be edited, so strive for interesting, succinct, declarative sentences. Okay. Informed sound bites. Rather than long, involved explanations, which can create greater opportunities for inadvertent editorial mischief. I was taken out of context seems a particularly bitter admission. The third, know your audience. Most importantly, consider the stakes involved when engaging multiple publics. Over 20 years ago i was part of a consulting trio that assisted an intrepid young curator with a task of refreshing the main exhibits in a small museum that focused on the areas of rich agricultural heritage. A large assortment of aging farm implements graced the property. During the formal presentation to the trustees, the curator revealed plans for a section highlighting everyday lives for Migrant Workers at the turn of the century. From the modern dormitories for single white men, to the more modest dwellings for asian and mexican families. All located in segregated enclaves. Tightening his job . One trustee made the connection between portraying inequality in the past and bringing unwanted attention to current inequality. Ill have no flag of that cesar chavez at my museum. Anticipating such criticism, the staff had already secured board support for a more inclusive depiction of the regions immigrant routes. The curator pointed out that many local visitors had farmworker grandparents or parents and the section would resonate with them in the ways that weather beaten equipment had not. Making clear why our scholarship matters constitutes the first step in any public history enterprise. Guidelines and Cautionary Tales aside moments of serendipity do emerge. As an example the proposed women of the west museum created a space of meaningful possibilities. During the summer of 1996, i learned a great deal from colleagues susan armitage, betsy jamison, and patricia al verdicts as we moved toward a shared vision, guided in the process by retired motorola executive tony dewey and director and president emeritus of chicagos museum of science and industry. The ambitious goal was to create quote the mirs Museum Dedicated to the history of women of all cultures in the american west. The intellectual imprints from those brainstorming meetings have lingered, not only in my work, but also in the women of the west museums mission. Despite deweys indefatigable efforts that spanned almost a decade she even recruited five former first ladies to serve as trustees, a brick and mortar museum never materialized but its spirit migrated to the autry National Center in 2002. Eight years later, chairman brookins, curator of western womens history and virginia sharp regents professor at the university of new mexico cocreated the landmark exhibit homeland, how women made the west. Using material culture to tell the stories of womens daily lives in three diverse regions northern new mexico, colorado front range, and washingtons puget sound, and women were at the heart of turning western places into homes, and fighting over who has the right to make it a home. Reflected on domestic spaces sharp whose previous work had emphasized independent women and the open road declared homelands dont scorn me as a scholar and the exhibition book is still in print homelands published bys university of california press. I jn as plans get under way for a Congressional Commission dedicated to the creation of a National Womens his think museum, i cannot stress enough the importance of collaborator partnerships built on trust and inclusive mission. We cannot replace the universal man of American History with the universal woman. As more than just names on a masthead or window dressings scholars must be involved from the outset on Program Planning not just brought in after the fact or in some cases the fiction as was the case of the ill fated latino website that you dont appreciate the fact that when i brought up my concern she did take it down. I mean i really do appreciate that. I do think that rather than a triumphal story of progress such a museum should provide opportunities for searching dialogues about womens conflict, complex interactions and contributions. Dare i say it, political sisters. And there are literally dozens of public historians and academics eager to provide assistance on an institutional level, the National Womens history project and the National Collaborative for womens Historic Sites offered two terrific examples of informed dynamic partnerships. For well over 20 years the National Park service has worked with historians across the country to revise data narrative narratives and create new landmarks. In 2011 the chavez home and united farmworkers compound was named to the National Historic to the National Register of historic places. One of the first latino themed sites that was not associated with Spanish Colonial settlements. Wasnt a mission and it wasnt a fort. Another example is dedicated to a hidden chapter of the american civil war. The sand creek massacre. Sand creek massacre National Historic site commemorates the slaughter of 200 cheyenne and arapahoe mostly women and children by the u. S. Calvary. Writer Tony Horowitz referred to it as the new lie. Despite the controversy that preceded its opening in 2007 sand creek has become a place of pilgrimage for american indians. Quote, you feel a presence here rather than just taking in the sights. Horowitz interviewed one local who connected the sand creek site to a larger story. Something happened here that nobody should have ever did, which makes me wonder, what else in our history that we werent told about. In a recent testimony before the texas state board of education distinguished historian Jacqueline Jones underscored precisely this point. We do our students a disservice when we scrub history clean of its unpleasantries. Unless we enable them to understand the historical roots of the here and now and those roots are admittedly tangled and messy, we cannot prepare them to be informed, engaged citizens of the United States. In conveying americas stories that include events such as the tragedy at sand creek and the bravery of the greenboro lunch counter public historians stand at the front line of historical knowledge and collective memory. Bless you. [applause] excellent citizens so far. Everybody stayed within the 15 minutes. Im so grateful. Because we have more time for discussion. We arrive at our last presentation. And we are very glad to have among us the president and ceo of the National Womens History Museum, joan wages. Who leads this 501 c 3 Nonprofit Organization dedicated toej indicating the general public about diverse historic contributions of women and raising awareness about the critical need for a National Womens History Museum in our capital. As one of the pwhms founding Board Members, miss wages has been a passionate and tireless champion of this effort for nearly 20 years. In addition to overseeing the museums development, programs events and external affairs or efforts excuse me she has been lobbying congress to pass the legislation that just passed three weeks ago to establish a the legislation to produce a feasible plan for the museum