US to establish official museum commemorating women’s history

INCLUDED in the year-land legislation passed by the United States Congress was a provision to establish a women’s history museum in Washington, DC.

The Smithsonian Women’s History Act was the result of years-long efforts backed by politicians from both sides of the aisle and allows for the establishment of a museum on the National Mall, by a combination of public and private funds. 

“For too long, women’s stories have been left out of the telling of our nation’s history, but with this vote, we begin to rectify that,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York said in a statement last week.

The legislation will also establish a National Museum of the American Latino.

Both will be located near the National Mall, with an exact location to be set within two years.

The idea of a women’s museum has been going around Congress since at least 1998, when legislation was put forward to study the issue.

In February of last year, the House, the lower chamber of the US Congress, passed the Smithsonian Women’s History Act to establish the museum. 

But both this bill and the law to establish the Museum of the American Latino was blocked in the upper house of Congress by Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee.

The Smithsonian “should not have an exclusive museum of American Latino history or a museum of women’s history or museum of American men’s history or Mormon history or Asian American history or Catholic history. American history is an inclusive story that should unite us,” he told CNBC.

In the end, however, both proposals ended up included in the legislation passed last week that included all sorts of Covid-19 relief and related benefits.

Maloney said it was “fitting” that the bill establishing the women’s history museum was passed “as we mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment and in the year in which we elected our first woman vice president.”

The 19th Amendment passed 100 years ago gave women in the US a right to vote, the culmination of decades-long efforts by the women’s suffrage movement. 

However, the legislation for both museums will likely take years to bear fruit. 

The most recent example of a museum, the National Museum of African American History was authorised in 2003 but only opened in 2016. – The Vibes, January 5, 2021