Even industry has grown rapidly. The camps outside israels borders where more than a million refugees maintain a miserable existence. Israel says it would be impossible to readmit them. The arab states sporting the refugees do not accept any condition at all. Up next on American History tv, a panel of historians and Museum Professionals talk about methods and challenges for presenting womens his to a nonacademic audience. They make recommendations and discuss upcoming projects. This round table was part of the american historical Associations Annual meeting and is about two hours. Thank you very much let me commence with introductions. We have the president and ceo of the society they are fostering Greater Public understanding of history and the impact on the world today to support and encourage historical scholarships. Mira recently lead the campaign for a major renovation of a land mark building on Central Park West that raised more than 100 million. The New York Historical societies has launched Ground Breaking exhibitions and in recent years she has been honoredhonor honored with the league of womens medal, education and advocacy award. Also many, many other awards that we dont have time to read today because we want to hear what she has to say. She has also done research herself that focuses on the creation of narratives and how to hap, shape, and define social institution. So the president and ceo of the New York Historical society, liz mira. Thank you maria for organizing this panel. We have been developing a Brand New Center for womens history. Im very interested today to learn about the work of my fellow panelists and to hear the views of those of you in the audience. At the New York Historical society, one of our greatest challenges in thinking about how best to advance the very complex story of womens ovlk ju k is inviting people to learn with us and improve their performance on the statewide bench mark examinations. To a determine graph ir that skews on the one hand toward older visitors and on the other towards children and parents. So we have really a challenge of addressing, with this story, multiple variable audiences. We decided after a good bit of discussion and debate that we would do what we had always done best. Those strengths are, are in a nutshell, our collectioning collections, donations and donors. I want to say a few words about each one of these strengths and then i would like to show you a brief demonstration of where we are in our work. The seeds of our determination to create this new center for womens history resides in one of our most important Decorative Arts collection. That is our tiffany lamps. There is 132 exquisite pieces that were given to us in the 1930s. Under any circumstances, our tiffany collection would be worthy of its own display. But our interest in this instance was driven by the story behind the lamps. About a decade ago less than a decade ago, in fact, three scholars found out that they were designed by women. There was a young woman faired Clara Driscoll who came to new york to try to be an artist. She studied at the metropolitan museum of art and she was offered a job at tiffany studios in manhattan. She people one of the best compensated women in new york city. I know it wont come as a surprise that by 1903 her male colleagues were threatening to strike to downgrade her 35 all woman department. And following the custom of her day, in 1909, she left tiffany studios when she got married. One of our most important Decorative Arts collections gave such rich evidence of womens history and struggle and advancement towards full participation in american society. Motivation enough to think more broadly about how we could connect the story of womens history with our institution and the collection of clampslamps. We wanted to dazzle our audience and also tell the story. We always thought we could use this story and display as a spring board for looking back wards towards the suffrages movements and forward towards womens eventually securesing of the right to vote. We saw the potential for telling the story in glass and words and we hired a great architect that works almost exclusively in class to define a great allglass gallery of us. Focussed on the late 19th and early 20th centuries in new york. I want to mention that one of my colleagues is one of the three scholars that made this discovery, and we have been able to depend on other great colleagues. And we formed an advisory committee. Location is, of course another great strength of our institution. We consider oust a museum and library. And we thought that as Clara Driscolls story was a great new york story and that it wasnt all that different from the stories of other women, some unsung, and others quite a bit better known. And that we would do what we had done before quite successfully and that is toklpflop a multimedia film. It would be unfamiliar to our students and visitors but would provide an orientation to what they would see on display. We hired the filmmaker that helped us with the film that we have on view in our auditorium right now. I will show you have brief trailer at the end of my remarks. Donors are another great strength. Our trustees are great and i would like to speak about a few of them. Roger at the time we began developing this project, he was always interested in the story of Clara Driscoll, but he became a expert because of his wife who was writing a book on the topic of women in this era. He was succeeded by pam and she also became very engaged in the subject. This all came together