including its governance organizational structure fundraising, location and operations. Miss wages has championed womens issues on and off capitol hill through her career as a registered lobbyist she worked with legislators in womens organizations to affect positive change on a host of issues. It was therefore no surprise when she learned where she teamed with a small group of women to advocate for the transfer of the portrait monument from the capital crypt to the rotunda where it stands today. She was also instrumental in the development and passage of legislation, as well as in raising the funds to cover the cost of the move. Prior to joining the nwhm miss wages served as president of cash smith and wages, a Government Affairs kultding firm, with influence with excuse me with Proven Expertise in state and federal legislation National Grassroots lobbying campaigns, lobbying federal agencies to influence the regulatory process and political campaigns, miss wages let slative accomplishments include a number of items among them the passage of the family medical leave act. As a Political Action Committee Director she has had frequent contact with members of congress, she has participated in numerous professional and political organizations, including women in government relations, and the womens leadership forum. And she has served and the board of virginia of the Virginia Alliance for health care freedom. As a result of her efforts on behalf of the museum, she was honored by Lifetime Television as part of its remarkable women series. So, without further ado, joan wages. [applause] im following vickis footsteps to the podium. Well, thank you so much, maria. Thank you, aha for inviting the museum to have a presence here at this panel. I i pretty much in listening to whats been said here, im going to kind of chunk my notes, and address some of the issues that ive heard come up. But id like to give you a little bit of history of how we got to this point. 18 years ago, a woman who was not a historian, but who had a passion for womens , had a passion for womens history came up with an idea that we needed a National Womens History Museum. She looked around washington. She talked to people. She thought for sure there was one in the works and learned there was not, so literally, around her kitchen table, a group of people started coming together. Karen spacer was from alaska. She knew very few people and so they introduced her to people and they came together one by one to support this idea, then a number of us came together to work on this effort from the basement of the capitol into the rotunda. And we used that as a metaphor of whats happened to womens history because that statue has been carved in 1921 to celebrate women getting to vote. It was offered to congress and the all male congress did not want to accept the statue. The suffragists had become quite good at campaigns at that point, so they kept lobbying congress and going to the media, so finally, congress was embarrassed into accepting the statue. They accepted it, dedicated it in the rotunda and the very next day, had it moved downstairs into the crypt, into the land of the dead, so that it would be there with the brooms, mops and suffrage statue, so thats where it stayed for 76 years. There have been five major attempts by womens groups to move this statue upstairs, so, our lesson from working on that project was that when the members of congress are all out of excuses, its we dont have the money to move the statue. Those of us working on it said okay, fine r, well pay. None of us knew how to raise murngs but we decided we would go do it. So, we did. We raised the money. We went back to Newt Gingrich with the check, that was the last straw, so he agreed for us to have the statue moved and we did. So, that was a lesson to us about how you can work with congress to get something done. Over the last 18 years, we have looked at more than 40 potential sights for the museum and what we kept coming back to was that we wanted the museum as close to or on the National Mall. The reason for that is is that museums that are only five blocks off the National Mall will get Something Like 200,000 visitors a year. There is no museum on the National Mall that gets less than a million. American history, four million. Air and space, seven million. Holocaust i think is seven million. So, we learned that it is very important that we be close to the National Mall as possible and of course, from our humble perspective, Women Deserve to be on the National Mall so women are symbolized there in a place where our nation shows what we honor. So, weve had three legislative attempts. We first pursued a site that was part of an existing building right on pennsylvania avenue. The Old Post Office building. The an exof the Old Post Office pilding. So, we went through about five years working to get that site. We thought this was the because the building was empty. It had been empty for ten years. So, we thought, okay, well take it off the governments hands, we will offer to pay for renting a longterm lease on this building. And so, we worked on it, worked on it and there were sections within congress that wanted to see that particular building renovated along with the Old Post Office building, so there was opposition and after five years, we thought, okay, were not going to overcome this. So, we learned about a site that had just been vacated that is across the street from the mall on independence avenue. 12th and independence. The problem with it is that a road runs through it. Goes down and goes under the National Mall. 12th street. Tunnel. So, we worked on that on two sessions of congress. And we had believed the General Services administration had control of that site when they told us that we would be able to build at least 250,000 square feet on this site. What we learned over time is that and even to deck over this. But that legislature ended up passing the house and then it went to the senate. And so besides the technical difficulties around that site, we ran into some political problems, but this is our First Exchange with senator then jim demint, who opposed our legislature because we had a biography of Margaret Sanger on our website. So, it ended up there there was a conservative group, concerned women for america, who had gone to senator demint, said we oppose this action for a museum because of this biography. So, i met with demints staff and tom coburn, who was also in opposition at the time. And not going to back away are from their opposition and they were able to push the time frame back so far that that congress ended. So, after that congress, we had some soul searching to do. About how were we going to get around this hurdle and then was that even the right site for us to continue to be in, working towards. So, we learned at that time that there was one more site on the National Mall. The park service ises told there was not another site on the National Mall. But we got some Historical Information that verified that there was one vacant site on the mall and if youre wondering where it is, its the flip side of the mall from where the africanamerican