Persistent effort by a coalition of women leaders for over a decade, brought the National Women’s History Museum one step closer to having a home in Washington D.C., when two bills, S. 2129 and H.R. 1700, passed out of committee on April 21, 2010.
Museum's Mission to Inspire Better Leaders With Knowledge
Karen Staser originally came up with the idea for The National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) over a decade ago. She was inspired by her travels and graduate work and became convinced that the violence, poverty, and discrimination suffered by women around the world was caused in part by the complete disregard for women’s contributions to civilization and history. She believed that including women’s contributions and, thereby, encouraging a multi-faceted approach to history, would inspire all people to reach their potential and create a better future.
The Museum became an official organization in 1996 and later obtained administrative buildings, but has yet to acquire a site to house its exhibits and archives.
The two bills, if passed into law, would at long last “authorize the Administrator of General Services to convey a parcel of real property in the District of Columbia to provide for the establishment of a National Women’s Museum.”
“I wholeheartedly support this bill,” Chairwoman Barbara Boxer stated in introducing the bill on the committee agenda.
The National Women’s History Museum, which consists of 30,000 individual members and a coalition of 33 business and professional women’s organizations representing eight million members, needs to muster up all the support it can in order to get these bills passed on both the House and Senate floors once and for all.
The museum has some impressive exhibits: “Women in Early Film,” “Clandestine Women: Spies in American History,” “First But Not the Last: Women Who Ran for President,” “Chinese-American Women: A History of Resilience and Resistance.” The exhibits are even accompanied by lesson plans. Sadly, these exhibits have no home and are mostly limited to an on-line audience. According to the museum’s website, “Until legislation passes in Congress designating a permanent museum in Washington, D.C., the NWHM promotes women’s history through its temporary exhibits, special events, Cyber Museum and online educational materials.”
Attempts to Get Legislation Through Congress Have Failed Repeatedly
Passing legislation through Congress has not been an easy feat. Numerous attempts over the last decade have not come to fruition.
The first attempt was in 2003, when the National Women’s History Museum hoped to acquire the “Annex” of the Old Post Office Building as a permanent site for the museum. in S. 1741 [108th]: National Women's History Museum Act of 2003.
The bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and was referred the House of Representatives, where it never came up for a vote.
The bill was reintroduced two years later under a new name, The National Women’s History Museum Act of 2005 (S.501).
Senator Susan Collins, who introduced the new bill, proclaimed, “The outstanding women who have changed our country and the role of women in our country are the reason I am proud to sponsor this bill designating a site for a National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. Women’s history needs a place in our Capitol and in our collective American history, so that we can learn about our past, and be inspired to make history of our own.”
“There is currently no national institution in the Washington, D.C. area that is dedicated to the legacy of women’s contributions throughout our country’s history. Sadly, fewer than 5% of the Nation’s 2,200 National Historic Landmarks are dedicated to women, a troubling fact given the significant contributions of women throughout our nation’s history,” Collins’s press release, obtained from womenshistory.about.com, reported.
Again, the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and was referred to House subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
Founding board members, Joan Bradley Wages and Ann Stone lobbied Congress and initiated fundraising efforts to finance a massive campaign to pass the legislation.
Meryl Streep, the National Spokesperson for the National Women’s History Museum, encouraged the public to encourage Congress to pass the bill and support the museum.
The bill never got out of the House committee due to Democrats’ concerns that the bill would not be following proper procedures for open bidding.
New Bill Helping NMWH Get Site Appears Likely To Pass
Eventually, the board of NMWH abandoned the hope of obtaining the Annex. Joan Bradley Wages helped identify a new site at 12th Street and Independence Avenue. Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) stepped up and gave her support immediately and on July 17, 2008 introduced HR 6548, which proposed that this new location be used for the museum. Again, this bill stagnated in the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
However, Maloney and the zealous board of the NWHM continued to push for the bill and Maloney reintroduced the bill at the next session of Congress with a new number, H.R. 1700.
The bill passed the House floor on a vote on October 14, 2009, allowing the NWHM to purchase the land next to the National Mall to build the first National Women’s History Museum.”
Although H.R. 1700 has already passed in the House, it will need to go back to the floor because an amendment, or “technical correction,” was added to the bill. This amendment ensured that the Women’s History Museum is granted all the environmental protections identified in the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation, and Liability Act. If any environmental contamination is found on the building site acquired from the government at 12th Street and Independence Avenue, the government will be responsible for the clean up.
NWHM’s Current President and CEO, Joan Bradley Wages, is optimistic that the bills will pass and the museum will be built in five to seven years, but when asked in an interview on Women’sRadio.com what listeners could do to help, she encouraged them to send a letter to their Congressperson just in case.
Beth Borzone - Beth Borzone, a professional educator since 1995, is a budding freelance writer. She currently teaches U.S. and Global History on the high ...
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