Category Archives: Women’s history

Rethinking Timelines: How Women’s History Can Reframe the Past

The timeline is one of the most familiar tools in our interpretive toolkit. It helps us organize facts, identify turning points, and connect events over time. Yet the decision of what to include or exclude shapes the story we tell. Most timelines highlight wars, political milestones, or technological achievements. For many women, those events barely touched their daily lives.

As historian Joan Kelly famously asked, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” Her answer revealed that what was celebrated as a golden age for men was, in fact, a period of restriction for women. That same question can and should be asked at every historic site: Did women’s lives improve or decline during the turning points we highlight? Or were their defining moments entirely different?

Reimagining the Timeline

What if, instead of centering wars and political leaders, we built timelines around women’s legal rights, economic opportunities, or access to education and institutions?

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From Julia Child to Lowriders: Interpreting History at the Smithsonian on the Eve of a Shutdown

Although the federal government shutdown has started, the Smithsonian museums will remain open at least through Monday, October 6. Despite the media’s attention on 12:01 am on October 1, shutdowns don’t happen immediately because stopping a huge bureaucracy takes time, plus each agency has to determine who will be furloughed and who is essential—that’s why air traffic controllers keep working at airports but not educators at museums. Secondly, agencies can use private funds to continue operating, which is why the Smithsonian can keep the doors open a few more days.

I was fortunate to visit the National Museum of American History on September 30 with my “Interpreting Historic Sites and House Museums” course at George Washington University. For a couple of hours, my students analyzed the interpretation in two exhibitions that included historic buildings: Food (featuring Julia Child’s kitchen) and Within These Walls (featuring the 1750s Ipswich House, the largest object in the collection). They did a terrific job uncovering topics and themes, discussing how women are represented, and the assessing the use of objects.

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Carrying the American Revolution in a Name

“My name is my identity and must not be lost,” declared abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone. Her words remind us that names are more than just labels. They tell stories, carry history, and hold cultural significance. They shape how we see ourselves and how others see us. The act of naming—whether giving, changing, or choosing a name—can express individuality, family ties, culture, faith, or resistance. Moreover, it is a deeply personal act, yet also public. A name declares: this is who I am.

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its Revolution, historic house museums have a unique opportunity to reflect on the women of their sites—especially those interpreting the nineteenth century. How were their names connected to individuals of the founding era? How important was it for women to assert ties to that legacy?

For women in the nineteenth century, marriage customarily submerged female identity under a husband’s surname. Often, that is where the trail seems to end. Yet some women found ways to hold onto their maiden or ancestral names—an intentional act of memory-keeping that linked them to Revolutionary roots and preserved family history across generations.