museum is currently being built, so its at the corner of 14th, its between 14th and 15th on independence. And so, at that time, we did some homework and learned that the only way to really all out pursue a site on the National Mall was to get a Congressional Commission and theres a precedent set by the africanamerican museum and the Latino American museum, both of them had commissions and both of them ended up with recommendations of sites on the National Mall. The Holocaust Museum also had a commission, but it was a president ial commission. Not a congressional. So, we worked with carolyn maloneys office to do research through the Congressional Research service and found out what we needed to do to have legislation introduced and how it would be best to structure that language so that it had the best likelihood of passing congress. And in the course of that congresswoman maloney to marcia blackburn, a congresswoman from tennessee, a very conservative congresswoman and she understood that a museum, a National Womens History Museum has to reflect all of womens history. Not just conservative or liberal womens history, so she was willing to step up and be a lead cosponsor in the house. Susan collins is, has been our long time lead in the senate and a center for is the democratic cosponsor on that side. So, we got the legislature introduced and and as was mentioned, we are delighted that it passed in congress on december the 12th and it passed as part of the defense reauthorization bill. The irony of that, politics is just very strange and this was the way that we were able to gain the support we needed in order to get the bill passed. Now, congress has president obama signs a bill on december 19th. So that starts the clock ticking. There are 90 days for the eight commissioners to be named. President obama started the bill on the 19th so that starts the clock ticking. There are 90 days for commissioners to be named. Boehner and pelosi, leadership in the senate, reid and mcconnell, vote each name two commissioners to the commission. The commission will have 18 months to report back to congress and the president. The commission will then the terminate after 30 days after the report has been filed. There are six qualifications that are needed to be on this. And i will say that this is the first time that legislation has passed congress which provide s for private funding for a commission on a national museum. We had to swallow hard. This was certainly not our first choice, but we got to a point in lobbying for this bill where we were told if you dont agree to pay for this privately, we will not move it forward. So, we had to swallow hard again. It is like back to the suffered statue. That was going to be the last excuse. We said fine, we will pay. Luckily we have over 1 million in our bank account, so if thats the way we want to spend it, wed rather spend it on building a museum, but if this is what it takes, this is what it takes. So the commissioners, there are six qualifications that are listed. Latino american, african american, and his commission this commission, they have all provided that commissioners will be named named with some of the qualifications. So, in this case, it is a commitment to administrate. A commitment to womens history, a Museum Administration expert, fund raising expertise for nonprofit or cultural institutions, a womens history teacher or professor. That was intended to cover having a scholar on the commission. Women in art, life, or history at the smithsonian or a public or elected official and the , sixth is an expert in museum establishment and planning or an expert in Museum Facility planning, design, or construction. So, the commission will report back on the cost and availability of collections and that could be housed in the museum. It will not identify what will be housed. Its what could be housed. Impact on regional women history related museums, potential locations in washington. A key role for this commission. Whether the museum should be part of smithsonian governments and organizational structure for the museum, engaging women in the development and design of the museum and the cost of constructing operating and , maintaining the museum. So, we have to come back with a fundraising plan to show that we can raise the money to build a museum, to sustain the museum and to sustain the museum in , perpetuity. And that report will go back to six different committees on capitol hill. I would like to stress that we have the highest regard for the historians. We have worked with historians from day one on every project we have done. We have a website where we are getting 3 million hits a year now. Our social media has taken off like gangbusters over the last year. A year ago, we had 4,000 facebook fans. Now, we have 180,000. Museum experts have said it shows we are tapping into a nerve, that there is a desire for womens history and thats what we are looking to provide. We are studying a relaunch of our website. The study has gone on for the past year. One of the interesting things weve learned is that 52 of the people coming to our website are either gradeschool teachers or students. So, it shows you what theres really a need for this information to be out there. Gradeschool educators continue to tell us that the information is not in the history textbooks. Its still not in the history textbooks. And that they need a resource, so thats how we want to help them. We know there will be historians that will be added to this commission. We just added a historian to our board and we look forward to working with historians in developing this museum that will be a beacon to the world because of all the international and domestic tourists who come to our nations capitol. They will see our nation honors our women and they will want to go back and create a museum to honor their nations women. Thank you. [applause] as i mentioned at the beginning, im going to give a chance to the panelists if they wish to ask questions, comment address each other, then well open it up to the whole audience and im not requiring anybody to say anything here unless they want to. Are there any thoughts or questions . I just thought if you could speak into the microphone. I wish that before the website had gone up. When you contacted me continue getting lights about it, he said you wanted to give some cover and i read it and said please, take it down. I have to work done and you said an undergraduate. We had a full professor i cant play the name right now. I will read it to you. We had a full professor who was the key person and the undergrad worked on drafting. We took it down. Thank you very much. Honestly, we are happy to take something down or correct it. It is not to anyones benefit that we have incorrect information. Do you want to ask any questions . [laughter] thinking. One thing i didnt address in my remarks to a specific degree is the issue of the sound bite or short paragraph approach to womens history. Which is not a womens history problem, so much as it is a means of communicating in public spaces and museums and so forth, so, my question is really to our New York