Media Advisory -- Press Preview of “Creating Icons: How We Remember Woman Suffrage”

New Exhibition To Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

WHAT:          The National Museum of American History will host a press open
                        house for its exhibition for “Creating Icons: How We Remember
                        Woman Suffrage.”

WHEN:          Wednesday, March 4
                        10 a.m. to noon

WHERE:         Smithsonian's National Museum of American History
                        Constitution Avenue entrance, between 12th and 14th streets N.W.
                        Nicholas F. and Eugenia Taubman Gallery; Second Floor West    

WHO:            Anthea M. Hartig, Elizabeth MacMillan Director, National Museum of
                              American History
                        Lisa Kathleen Graddy, curator, National Museum of American History
                        Claire Jerry, curator, National Museum of American History

“Creating Icons: How We Remember Woman Suffrage” will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, recognizing women’s right to vote. Highlighting women’s achievements in winning suffrage, the exhibition invites audiences to explore how the country celebrates milestones, what people as a nation remember, what (and who) has been forgotten or silenced over time and how those exclusions continue to impact women’s politics and activism.

Using a jewel-box approach, the museum will display more than 60 artifacts and graphics, interweaving stories of the famous and the forgotten. At the center of the exhibition are materials donated between 1919 and 1920 by the National American Woman Suffrage Association including a 6-foot-tall portrait of Susan B. Anthony. The continuing fight for women’s rights is told in two cases highlighting the National Women’s Conference in 1977 and the 2017 National Women’s March. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s gavel is in a case highlighting the women of the 116th Congress.

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Media only:

Valeska Hilbig
202-633-3129
hilbigv@si.edu

Melinda Machado
202-633-3129
machadom@si.edu