The Center for Women's History is a First of its Kind

Center for Women’s History is a first of its kind. It is part of the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, one of America’s pre-eminent cultural institutions, dedicated to fostering research, presenting history and art exhibitions, and public programs that reveal the dynamism of the history and its influence on the world today.

The New-York Historical Society Museum & Library was founded in 1804. It is the oldest museum in New York City and it predates the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by nearly 70 years.

Their new Center for Women’s History is the first of its kind in the United States that is within the walls of a major museum. The Center for Women’s History reveals the untold stories of women who have shaped and continue to shape the American experience. The Center demonstrates how women across the spectrum of race, class, and culture exercised power and effected change even before they could access the ballot box.

The New York Times reported that the Center for Women’s History will take over the fourth floor of the New-York Historical Society, housed in an imposing Beaux-Arts building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, across from Central Park. One hundred Tiffany lamps will be on permanent display there, in a dim space where they will glow like luminescent jewels.

Another exhibition is the Billie Jean King Archive. She was named one of Life magazine’s “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century” and the first member of the LGBT community to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Billie Jean King earned 39 Grand Slam titles.

Some of the items on display in this exhibition include the white lace dress that Billie Jean King wore when she won the US Open in 1971 and Wimbledon in 1972; the racket she used during her 1975 grand slam title win at Wimbledon; and the Essex Bowl she received after winning the Essex County Country Club Ladies’ Invitational Tennis Tournament a record three times.

The Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery is part of the Center for Women’s History. The first exhibition is titled “Saving Washington”. It recasts the traditional Founding Fathers narrative to uncover the less-examined contributions of women of the early republic.

This exhibition includes more than 150 objects as well as digital interactive. It will run through July 30, 2017. Upcoming exhibits include “The Duchess of Carnegie Hall: Photographs of Editta Sherman” and “Hotbed” (which is about the vibrant Greenwich Village bohemian scene of the 1910s).

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