Historical Society President as how you handle that sort of thing. How to boil down is complicated ideas into publicly accessible material. I think weve, we have a lot of experience now doing that with complex and difficult topics and we tried a few different strategies. One is in cases where there are objects available to try to allow the object to tell its own story. I can give you a couple of examples that relate to women. For example my first exhibition at the New York Historical society was a show called slavery in new york. And we actually had very few, it was a series of three shows that we did over an 18month period. So, we could start in Dutch Colonial new york and end at the end of the civil war. It would span a long period. We had to do three shows. The first show, which began in 17th century new york, there are very few objects available to tell that story. So we actually created some, something that offhand, im not really fond of doing, but i think it worked successfully. Let me give two examples. One, we naturally have any representations of any new york africanamericans in the 17th century, so we commissioned a sculptor in brooklyn to do wire figures, which were abstract but showed people at work, so we did know what kinds of work africanamerican women in 17th century new york were doing. And so thats how we represented that. We created a tableau with the well. It won a lot of awards. I was not in favor of it because i thought it created a set of circumstances and conversations that we had no record of. Im a historian. Didnt really seem right. But it actually was tremendously effective. You could hear voices of women who had gone to the well carrying buckets. We weighted the buckets so at that part of the exhibition, students could lift the bucket up and see how heavy it was. And then they overheard voices. They looked down into the well and saw again shadowy figures since we didnt know what they looked like and they heard voices, conversations that were in my view. Conversations that were sufficiently plausible in my view. Now a ive talked about how important it is to use objects that are representations rather than true objects. We exit you have objects and documents since were talking about a later period. We hope to look back on an earlier period. My colleague found in our collection issue. A very small shoe from 17th century new york. Shes very keen on trying to use that. Obviously, its not a childs shoe. Its obviously a womans shoe and to really examine that shoe, how its worn. What it looks like and you know, so on and so forth to evoke new york. That would be my number one strategy. Its very hard to present a lot of documents in a museum exhibition. We have a lot of them, 10 million or more in our , collection. Not all of them deal with women but many of them do. One of the reasons we decided to do this orientation film, which will be about 15 minutes in length, is because it really enables us to really dramatize a story in ways that no other media can. We try to avoid sound bites. We like our visitors to be agents as they go through our exhibitions. We like them to make connections. We hope we provide enough information to do that. We hope that we dont determine for them what they are thinking. We hope to provoke them to think for themselves. Its complicated. Cant say its not. One thing i have really learned is how complicated we avoid sound bites. Definitely. Im going to take the first question. Im going to take the prerogative, being up here. The one thing i struggle with as a historian and in terms of communicating to my audience that are not as obsessed and passionate by the topic as i am, is the issue of lack of change right . Or failed attempts to change. The more things have changed in some areas, more they have stayed the same. We look at Race Relations and how things are not changing or reverting back, and you mentioned that in some of your attempts. I wonder if in your experience in dealing with public history how you engage with the lack our failure to change. How do you make an interesting entertaining, compelling case for the need to think about that which has failed to change . Anybody . [laughter] in a soundbite, two minutes or less . You know, we have a lot of debates as you can imagine. We had a group that happened to be women historians around the table on several occasions well continue to do that. I actually was feeling much more optimistic. I think it is warranted. Things have changed. It is not true to say nothing has changed. Things have changed. I think historians have gotten very sour. My mother was a historian. She is 91. She still thinks that things have really improved usually and i think theres a swinging the pendulum in the other direction has, you know, you dont want to be too sour because then the young people youre trying to engage in history feel you know, like why bother . Why should they learn this really gloomy story . I think that you have to be balanced. I was amazed i have talked to somebody who was a bus driver, very active in the workers union. He said, would you like to meet the first woman to drive a train in new york . And you know, suddenly, its struck me. The first woman to drive a train, shes probably still driving a train. Its been that short of a period of time since women have been doing those jobs. Thats pretty amazing. Those are stories that we should tell. And we plan to tell them. You have to balance a lack of change with the fact its just not true to say things are the same as they always were. Theyre not. Does anybody else want to comment . I would just say this speaks to why, not only why we need a National Womens History Museum but like this Historical Society that these ways to get the information out to the public because i think that there is some change going on. But even in the ways that we havent changed if the information doesnt get out to the public, then its not having an impact. So, thats the role of this public history and getting it out there. I was just going to say that for example, i spent over 30 years researching the contributions and achievements and failures and just the whole messy experience, diverse experience of mexicanamerican women. Theres still invisibility. Were still braking up that invisibility. Now, the Latino Americans, i dont know if you saw the pbs series, cringing at some of the stuff white accurate historical interpretation, but the fact though, this was the first series in which you actually had womens stories. And it was really important. It is something that the public engaged in. To have people talk about being able to see latinos on screen. Being able to the repatriation of my grandmother. Those stories were in that documentary. From where i live in southern california, it was a very powerful thing. Thank you. Lets proceed with questions. Would you mind identifying yourself . I dont mind at all. I am louise. Im working on the new york suffrage story. I want to tell a story because it picks up especially what karen was saying. To me, ive been a writer and historian with all of you for 40 years. The job of womens history has been to question conventional wisdom. All