in a way that allowed our ambitions to evolve now from telling our story in glass words, and film to telling our study for the center of womens history. We apply for a grant that would enable us to attract fellows and scholars working in the field who would Work Together with the New York HistoricalSociety Staff to make this now great grand ambition come true. We have seminars and lively discussions and debates and enriching the audience that we have that is a great audience of scholars that use our collections. Happily we were successful with our application to the millen foundation, and hope that some of you will be interested in joining us. You may make introductions to others who might be and were beginning our recruitment right now. Were at a very very exciting point and we he will be moving forward with a physical project which consumes substantially the fourth floor of our institution and an intellectual project that is pushing forward the frontiers of scholarship. So, i brought with me a very brief railer, very conceptual for the film that were working on, and im going to show it. I would like you to bear in mind it is very conceptual. Give that very small sample of what we want to be doing. This is very much a work in progress. New York Historical society will soon open its stunning tiffany gallery. New york women in a new light will take you into the surprising history behind the art. We join the story in the first two decades of the 20th century. Forces across the country are intensified and unleashed in new york. Setting up conditions for profound change. Out of this dazzling and transformative moment in history, a generation of women working without the vote, take actions that will affect the course of the nation. Many young women are drawn to new york to pursue opportunities for women. Others working in 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 21s century. Until now many of these are lost on history. We witness a unique time in history and change the course of a nation. Finally we hear the voices of leaders on similar stages today reflecting on the creative installation that we may draw from remarkable figures in history. u,x . Fb÷ [ applause ] so our next speaker is karen op optin. She is a affiliated with the michelle r. Claim institute for gender research. Western thought and politics with reference to family gender and the relative status of women. In 2010 she was elected to the bureau of International Committee for the Historical Sciences based in ars. And is past president of the association of women historians. He held fellowships for stud you and research for the rockefeller foundation. She has directed four disciplinary summer seminars focusing on the woman question for college teachers. He organized historical text and translation, and directed a seminar on motherhood and the nations state in stanford in 2002. She is a widely published author. Many of you no doubt have read her foundational argument compares feminism and historical female analysis. European feminism from 1700 to 1958 a political history which came out in 2000 and has just been translated to french as well. In addition to that work and many other articles and collective volumes she globalizes feminism from 1798 to 1945 which i highly recommend to nip in the field. She lives in stanford, and she just completed a book. Debating the woman question. So without further adieu also, she is still involved in the project in San Francisco with, a Womens History Museum, and i think we will hear about that now. Thank you, can you all here me . Thank you for the nice introduction. The reason that im here is not because of the historical scholarship piece, but because of my experience at the International Museum of women. From 1990 to 2011, i was part o of the working board of the initiative of women. I played a key role in the launch of what has since become a Virtual Museum at www. Imow. Org. They have joined forces with the global fund for women which many of you may be familiar with. Coming to the projects and to the board as a scholar historian in 1999 i received a crash course in museum building, culture, and costs. I chaired the crucial exhibition and Program Committee for over five years until we hired a Vice President , paid of course, who took over notionthose duties. I work closely with Elizabeth Colton from kahn september definition, to site location, to fund raisingz fundraising, working with, fwieding, content developers, interviewing architects and to crafting the interpretive plan for the brick and mortal museum project. By 2004 we thought we had all of the pieces in place. Site architects, content developer, project manager, et cetera. Then, we sent the tooifers down under the peers on the San Francisco waterfront. When they came up and filed their reports, it became clear that this pier that belonged to the San FranciscoPort Authority had major structural problems underneath. And the estimate for retro fitting the substructure was around 20 million. We decided to rethink the project at that point because prooifs donors are not interested in funding substructures and you cant but blacks on steel beams under water that anyone will be able to see unless they happen to have a diving suit. So we spent nine months rethinking the project. What we came up with was a very different direction for the museum. A virtual project that has since won honors from the museum community. And we have, now, no collections, 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, a number of on that website. You can see