Thanks for the reminder! Ms. Magazine.

Well, not only have I been too busy to blog, but the Elizabeth Cady Stanton bicentennial came and went on November 12th. I barely remembered to send my Dad a birthday card, much less remember Stanton’s!  Fortunately, Women’s Rights National Park remembered and threw a party for her.  Sorry, Elizabeth.  I’m going to show the Ken Burns’ documentary “Not for Ourselves Alone” in class today in your honor!

via New Republic, where historian Sonya Michel observes, “The National Women’s History Museum Apparently Doesn’t Much Care for Women’s Historians.”

Michel writes that in the midst of Women’s History Month, ” Joan Wages, the president and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum, abruptly informed me and my fellow historians on the museum’s Scholarly Advisory Council that our services were no longer needed. For three years, we had been trying to help Wages’ nonprofit organization develop an overall vision for the institution it hopes to build on the National Mall. Oddly, this move came just as the NWHM is about to win the preliminary congressional approval for the project it has been seeking for sixteen years. But the enabling legislation, which will set up an exploratory commission, offers no guarantee that scholars who have built the field of women’s history will have a role in the institution. Both Wages and lawmakers seem to think that a women’s history museum doesn’t need women’s historians. Without them, however, historians fear that the exigencies of congressional politics and day-to-day fundraising will lead to the creation of a museum that seeks to be as non-controversial as possible—whatever the cost to its scholarly reputation.”

This dismissal of scholars, says Michel, “followed yet another example of a museum offering that embarrassed those of us who were trying to ensure that the institution was adhering to the highest standards in our field. In mid-March, the museum announced that it had launched a new online exhibit, “Pathways to Equality: The U.S. Women’s Rights Movement Emerges,” in conjunction with the Google Cultural Institute. Never informed that the exhibit was in the works, much less given an opportunity to vet it, we were appalled to discover that it was riddled with historical errors and inaccuracies. To pick just one example: Harriet Beecher Stowe was described as having been ‘born into a family of abolitionists’ when, from the time of her birth through her young adulthood in the 1830s, her family actively opposed the abolitionist movement. ‘Pathways to Equality,’ noted Kathryn Kish Sklar, the nineteenth-century specialist who pointed out the error, ‘could have been written by a middle-school student.’”  [actually I think this is too kind.  Middle school students in Connecticut wouldn’t make these mistakes!]

This article confirms my general impressions of the NWHM “virtual” museum — although it’s okay for basic information (most of the time anyway) it’s definitely lacking in depth and sophisticated analysis.

I read Michel’s article a month after attending an excellent session on “Gender: Just Add Women and Stir?” at the National Council on Public History meeting in Monterey. The session reported on a 2013 study trip to historic sites in and around Boston hosted by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.  The participants in the study trip “were struck by the wide variety of ways they saw gender and sexuality interpreted — or in some cases, not interpreted at all.”  The session discussed the question of “how do we move beyond the ‘just add women and stir’ model of gender interpretation?”

It seems to me that the NWHM needs to ask the same question.  Is having a women’s history museum on the Mall simply going to be a monument-size version of “just add women and stir” history? Right now, things don’t look good.

A few years ago I agree to be a “charter member” which involved a relatively modest donation. For now, though, I’m throwing their renewal invitations in the trash. I’m also taking the advice of Kristen Ann Ehrenberger who reported on the Women Historians of Medicine listserv,  “I wrote to my Congresspersons as a historian, woman, and voter and urged them not to support HR 863 / SB 399 as currently written. I would like to see historians speak up for substance over donors so this does not become an example of simplistic, populist history overtaking the careful, nuanced work of actual scholars on American women.”  This sounds like a fine idea to me.

Update:  On Facebook, I asked the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites what they thought of all this and their reply was:  “The NCWHS Board has not taken a formal position on the National Women’s History Museum, but various board members are deeply concerned that respected scholars in women’s history express reservations about the absence of serious commitment to historical scholarship. We share your admiration for this piece by Dr. Sonya Michel….”

Another update:  Here’s is the National Women’s History Museum’s reply to Michel’s article and Michel’s rejoinder.

Happy Women’s History Month readers!   Tomorrow, the President will be visiting my campus.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the lucky few to get a ticket.  So, I’ll be watching it online instead.  Meanwhile, here’s the President’s annual Women’s History Month Proclamation:

Presidential Proclamation —
National Women’s History Month, 2014

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Throughout our Nation’s history, American women have led movements for social and economic justice, made groundbreaking scientific discoveries, enriched our culture with stunning works of art and literature, and charted bold directions in our foreign policy. They have served our country with valor, from the battlefields of the Revolutionary War to the deserts of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan. During Women’s History Month, we recognize the victories, struggles, and stories of the women who have made our country what it is today.