the stories we inherited in our work, weve interrogated the truth of that. I was asked by Pbs Television for their history detectives show to identify a purple suffrage banner which they sent me. And because of my work, i could. I will say this as quickly as i can. Its about the one photograph womens history, the reliance on what the web would pop up when somebody who is 20something years old, and the assistant producer for pbs doesnt have a lot of time, trying to put together a segment, wants a piece of drama and theres the banner laid out and 19 takes so that my finger doesnt cast a shadow. This is talking about history to the public. She insisted that this banner was related to Carey Chapman cat, who was solely responsible for winning the vote for women in new york state and the reason she knew that was that she had read the history of womens suffrage which is an , authoritative text. Now, if anybody knows anything that storys not true. Cat was not in new york state in the year this banner was being used and she traded with Woodrow Wilson in support of the war were votes for women. This producer did not want to hear that and thought i was wrong because she could bring up on the web 90 references that say Carey Chapman cat is responsible for the victory in this campaign. So, i want to underline again the need for people who are interrogating the story and find the evidence as experts. Otherwise, youre going to repeat the same old same old. Picking up on what vicki said, id like to hear what the new womens History Museum is thinking. I want to say also, the history of womens suffrage doesnt mention jewish women or black women who were the backbone of the Suffrage Campaign in new york city. Ok . What are you thinking about how to represent what you said about all american women . Whats your vision of how youre going to do that . [laughter] getting ready to say im going back to the history of the world part one. First of all, we are not contemplating the interpretive plan for the museum. We have taken a step back from taking a position about the interpretive plan because one of the key things you need to develop your plan is to know how much space youre going to have to do this. And until we at least identify and have some type of location and space, then well deal with that. I am not a historian, so im those who are working on the program and on specific objects could tell you more. Id be happy to get you in touch with them. Hi, im a producer of a film about second wave feminism called left on perl, which will be coming out next year. And also, ill be teaching a course on soviet history at mit next semester. Thats my kind of bipolar life. But my question actually first i wanted to make just a very brief comment. I went to the other museum, the museum of the city of new york which has an exhibit about activism. And so it is half, i would say in the right direction because , it does Say Something about womens suffrage what in its part that has something to do with contemporary activism theres nothing about second wave feminism at all, which i thought was pretty astounding at this point. But my question is not about that. My question is first of all, i , think youve all made really interesting contributions to the discussion. But the range goes from brick and mortar to virtual and i was wondering because brick and mortar will get some people, but virtual will get others and has been stated, virtual has its own problems, but there are some museums like imo now and the jewish womens archive are another, that are totally virtual, so, how do you see the two kind of coming together to reach as many people as possible . Are you thinking, those of you who have brick and mortar as your bases, how are you thinking of integrating the virtual side . Thank you. Weve had to deal with just exactly that issue. Because we saw from early on as we have grown, so has the internet. We have kind of been growing up with the internet and learning what we can do and we are very clear that millions of more people will learn about history. Womens history, through our website than will ever walk through the door. The building is significant of the symbol it represents. We hope that eventually there will be multiple tiers on our website, those who are doing research on womens history and for grade school children. Grade school for grade school children. Thats quite a range and you have to create the definition. We have more than 1,000 pages on our website and it will just continue to grow, so, you just have to deal with each and the way that we are all learning that the websites can be used in the best way. We do virtual exhibitions and versions of our exhibitions that are physical and put them online and i would anticipate continuing to do that. I dont have a crystal ball. I have no idea what the museum of the future will look like but right now, for us, the experience of visiting a museum if youre a student visiting a museum with your class or i mean, very few people visit museums by themselves, so its a social experience. I think as we develop our galleries around womens history, we see the opportunity for discussion and state and to discussion and debate and to bar a word thats been used here, interrogation of that history to be much greater with physical presence of visitors actually being in a place, so were very excited that we have space within which we can develop what were the project that were developing, so, both things are probably extremely important, but probably two completely different experiences and you need to obviously accommodate both kinds of audiences. Anybody else . Now that we have no building and everything is virtual, it presents challenges of its own. But they can be met in different ways. The difference there is because its now virtual, it attracts an International Audience as well as as a local audience. Different kinds of things happen when you get viewers in sierra leone or australia or indonesia. Theres some interactive actions aspects where people can put questions up and that sort of thing. Its a work in progress. It is really inventing something that wasnt out there before, so its constantly evolving. Beyond that, i would have to refer you to exhibitions. I teach at the university of maryland and college park and im a member of what has been called the disbandidas. I was part of a group of Scholars Committee that had been appointed by the National Womens History Museum and was disbanded for reasons were still not clear about just as the current legislation because successful was going through congress. I want to thank marcia for organizing this panel and i want to thank the panel. The word accuracy has come up several times in the course of this panel and i want to try to raise a couple of questions that i have about joan wages account of this History Museum. One of the things you said was it always works with historians, but karen was not a historian but i understand some were invited to participate with a museum early on. One was mary rothchild, a historian with the girl scouts and she told me when you, joan and various others came on board, that in fact, historians