Searching for Ourselves in the National Museum of American History

When Secretary Lew announced last year that a woman would be joining Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, he brought the complicated relationship between women and public history back into the spotlight. All around the country, people were being asked to choose a woman – just one woman – important enough to our national identity that she deserves representation on our money. Although it may feel new to many people, this seemingly simple question is just the latest echo in a canyon of repetitions. The Treasury struggled with this same question when they created the Susan B. Anthony and the Sacagawea dollar coins. Women’s rights groups struggled with this question as they sought the public ear without the benefit of a single, charismatic leader. And those who want to commission and fund public monuments, statues, and history museums struggle with this question when they are told that women simply haven’t done anything important enough to deserve equal representation – at least not the same way that men have.

Haven’t they, though? I was curious, having read so many books and seen so many films that show women doing some pretty remarkable things, why “remarkable” wasn’t quite enough to deserve a statue, say, or a plaque in a museum. Like all good questions, this one simply wouldn’t let me be. So, after listening carefully to diverse points of view, I decided to go and see for myself. Figuring I’d go straight to the source, I started with the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. After all, where else in the United States does one go for an authoritative presentation of our national history?

Problem is, I came away just as conflicted as I went in. My purpose was simple: find the women in the museum. Find them, and then note not only where they are but how they are represented. The first part proved easy: women showed up in displays about household inventions, in life-size dioramas of trains and vehicles, and in a hall filled with sparkling gowns worn by the First Ladies of our nation. Women popped up as television chefs, immigrants, and businesswomen. The display of the “Star-Spangled Banner” included a detailed description of the women who stitched it together; the displays on America at war featured a number of descriptions of women’s contributions, both at home and overseas.

So women have made important contributions to our nation, I was pleased to see. As a woman, it was inspiring to see other women at work, building homes, families, companies, communities, and the nation.

It was during my second pass through the exhibits that the trouble started. Yes, women were there, but it was the way they were shown in the exhibits that puzzled me. For example, one of the largest exhibits in the museum is “America on the Move,” telling the story of mechanized transportation in the United States. The locomotives, trolleys, busses and cars on display are impressive; they are accented with life-size mannequins of people driving, working, and riding in them. And the women are there – riding the trolley, waiting for the train, setting the table for dinner in a travel trailer, helping her husband buy a car. Most are shown next to (or pregnant with) children. Based only on what I saw in the exhibit, on where and how the women are placed, I would conclude that women are passengers; men, not women, are the builders, the mechanics, the drivers.

Why, exactly, is this a problem? Women do ride trains and go camping; men do drive trucks and buses. Women also drive cars and work as mechanics; men also ride the subway and have children. But that reality is not reflected in the exhibit. In terms of the roles of men and women and their preferred modes of travel, past and present, what I experience in my own life and what I am shown in the museum are at complete odds with each other. And that is just one example of many. The women I know, both personally and from history, are not satisfied being passengers, reliant upon and subject to the authority of men; they make their own way, drive and direct their own lives.

Does it matter that, in our national history museum, only women are shown as poor, as immigrants? Does it matter that the only place women are shown in an exhibit about invention is in the case with the electric mixers and vacuum cleaners? Does it matter that women are shown cooking, doing laundry, selecting china patterns, dressing pretty? Does it matter that almost every woman in the entire museum is defined by her relationship to men and associated with domestic objects and activities?

I think it does. Women are so much more than these things. At least, all the women I know (and know of) are more than these things. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, we can give popular media a pass for perpetuating unrealistic stereotypes about women. Maybe we can even understand why our politicians, our religions, or our other trusted cultural institutions do the same. Maybe.

As the popularly acknowledged authority on public history, however, the National Museum of American History has a greater responsibility toward its visitors. People look to the Smithsonian Institution to tell them the “true” story of a collective past – how we should think about and remember the people and events that together have shaped who we are today. Using objects as their evidence, they have been charged with the solemn task of providing us, the American public, with a usable and relevant story about ourselves.

Unfortunately, unless you are white and male, you probably won’t find much that is usable or relevant there. I suppose this is why the Native American and African American communities thought it was necessary to build museums of their own: to guarantee themselves a hopeful future, they needed a representative past, one built without the interference of oppressive alternate tellings they could not otherwise avoid.

As do we all. As do we all.