I was pleased to see a feature in a recent NCPH email update informing readers that the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites had made recommendations for how to involve more women’s stories at American historic sites. The NCWHS joined the Secretary of the Interior in arguing that our parks and historic sites should “reflect the significance of women and girls being half of our U.S. population.” One of the ways to achieve this, NCWHS suggests, is to base interpretation on “specific details of work, economics, race and ethnicity, religion, class, sexuality, time, place and legal status.”
Historic Deerfield Open Hearth Cook with Herbs, Historic Deerfield, photo by Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism
The NCWHS’ recommendations struck a chord with me. I have long been interested in the way women’s history is told at museums and historic sites and I have been exposed, as a visitor and as a researcher, to the different modes of interpretation historic sites use to tell the stories of women in the past. From what I have seen, though there are many historic sites that include women’s experiences in their interpretation, too often they do so with broad brushstrokes, choosing stereotypes and generalizations over the experiences of the actual women. Continue reading