were dismissed. So this was back in the 1990s, the late i and my colleagues 1990s. Didnt come on board until i think 2010 when you started working with ralph and associates. Host host host it host it is a very wellknown firm. Said you are historians, at which point you contacted a historian and gave you a list of historians to a number of regional meetings and happened to over and it was after that that these two bodies of scholars were convened. The national one and the middle one, quite clear what the distinctions were. Our experience in working on those committees was that we were sort of like what vicki said, we were often asked after the fact to look at, we were never asked what we thought would be useful from using our perspective. Incoming from varied backgrounds we offered to give you a list of , exhibits we thought would be useful but we were never allowed to do that. Some of us were called upon to consult from time to time to vet exhibits that would be prepared by interns. Often by that time, they were already up, so it was kind of too late. Most professional organizations, if youre a surgeon, you dont kind of go to med school and figure out out to do an appendectomy after you botch one. You try to get the thing right before you go public. There were a number of occasions that things we thought were put up were not appropriate. One of the things we asked among other things was that we could have scholars put on the board. The board of directors, which seemed to have quite a lot of power, did not include anybody any womens historians and we were told several times it was a conflict of interest to have a scholar on the board, so i wonder what the thinking was that led to the deployment of a scholar on the board. This was after the scholars Advisory Committee had been dissolved. A couple of things about the bill myself. My understanding of the bill and ive read it many times, is that the six qualifications you listed what the bill says is that they may be. Theres no requirement that any of them have to be represented on the board. The people who are appointed have to have at least one of those qualifications, but there may not be a historian on the board. Its possible that the whole board would be made up of political appointees. Considering who is doing the appointees thats quite likely. , college amended the bill to strengthen the requirement for a historian but that amendment did , not make it into the final legislation as ive read it. One question i have is what prospects do you think there will be for having a historian on the commission . Second, you speak about we. I wonder what you see as the relationship between the national History Museum as a nonprofit, as a 501c3, which again, according to the legislation, is to be considered for a financial role for a role in fundraising and given your own record of fundraising, which is not exactly stellar i wonder , how you see how that is going to work out. When you speak of we, what influence do you think the national History Museum is going to have on the content or whatever the substance is of this report that comes out of the commission . Thank you. Would you like to address any of that . No, but i will. This has been a very long process and because of we are working with congress, we have first and foremost in our minds has been the political ramifications of what its going to take to get this legislature passed. We have i think i said clearly that two years ago, we changed our strategy. We no longer were going to go specifically for a site. We were going to go for the commission. That was the change that caused us to back up because we are privately funded. Which means that in any director of an organization will tell you that when you change your strategy, you need to look at how youre allocating your resources. If we are spending a lot of time and energy working with the group that it doesnt align with the strategy at the moment then it no longer is what the Organization Needs to be doing. Others have stayed in touch, they have staid they would like to work with us in the future. And we look forward to working with them. We were able the work out with our board that we agreed there should be a historian on our board and it was, the board can decide the to change its plans and thats what it did. So, and thats going to continue to happen. We are not not going to be held to a specific path and if you think this itsat its got to go from a to b and b to d, youre going to be very unhappy with us because its not how its going to happen. We are going to do what we have to do nrdin order to make the museum work and as far as our fundraising ability that was a very snide remark, sonya, no its not accurate because we have raised more money than any other museum. By 1000 fold we have raised more , money than any other museum at this stage in their development. The Holocaust Museum had not even begun to raise money like we have raised money. Before they got their building site. After they got their building site, of course, they took off and they did a fantastic job. But before we had something to point to, we have done an extraordinary job. So, i would say that i think that you are wrong about that. And let me just show you what it comes down to. We need to be with people who we can work with and if you, if we change our minds, then you know, maybe youre going to be angry about it. But to go off to the press and to go off and to say inaccurate things about us is really not helpful to us. But its particularly its not helpful to the historical community. So i hope that we can, i know that there are historians we can work with because were working with them and were going to continue to work with historians, but we all have to be respectful of one another. Sonya has actually said to me she does not respect me. She does not respect my board. Now, i dont care what she thinks about me, but if she doesnt respect the organization, then just walk away. Theres no reason for us to even try to Work Together. So, thats where i feel like that we are not of like mind and she can go out and start her own womens History Museum. That would be fine. But we are going to work with congress and the Reason Congress passed this legislation is that theyve seen us up there for 18 years knocking on doors, saying we want to honor women in this nation. So, that makes a difference and many of you have been work g working together for 30 years. And you know one another. And so, you trust one another. And that is grand. But thats the same way that congress feels about us. And so, we are going to continue to move down that path and we welcome those who are supporting our efforts and those who want to be helpful and those who want to work with us, but if you dont, that is fine, too. I have a question about this issue of whether the commission intends for the purposes of the , report that is forthcoming, to have i mean right. Yes or no. I know from talking with members of congress and with staff that they fully intend to name at least one historian. There was never any intention not to name a historian. So, its on the list because thats the way Congress Writes