The House of Representatives Has Overwhelmingly Voted to Establish a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum

The House of Representatives has passed a bill to establish a
new Smithsonian museum for women’s history. If completed, it would
be the 20th museum in the Smithsonian Institution, which
most recently expanded with the opening of the National Museum of African American History and
Culture in September 2016.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York introduced the
bipartisan bill last March, in honor of
Women’s History Month, along with representatives Brian
Fitzpatrick, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Brenda Lawrence. It now has
293 co-sponsors in total. A companion piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Susan
Collins of Maine and Dianne Feinstein of California, is still
working its way through the Senate.

“This museum is so important because if we fail to recognize
women, we cannot empower them,” Maloney said in a statement. “But women’s
stories have been largely excluded from history textbooks.” She
pointed out that of the 2,500 national historic landmarks in the
US, only five percent of them are devoted to women’s
accomplishments. “Seeing role models doing things we all aspire to
can change the course of someone’s life. Women and men of all ages
deserve to see and be inspired by the remarkable women who helped
shape this nation.”

Tuesday’s vote for the women’s history museum, which passed 374
to 37, is an important step in what has already been a long
process. The first time Maloney introduced legislation for the
museum was back in 1998. Her most recent effort, in 2017, was never
brought to a vote, despite having 257 co-sponsors. But there have
been signs of progress in recent years.

In 2014, Congress formed the Women’s History Congressional
Commission to evaluate the need for and feasibility of a
new national museum dedicated to women’s history. After two years,
the commission called on Congress to move forward with the proposed
institution, citing a need to showcase women’s contributions to the
nation. After Donald Trump took office, the bipartisan
group called on the
president to support the initiative.

And the Smithsonian has taken note of the calls to recognize
women’s roles in US history, establishing in 2017 a $2
million American Women’s History Initiative, the
research and documentation project called “Because of Her Story.”
Since then, it has raised nearly $10 million for exhibitions and
programming about women, hired four curators dedicated to women’s
history and 13 paid interns, and published a book,
Smithsonian American Women, about collection objects
belonging to women.

Under the new legislation, the Smithsonian board of regents will
have six months to select a site for the new museum, “with priority
given to a site that is on or near the National Mall.” But it will
still be years—perhaps a decade or longer—before the museum opens
to the public. (Establishing the African American History Museum
took nearly 30 years—15 to pass a bill authorizing the museum and
another 13 to build it.)

If the “Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Act”
passes in the Senate, the next step will be securing funding. The
construction costs for the building, which is expected to be around
350,000 square feet, will total $242 million over the next 10
years, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget
Office. Factor in the cost of staffing and exhibitions, and the
total cost is pegged at $375 million, expected to be split equally
between federal and private funding.

“We look forward to working with Congress and supporters
nationwide to illuminate the profound impact women have had on the
American story,” read a statement from
Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch, who was
the founding director of the African American History
Museum.

The women’s museum might not be the only new addition to the
Smithsonian in the works. A museum for Latin American history soon
may follow. Following yesterday’s vote, the Friends of the American
Latino Museum issued a press release calling
for a vote on a bill from Representatives José Serrano, Will
Hurd, and Tony Cardenas to establish a museum for Latino history.
The proposed legislation has 294 co-sponsors.

“Despite countless contributions to America’s economy, fighting
in every one of our wars, and positively impacting every aspect of
society, the story of Latinos in the United States has been largely
absent from Smithsonian museums and the time to change that is
now,” said Danny Vargas, chairman of the Friends of the National
Museum of the American Latino’s board, in a statement. “The
tremendous support for this legislation in Congress demonstrates
just how powerful our community’s stories are in filling the gaps
in our history.”

Meanwhile, a bill for opening a National Museum of Asian
Pacific American History and Culture, introduced by
Congresswoman Grace Meng in July, has 19 co-sponsors.

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Voted to Establish a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum
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