[BCMA] women in museums

Sat Apr 5 11:58:27 PDT 2014

Hello Lorraine,

Timely topic, but don’t get hung-up on the past (i.e. history). Women are the future in museums, and I say this on two counts:
  a.. Women flock to the available jobs in small museums where they appear much more than men to have the staying power despite low wages on one hand and a deep interest in connecting (indeed bonding) with community groups on the other: 
  b.. Women students are now proportionately a much larger cohort in the humanities than men, meaning as we look ahead,  generally they will be better trained to fill low -and mid-level museum roles.
The upper echelons of larger museums plainly are still a male preserve, but as we also know, that’s true of the corporate world, too. As women move more and more into business programmes, however, they’ll work there way into those executive jobs on a scale at least equal to men, and I expect much more.

So, for me the question is not how or when women rise to take museum leadership, for they will dominate in time – at least in our country – but what kind of institutions will they shape and steer? To date the trend is society over science as women’s focus. And that in turn has a definite, strong economic component, too: most Canadian museums need very strong community input – volunteers, school groups, tourists, rentals – to survive financially. In short, there is an a priori argument for society over science as the future path.

Now, I believe that institutional transformation provides the true historical context in which to study the role of women or men or both in museums. In other words, come in from the top, not the bottom or sides.

Dan Gallacher  

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Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 12:21 PM
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Subject: Re: [BCMA] women in museums

Hi Lorraine,

There are quite a few cases of women working as paid or unpaid curators or staff (sometimes alongside their husbands) in the early twentieth century. For one example, check out Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums by Michael M. Ames, about the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Another example is the Australian Museum’s series of blog articles about Elsie Bramell and other early women workers. The links to the Australian Museum’s blog are http://australianmuseum.net.au/Elsie-Bramell, http://australianmuseum.net.au/blogpost/Museullaneous/International-Womens-Day, http://australianmuseum.net.au/australian-museum-history. The Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford had influential staff member Beatrice Blackwood. Her story is here: http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/b_blackwood.html. 

Many large museums have records of their early staff and departments, and increasingly these are being shared with researchers through blogs and online archives. These departmental histories are a good source for information about female staff.

Good luck!

Julianna Weisgarber

Event & Volunteer Coordinator

Central BC Railway & Forestry Museum

Prince George, BC

From: bcma-bounces at lists.vvv.com [mailto:bcma-bounces at lists.vvv.com] On Behalf Of Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 10:07 AM
To: BCMA at lists.vvv.com
Subject: [BCMA] women in museums

Dear BCMA,

I am doing some research about the historical role of women in museums, whether as curators, educators, benefactors, etc., or as subjects of collections and exhibitions. Does anyone have any idea of a good source of information, big or small, for this subject?

Thanks very much,

Lorraine Bell

-- 
Lorraine Bell

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