these bills. Theres got to be some flexibility and what i suspect is that there might end up being two historians on it. Thank you. Anybody else want to comment . Ok. Next question. My name is Glenna Matthews and this is not a question so much as a little burst of effusive miss. I have never been in the same room with louise before, but i live in california, i travel to new york a lot and the exhibitions at the New York Historical society have just been stunning. Thank you. I saw the exhibitions on slavery. They were a revelation. There was one that you didnt mention that i think was about the civil war in new york. I thought that was stunning, but the one i really and the hundred years armory show stunning. But the one i particularly want to mention because it does bring in women was Something Like home front and battlefield. It was such a wonderful way to bring women into the story even story of the civil war because what it did was focus on textiles and all the different ways in which textiles were part i mean, soldiers need uniforms, blankets. The objects were stunning. The object that i have to tell you moved me to tears was seeing a piece of clothing owned by a slave child. I never thought id ever see Something Like that. Its such a perishable item. And so, i, as you say, i went with a group, my daughter, whos easily embarrassed, thats had to live with her emotional mother for a good many years and so i kind of cried my way through the exhibit because it was so thrilling to see how beautifully you brought women into the story of the civil war. Thank you. [applause] hello. This works. My name is sean. I am a student at central connecticut university. I would like to say i find it a problem that we have or we will have on the mall, an africanAmerican History museum, a latino History Museum and womens History Museum. I think were segregating history and was wondering if it may be more prudent strategy to integrate womens history into the museums we have. The New York Historical society is doing. Yes, i would like for you to comment on that. Thank you. Yes, that question has come up from very early on. And early on, we had members one particular member of congress who said lets just take half of American History and do it on womens history. I think vicki could tell you why internal politics would not allow that to happen. For a goal, its just not going to happen. Because of the way other museums from the outside it may seem like a rational goal. Its just not going to happen. Because of the way the smithsonian is structured the way other museums are structured. Smithsonian has hardly enough space to do American History. In the way that they want to do it. So, theyre always jockeying for for order and more space. More space, more space. Each museum has all of these stories that they want to tell. And what happened is that with womens history, it just falls to the bottom of the list. And early on, we were in touch with a woman who had been curator at American History for 34 years and her quote was when it came to a fight for the dollars internally, womens history always lost. So, it is still that way, there are certainly more women who are in managerial positions and more curators who are making some of these decisions, but not nearly enough and it will be a long time before that changes. I think the question is a really good one. I have thought a lot about it because i think there is a risk of marginalizing, becoming marginalized. Particularly, im not sure of the reason i have thought about this a lot, too, but i havent drawn any conclusions. Particularly with womens history, womens studies, it seems to attract women only. Everyone feels we did an exhibit on slavery in new york and sure, we had a huge number of africanamericans, but we also had a huge number of visitors who werent africanamerican. Right now on view is an exhibition called chinese american exclusion inclusion. The history of chinese in america. We have a huge number of chinese visitors but we have a huge number of other visitors. It is important and an eyeopening story. I think that for whatever reason it does not happen with womens history. Its worrisome and find that people will say about women. I hope that does not happen. With our project, we do have the context of the whole museum. Our take on it is that the story that doesnt get told is that women are actually part of American History. Theyre actually integral to American History and thats going to be what we hope we will show. And stress. But notwithstanding that, i think it is an excellent question and one that i certainly wondered about quite often. We have time for one, maybe two more questions, so if theres anybody else. I guess this is a question from my names greg and i just finished a term as president of the Texas State Historical association, which is a 118yearold organization. While were not a museum, we do a lot of Public Outreach in various programs. From the very beginning of our organization, by our bylaws set down in 1897, the current number of Board Members is about 20 and by our bylaws, we must be 50 scholars and 50 nonacademics. Typically, the nonacademics are political figures, rich folks who are adept at fund raising, so forth. And what weve learns through this is that it can create interesting situations in board meetings and behind closed doors, go at each other, what we found is that each side of our two headed monster sort of tends to check the other side and when the academics of which im one thinks that the nonacademics gone to Davey Crockett on us the academics push back and when the academics have got their head in the cloud and the nonacademics think we have gone too crazy, they pushed back on us, the presidency of our board rotates between nonacademic and academic, so i was president a year ago, this year, its a houston beer billionaire whos one of the republican partys biggest donors. And not only do we maintain that balance while maintaining the scholarly integrity of the organization we find that because we are forced to Work Together we end up working together much better than you might expect. Im just wondering at some point down the road, might a model like this be one that would be appropriate for the National Womens History Museum and have you considered a model like that . Thank you. Yes. We have considered a model. That is part of this commission, to make recommendations on the governance of the museum. There are many possibilities that could come out of this. One could be the museum as we know it, the incorporated 501 c 3 could lead this effort, the commission may come out and say, proceed. With this in mind. The commission could come back and say half the board should be this or that. The other consideration is going to be should we be looking at a site on the mall . What kind of government structure will be needed to address because congress will have stipulations about what the governance of an entity on the National Mall would be. So it is all an open book right now. Can i ask you, where do you primarily get your funding . Is that a state entity . We reside on a State University campus and get office space from