them from where ever you are in the world in you have an internet connection. Elizabeth and i copublished a handful of articles about our project international including in the museum international,n . Qx in space, and italy. Our staff developed Worldwide Networks and has been coproducing events with partners on the ground and all over the world. So thats the background. Next we come to the context questions. And we took a stance for Simultaneous Development of both the difficult structure, and the content. As a published author i have developed the difficulties of incorporating difficult cop septembers for lay audiences that have developed during the years of International Womens history scholarship. I wrestled with the problem of how to convey, not only in an appropriate manner. And how to make content entertaining and educational. The business side of the museum if you will. I helped accomplish a International Womens history advisory board. And helped organize exhibit content and development in europe and in the United States. Which brought together various interesting people, not all of whom were historians, but in the world of museum culture. I quickly learned after attempting to education and especially the museum staff as it was growing. What we needed was several fulltime womens history experts in the Office Working hand and glove with the administrative and cure tor yal staff and with the interns in particular to embed a historical consciousness. To inform and integrate the most pertinent findings of womens history and to teach Fact Checking and double sourcing to young people who would rather consult wikipedia than read books by scholars. This is not a bad thing, but because there were no women historians on staff, it did not bblg the womens become the Womens History Museum we want it had to become. And that it perhaps could have become. For contemporary women around the world, and our website has hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. The material archived on the website is spectacular and it will become a Historical Research including for teachers. We already had courses based around some of the exhibit material. You should check out these spiritual exhibits, imagining ourselves, women, poweanc3 politics. We are working on women, technology science, and engineering around the world. I think that will be out pretty soon. My small continuing contribution is linked to imas blog the blueprint, which since 2007 i have published a periodic blog called cleo talks back. I had to explain who cleo was to the nonhistorians and it shows the desperation. She decided to speak for herself. And i put up all kind of sper taning, mostly Historical Documents but also commentaries. Including one that was the author of the declaration of the rights of women as the first female blogger. As she had no internet, but she put up posters with her declaration all over the city of paris, and that was the way you blogged in those days. 1792. As to the concept and content development, it is my Firm Conviction that in any kind of historical situation it must not be put off. Decisions need to be made at the outset. And i made the decision to be edgy. We tried to figure out, you know, what sort of character out there we might like to emulate. And Oprah Winfrey came up but qhgv especially whoopi goldberg. We based our effort in a forward looking concept that would incorporate gender analysis. The complex interactions between women and men. We decided we would offer a feminists perspective on women past and present, and we did not limit her scope to . Rehearsing a catalog 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 that we need to know, and to let other people know our audience about the conditions that blocked womens achievements. The conditions that permitted their achievements. Visitors also want to know and we did a lot of audience talks as well about how women challenged and struggled against the patriarch of status quo. How they engaged with the major issues of the day. They also want to know about women who are content with the status quo and why and how they depended it. This is perhaps theless less popular side. The j0n museum that celebrates women, and is just a show case for the hat worn by so and so, cannot satisfy hue seem or funders or Museum Audiences in our opinion. It is fun to look at the stuff of famousp women, taking examples for womens exhibitions outside of the United States and princess dianas ball gowns. Or even in the Smithsonian National museum of American History, the inaugural red gowns of the first ladies. But the real challenge is to present context rich. It does not go without saying that focusing on womens his necessarily does rewrite history and rewrites peoples perceptions. It can be disturbing and jar jarring. By now the literature in womens and general history has provided the materials to shatter the old stories whether at the local national, international, or transnational levels. And we have such a rich body of scholarship now, and the findings have been so big here in the United States and abroad, that the to build any museum today without integrating this moj base, or retro fitting a museum that exists without going to this knowledge just the throw away of incredible student. Let me conclude by quoting an editorial that appeared a few years ago when a columnist was thinking about a memorial for the 9 11 bombing in new york city. When the Sterling Library was going up the yale in the 1930s, there was a big todo over the building. It was one of the more impressiv