Strange Bedfellows Oppose Women’s History Museum Commission: The Politics of Museum Building

In 1996, a group of likeminded organizers coalesced as a nonprofit called the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) and began a concerted effort to push for a national museum of women’s history on or near the country’s most sacred site of memorialization, the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

At first glance, this would appear to be a rather innocuous campaign. That’s because it is tempting to think we have reached a point in our society when the idea of calling special attention to the contributions, daily experiences, and past and present challenges of women in the United States would not fan the flames of contention. Unfortunately, that has not proven to be true.

Case in point: today, nearly twenty years later, a bill to establish a privately funded, bipartisan commission to explore the feasibility of just such a museum is stalled in Congress. For that, we can thank two male GOP senators, who cite monetary concerns as the primary driver behind their decision to block the commission’s formation. A spokesperson for Tom Cobum, one of the two senators leading the anti-museum charge, explained his positioning:

While a women’s museum celebrating the accomplishments and contributions of women is certainly worthwhile, Congress should not be involved in its planning, construction or maintenance. [The bill] does not appropriate money for the commission, but congressional involvement at any point will likely lead to future federal appropriations for the museum.

Sen. Cobum's reasoning seems to ignore the fact that the commission-via-Congress track is par for the course in D.C. museum building. As we read in Preserving Memory, the Holocaust Museum went this route, as did the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is receiving federal funding toward its completion to the tune of $250 million. Museums dedicated to other marginalized groups like the American Indian also receive government money, as do museums dedicated to the—dare I say, less-critical—histories of design, portraiture, and postal services. To this I say:

Just as there were numerous voices in opposition to the building of a Holocaust museum on U.S. soil—many for political and even anti-Semitic reasons—evidence suggests that the politics of reproduction may be the real reason the senators are blocking the bill’s passage. In 2010, they first put a hold on the bill following a request from the conservative group Concerned Women for America, which pointed to a concern that a woman’s history museum would celebrate abortion rights. And more recently, in 2014, Michele Bachmann announced on the floor of Congress that she would not support a bill for a bipartisan committee out of fear that the resulting museum would “enshrine the radical feminist movement that stands against the pro-life movement, the pro-family movement, and pro-traditional marriage movement.”

Ironically though, it’s not just conservatives railing against the proposed museum; a group of liberal-minded historians are also opposed to the bill as it is currently written, albeit for very different reasons.

It seems that the nonprofit leading the charge for the bill, the NWHM, has in the past shown little regard for the expertise and contributions of historians and little concern for presenting through its exhibits a reinterpretation of history that applies gender as a category of analysis. Rather, to the dismay of women’s historians, it seems that the NWHM is intent on building an apolitical museum that will serve as a sort of women’s hall of fame—a tribute to a predicable cast of mainly white, middle- and upper-class women’s history all-stars (e.g., Abagail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony) with a smattering of women of color (e.g., Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells) likely thrown in for good measure.

Given that a number of Republican presidential hopefuls were hard-pressed to name even one accomplished American woman in a recent debate setting, perhaps an all-star museum isn't the worst thing in the world. Perhaps it would have some educational value. But I and many professional historians think we can do better and that we have a duty to do better.

Women’s historians have made attempts to reach out to the NWHM to lend consultation services, but to no avail. According to an article published by History News Network:

Aware that the museum did not have any professional historians on staff, the scholars did what they could to try to improve NWHM’s presentation of women's history but were repeatedly rebuffed. They were refused even one seat on the museum’s board and only rarely consulted about substantive issues. Finally, in March 2014, those who had been asked to advise were summarily dismissed.

That the bill currently before Congress does not require that even one professional historian sit on the women’s history museum commission is deeply concerning to women’s historians who have much at stake if a museum that undermines the integrity of their work and decades of academic progress is built on such a public national stage. In response, historians started a petition requesting substantive changes to the bill’s wording. Among the requested changes, the petition states “it should be stipulated that four of the [commission] members be historians of American women, four be museum experts, and four have experience in public or elected service, preferably with regard to women’s history, or in fundraising.”

In considering the historians’ concern about the quality and nature of exhibits the proposed museum would present under the NMWH’s leadership, I am reminded of Elie Wiesel’s concern in Preserving Memory that a misrepresentation or sub-par representation of the Holocaust would be a greater disservice to the victims and the cause of remembrance than no museum at all. If a national women’s museum is at risk of presenting an “add women and stir” version of women’s history, then I questions its value. It would be a far greater asset if it challenged visitors to think critically about history as it has traditionally been presented to them. Rather than avoid potentially decisive, political issues like reproductive rights, a museum worth its weight would present the history of the controversy and a narrative of both sides’ position.

Unfortunately, museums that rely on public funding and even private donations cannot afford to risk offending any vocal segment of the public lest their sources of funding dry up out of fear of association. That is to say, where money is a factor, there are politics at play. This reality should also call into question museums’ reputation as one of the most highly credible sources of historical information, as indicated by the survey conducted in The Presence of the Past. While it’s true that most museums won’t present outward lies, politics may dictate a certain amount of information shrouding or misleading interpretations of history, or the propagation of a certain political agenda. If nothing else, the intensity of the politics that preceded the construction of the Holocaust Museum and that continue to surround the proposed national women’s museum should cause us to visit and evaluate museums with a more critical eye moving forward.