the state but were a private group, a 5013 c 5013 c organization. Yes. Welcome to the group. So i would just say at this point, it is unknown. But certainly moving forward and as we get to the point where we know what the space is going to be and then we start seriously considering the interpretive plan, then for sure more scholars and historians will be on board and involved. At the New York Historical society, is there a a ratio of so many scholars to nonscholars, im just curious . We have a lot of scholars on our board. For the most part our board is a fundraising board. They contribute a lot of intellectual capital and it is worth a lot to us. Extremely important. But we work with historians all of the time. Its just, were a History Museum, that is what we do. I had a career as an academic before my current career so it is Second Nature to me. Justin all fairness, it is more complicated when you have government involvement than when you are private like we are. The fundraising burden is huge because we get virtually no money from government. But on the other hand, we are at liberty to tackle a lot of issues that are complex, very controversial and difficult and will excite a lot of emotions that i think would be quite hard to do. When you have a lot of academics around, they want to push you in the direction of being controversial. That is a controversy and you should hit it head on. I can do that. I work closely with my board and we have a diverse political board but i can work with them. And i can talk to them and explain to them why well do this and sort of make adjustments in presentations so that we come out in the right place. But i think it is just a lot harder to do that when youre part of the public, in the public eye and part of the public arena. Im probably more sympathetic than other people to your issues. Last question, because we have time to show i think the problem was fixed with the a. V. So we have the video at the end. Im ann boyle from the university of delaware. Thought it was an interesting panel. Two points. There is a long history of trying to represent womens history to the public. You can go back to the 18th century and fine in history textbooks there are representations of women. But i think Teresa Murphy has reminded us that any representation of women to a larger public audience is always going to create or limit womens possibilities in the present. And so i worry when somebody refers to a museum as one that will honor, because some women are not necessarily worthy of being honored. [laughter] so the history of womens suffrage, the statue of the three suffrages, those are interpretations of women to a public. So my other point is more of a question. And that is when one does that how does one therefore provide a way for the public to understand how historians themselves think about history . Because when you get corporate sponsors and ive done work on a dupont Radio Program on history, once you get that kind of involvement by a group that is interested in history for a particular purpose, the way historians think and attempt to validate, use primary sources and so on, that tends to get lost and i wonder if any of you have tried to deal with that challenge and, if so, how successful . Again, two minutes or less. We have not had corporate sponsors that interfered with much of anything when we were building the International Museum of women. But there was a museum organized for womens history in dallas which has not survived. Also a few years back. And they did have bigtime sponsors for their exhibitions. And the one woman that was very involved in this went public in news magazine in the ways in which corporate sponsors were tweaking the exhibits and saying you can do this and not that. And there is a real issue there, i think. Which one can probably see in other venues as well. It is certainly something to be concerned about. And i think anybody who is really interested in pursuing these questions should have a look at that dallas Womens Museum experience. So weve arrived at the end of our q a. We have time for that video so please just join me in thanking this Wonderful Group of speakers. [applause] thank you so much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. On cspan 2s book tv, White House Correspondent and american urban radio april ryan on her more than 25 years in journalism and her coverage of three president ial administration. Sunday at noon, a threehour conversation with walter isaacson, was biographies included ben franklin and steve jobs. On American History tv on cspan 3 today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, heather coxrchar dson on how the cowboy during reconstruction became a symbol of newly reunified america. We will tour the house that was the headquarters of the American Red Cross and learn about the life of its founder, clara barton. Find our complete Television Schedule at www. Cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Each week, American History tvs reel america brings you archival films to help tell the story of the 20th century. Each family upon arrival at the Relocation Center was assigned to a single room compartment, about 20 by 25 feet. Baron, unattractive. A stove, a lightbulb cots, mattresses, and blankets. Those were the things provided by the government. The familys own furniture was in storage on the west coast. Perhaps some wall boards and a great deal of energy. Curtains pictures, drapes, depending on the familys ingenuity, makes the place livable. Others took what they received and made the best of it. Boy scouts, who usually provide the color guard for the american flag, are typical of the american organizations which are prominent in each Relocation Center. There is a uso club to provide entertainment for the japaneseamerican soldiers who come to the center to visit their families or friends. Girl scouts, campfire girls parentteacher associations, the red cross. The evacuees belong to these organizations in their former homes and transplanted them to the center. The boys are leading the Harvest Festival parade, marking the high point of a successful season of farm production. Everyone turns out to view the beauty queen, to see the decorated floats, and to join in a good time that goes with a full day of celebration. While they have many things in common with normal american committees, Relocation Centers are not normal and likely never can be. Eating working, and Living Conditions are abnormal. Americanism, taught in schools and childrens and on the playgrounds, loses much of its meaning in the confines of a Relocation Center. The battle of new orleans was the final major battle of the world 1812, thought after the british and americans signed the treaty of ghent. Join cspan as we observe a bicentennial commemoration of the battle historian and author victoria kastner details the home of William Randolph hearst. The the event was hosted in november of 2000. Im pleased to introduce to you victoria kastner. Eversons that day she has studied William Randolph hearst his art collection, and the buildings. She has a masters degree with an emphasis in architectural history