This month, we are reminded that even in America, freedom and justice have never come easily. As part of a centuries-old and ever-evolving movement, countless women have put their shoulder to the wheel of progress — activists who gathered at Seneca Falls and gave expression to a righteous cause; trailblazers who defied convention and shattered glass ceilings; millions who claimed control of their own bodies, voices, and lives. Together, they have pushed our Nation toward equality, liberation, and acceptance of women’s right — not only to choose their own destinies — but also to shape the futures of peoples and nations.

Through the grit and sacrifice of generations, American women and girls have gained greater opportunities and more representation than ever before. Yet they continue to face workplace discrimination, a higher risk of sexual assault, and an earnings gap that will cost the average woman hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of her working lifetime.

As women fight for their seats at the head of the table, my Administration offers our unwavering support. The first bill I signed as President was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which made it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination. Under the Affordable Care Act, we banned insurance companies from charging women more because of their gender, and we continue to defend this law against those who would let women’s bosses influence their health care decisions.

Last year, recognizing a storied history of patriotic and courageous service in our Armed Forces, the United States military opened ground combat units to women in uniform. We are also encouraging more girls to explore their passions for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and taking action to create economic opportunities for women across the globe. Last fall, we finalized a rule to extend overtime and minimum wage protections to homecare workers, 90 percent of whom are women. And this January, I launched a White House task force to protect students from sexual assault.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 2014 as Women’s History Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month and to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2014, with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities. I also invite all Americans to visit www.WomensHistoryMonth.gov to learn more about the generations of women who have left enduring imprints on our history.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

via UNC Press Blog

November 29th was the 180th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott’s birth.  In honor of this occasion, UNC asked Barbara Sicherman, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American Institutions and Values Emerita at Trinity College and author ofWell-Read Lives: How Books Inspired a Generation of American Women, to write a guest post on how Little Women has influenced other women writers since its publication. Sicherman begins, “What do Simone de Beauvoir, Cynthia Ozick, Ann Petry, and Patti Smith have in common? The French existentialist, Jewish American author, African American novelist, and punk rock star are all celebrated writers. Beyond this, each woman has acknowledged the importance of Little Women, and its heroine Jo March, in their imaginative lives and their identities as artists and intellectuals. They are not alone.

Numerous women, some famous, most not, have vouched for the novel’s appeal since its appearance in 1868-69 (initially in two parts). As early as 1875, fifteen-year-old Jane Addams, future settlement leader and Nobel Peace prize winner, anticipated the formulaic pattern of rereadings when she observed: “I have read and reread ‘Little Women’ and it never seems to grow old.” Even friends growing up in the 1940s and 1950s claim they read the novel yearly when they were young and returned to it periodically as adults.”

I was one of those who grew up reading and loving Alcott, identified totally with Jo, and was thrilled when my grandmother took me and my sisters to visit Orchard House.  I’ve continued my fascination with Alcott into adulthood.  For those interested in finding out more, I highly recommend Eve LaPlante’s new books on Alcott and her mother, as well the book and film, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.

I asked my women’s history students if they had read and/or seen any film adaptations of Little Women.  Alas, most had not.  So, I showed the opening of the 1994 film version and walked through the first two chapters with them in class.  They also read Alcott’s riveting account of her work as a Civil War nurse, Hospital Sketches.

Many agreed with Sicherman’s suggestion that “Alcott, who modeled Jo in her own image, created a character that continues to appeal. As J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books and herself a “Jo,” observed: ‘It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a bad temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.'” Nearly all of the students were familiar with the Harry Potter books and films and could easily see how Jo helped inspire Rowling to create the brainy tomboy Hermione Granger.

Historiann asked her readers to give their thoughts and recollections of Little Women, so I invite my readers to do the same.

via History News Network, which quotes the best line in Michelle Obama’s speech at the DNC convention: “When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”

HNN traces this view to the Progressive Era, which spread the message that “Lack of success was a sign of failure not by the individual but by societal structures and institutions that limited the individual’s opportunities, no matter how hard he or she worked. . . in the Progressives’ view, the helping hand had to be extended by the body politic as a whole. And the obvious agent of the body politic is government.”

Excellent points.  Furthermore, I think  the First Lady’s remarks harken back to a specific organization that originated in the Progressive era and continues today — the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.  The organization’s motto — “Lifting As We Climb” — reflected their belief that their work didn’t end with self-improvement: they had a duty to uplift their communities as well as themselves.

Now, Michelle Obama didn’t mention race in her speech.  Perhaps, as Sophia Nelson has argued, she didn’t need to. Still, it’s worth placing her words within a longer tradition of black women’s activism.