Women’s History Month
‘Women March’ exhibit opens at New-York Historical Society
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
In honor of the 100th anniversary of
American women gaining the right to
vote approaches, a new exhibit on the
women’s rights movement with a station for
visitors to register to vote is now open at
the New-York Historical Society.
“We hope the exhibit is a call to action,”
said Valeria Paley, senior vice president,
historian and director of the museum’s
Center for Women’s history.
“Women March” chronicles the history
of women’s public protests and gatherings
in the continuing fight for equality. The
exhibit snakes around the fourth floor of
the museum forcing visitors to take part
in their own mini-marches as they look
at glass cases housing faded notebooks,
banners and photographs dating back to
the 1820s when women started rebelling
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
A section of the new “Women March” exhibit New York Historical Society
which opens to the public on Feb. 28,2020.
Four new portraits at City Hall women’s tribute
BY GABE HERMAN
To coincide with the start of Women’s
History Month during March, the
City Council will announce Monday
four additions to a City Hall exhibition
honoring female activists in New York
City’s history.
The exhibition, called “Women’s
Voices: Shaping the City,” was created
last year with the goal of addressing the
under-representation of women in the
city’s public art and monuments. Last year
unveiled photo portraits of eight women at
the City Hall display, along with biographical
information and quotes.
This year’s four additions will be Pura
Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in
the city and a celebrated storyteller and
folklorist; Elizabeth Jennings Graham, an
African American civil rights activist who
founded the city’s first kindergarten for
African American children; Edie Windsor,
an LGBTQ activist who was lead plaintiff
of the landmark 2013 Supreme Court case
on same-sex marriage, United States v.
Windsor; and Chien-Shiung Wu, a Chinese
American math and physics scholar
at Columbia University.
Council Member Helen Rosenthal,
chair of the Council’s Women & Gender
Equity Committee, said ahead of the announcement
that she was “delighted and
deeply moved” by the four additions to the
show, and called the women “iconic (but
perhaps under-appreciated).”
Rosenthal added, “This exhibition is
against the idea that the only true woman
was a pious and submission wife and
mother. After passing through the 19th
century, visitors walk into the 1920s,
when the 19th amendment giving women
the right to vote was ratified, to the 1970s
liberation movement and then finally to
today all while listening to the sounds of
speeches from suffragettes like Frances
Harper to the shouts of protests past for a
fully immersive experience.
“It’s a little bit controversial to be a history
museum and to engage directly with
our own time because it hasn’t yet taken on
the patina of history,” said Paley.
In the last leg of the exhibit, p*ssy hats
and posters decorated with #MeToo hang
from the ceiling, and videos from climate
strikes and Latin American ‘El Violador
Eres Tu’ flash-mobs play are projected on
the walls. Just before the exit, visitors are
invited to learn more about lesser-known
COURTESY OF NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Pura Belpré, Center for Puerto Rican Studies,
Hunter College, CUNY. Edie Windsor, Alamy Photos.
a wonderful start to our celebration of
Women’s History Month, and begins to
address the pervasive absence of women
from what is considered ‘official’ history…
In unique ways, these women changed
New York, and the world, for the better.”
The announcement will be made by
Council Speaker Corey Johnson and the
New-York Historical Society’s Center for
Women’s History. There is also an exhibition
at the New-York Historical Society
called “Women March,” which commemorates
the centennial of the 19th Amendment
giving women the right to vote in
1920, and looks at the history of women’s
activism throughout the nation’s history.
That exhibition will run until Aug. 30.
feminists on touch screen monitors all
to demonstrate how multi-faceted the
women’s rights movement has become.
“But I think it’s safe to say that we can
Elizabeth Jennings Graham, Kansas Historical Society.
“Our young women and girls cannot
become what they cannot see – bold leaders,
activists, innovators, and scholars,”
said Council Member Farah N. Louis, Co-
Chair of the Council’s Women’s Caucus.
“It is paramount that we continue to share
HERstory, illustrating what women can
achieve and exceed through the examples
set by trailblazers.”
“As we celebrate Women’s History
Month, we must make sure that women
who shaped New York City get the
recognition they deserve,” said Speaker
Johnson in a statement. “For too long,
portraits and statues of men dominated
City Hall but that changed last
year through our partnership with the
see a true trajectory from the 19th century
into our own time,” Paley added.
“Women March” opened to the public on
Feb. 28 and is on display through Aug. 30.
COURTESY OF NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
New-York Historical Society.”
The first eight women honored in the
exhibition included Shirley Chisholm,
the nation’s first African American
Congresswoman; Frances Perkins,
the first female U.S. cabinet member;
writer and anthropologist Zora Neale
Hurston; LGBTQ photographer Alice
Austen; Antonia Pantoja, a Puerto Rican
educator and community activist; Dorothy
Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker
movement and newspaper; Beverly Sills,
an opera soprano; and Dorothy Lee, a
Chinese American woman who worked
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WWII,
the only Asian American person to work
there at that time.
16 March 5, 2020 Schneps Media