I made an announcement a few months ago on the blog that I started the book writing process focused on museums and the coronavirus pandemic. According to that announcement, I believe this will be a relevant book because the pandemic has made a significant impact on all around the world especially museum workers who engage with the public both within the community and inside the museum walls. I have included the original announcement in the links below in case you missed it. Since I made the announcement, I continued to accumulate more sources to write this book.
As of this message, I have accumulated six primary sources, 13 books, 14 journals and magazines, and six articles. I am continuing to add additional sources for this book as well as reviewing them to see what I would be able to include in the book. In addition, I created a draft of an outline for the book to help plan how the book will be organized.
To support this book, I created a Buy Me a Coffee page offering paintings, memberships, and other rewards to show my appreciation for contributing to the book project. Once the book is completed, you have the option to be named in the book in the acknowledgment section.
If you wish to make contributions, you are more than welcome to do so. You can also share the links below to introduce more people to this book project. I have also included the link to my Buy Me a Coffee site.
Last week the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) made an announcement about additional funding dedicated to professional development for museum professionals. I emphasized in each blog post I wrote about professional development programs I participated in on how significant they are, especially for museum professionals. The recent news from IMLS explained what the additional funding would mean for museums and museum professionals. According to their website, when the Fiscal Year 2020 was passed on December 20, 2019 IMLS was allocated an additional $3 million through the largest program Museums for America and plans to invest this additional funding towards improving the recruitment, preparation, and professional development of museum professionals.
Museums for America is a program that supports projects to strengthen the ability of an individual museum to serve its public. This program has three categories: Lifelong Learning, Community Anchors and Catalysts, and Collections Stewardship and Public Access.
What does this mean for museum professionals? We would be able to develop our skills to improve the quality of our field and of our work with the public. I hope that with this funding it will help support improvements on onboarding, recruiting, training, and creating a healthy workplace. There is a lot of progress on making museums a better place to work but we do have a long way to go. Recent news about the former executive who worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the sexual harassment complaints against him is an example of what museum professionals face in the workplace (see the links below on the coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer). While we are working to make up for ill treatment within the museum workplace, we need to work on the source of the problems and hopefully more museums will be able to access museum professional development opportunities IMLS has to offer.
On their website, they stated the $3 million will be channeled through two special funding opportunities under Museums for America called Museums Empowered, Grants for Professional Development and Inspire! Grants for Small Museums. Museums Empowered allows museums to use the funds in four specific professional development categories: improving organizational effectiveness, evaluation practices, digital stewardship, and diversity and inclusion. Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a program that supports small museums’ capacity building efforts related to collections, learning, and community at their institutions. The IMLS also included highlights of how professional development offerings make an impact on museums and museum professionals:
• National Leadership Grants for Museums, realigned in 2018, now offers dedicated project categories for professional development and diversity and inclusion that allow museum associations, universities, and other non-profits to seek funding that can amplify collaborations, offer training, and develop tools and promising practices for the entire sector.
• The Museums for America, African American History and Culture, and Native American and Native Hawaiian grant programs continue to offer individual museums and tribes support for leadership development and diversity, equity, and inclusion work, as well as building a pipeline of new professionals.
• The Museum Assessment Program and Collections Assessment for Preservation program cooperative agreements with the American Alliance of Museums and Foundation for Advancement in Conservation continue to provide much needed technical assistance and capacity building help to smaller museums.
To check out more information about IMLS and the programs it offers, visit their website: www.imls.gov.
This past weekend I attended a fundraiser event called the Snow Ball, and this year’s theme was the 100th Anniversary of the Ratification of the 19th Amendment. According to the United States Constitution, the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote and was ratified on August 18, 1920. The fundraiser was for the Mill Museum located in Willimantic, Connecticut. The Mill Museum decided this year’s Snow Ball theme to introduce their upcoming exhibit opening in mid-February called Unlacing the Corset, Unleashing the Vote, and the associated lectures to bring the history alive. In addition to dancing along with live music from local band The Flamingos and participating in the silent auction, each table had a black box to collect 1920s ballots for a mock election; the results will be posted on their Facebook page. We will see if the result is different from the 1920 results when women first had the right to vote.
Centerpiece from Snow Ball
After attending the Snow Ball, I reflected on the significance of the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. It is incredible that it has been only 100 years that women were able to voice their views by participating in voting in state and federal elections. A lot of American women, including my great-grandmothers, were able to vote for the first time. It also took close to one hundred years to see a woman attempt to run for president, and this year at the time of this post we have three women running for president. We could potentially elect a female president one hundred years after the 19th Amendment was ratified. There is so much we still need to accomplish for equity rights for all American citizens.
Ever since the Mill Museum fundraiser I wanted to find out what other museums are also commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment. For instance, the National Archives Museum has an exhibit Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote, that can be visited in person and virtually on their website, which highlights the relentless struggle of diverse activists throughout U.S. history to secure voting rights for all American women. It will be open from Friday, May 10, 2019 to Sunday, January 3, 2021.
There is also a 200-year old house located a block from the U.S. Capitol called the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument; it served as the headquarters for the National Women’s Party founded by women’s suffrage leader Alice Paul in 1916. The National Park Service operates a museum about the suffrage movement and the fight for women’s rights out of the historic house, and ranger-led tours are run Wednesdays through Sundays at 9:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
At the National Museum of American History, an exhibit called American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith which opened in June 2017. The exhibit focuses on the changing political ideals and principles of the nation, citizenship in a pluralistic society, and political participation and engagement. One of the objects that is featured in the exhibit is the table on which Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments.
Another example of an exhibit celebrating the women’s suffrage is one I visited last November at the Middlebury Museum of Art during the New England Museum Association (NEMA) conference week. The exhibit discussed the question “Should American women vote?” and why many have not considered this question until the last century. Inside the exhibit, there were vintage photographs, banners, and memorabilia that coincided with the 100th anniversary.
Many museums are doing various exhibits, events, and programs to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. I included links to the ones I referred to and the ones I found in my search.
What museums do you know are celebrating the 100th anniversary? How are you going to commemorate the 100th anniversary?
Looking Back, Moving Forward in Museum Education! 