The New-York Historical Society plans to establish a new Center for the Study of Women’s History, to be included within the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, the society announced on Friday. The center, which will include both permanent and rotating exhibitions, is expected to open in December 2016.
“The new Center for Women’s History will become a destination for discovery of the crucial role that New York women played in our nation’s social, political and cultural evolution as women struggled for and eventually won the right to vote,” Dr. Louise Mirrer, the society’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “We will highlight the women who changed the course of our history, giving voice, in many cases, to the voiceless, and who ushered in the Progressive era and emerged triumphant in the struggle for women’s suffrage.”
Among the new center’s features will be an all-glass Tiffany Gallery, designed by Eva Jiricna, which will house a permanent exhibition that looks at the accomplishments of New York women at the turn of the 20th century, and includes timeline of women’s history. A multimedia film by Donna Lawrence that explores the work of notable women – among them Eleanor Roosevelt, Zora Neale Hurston and Margaret Sanger – will be shown in a new 1,750-square-foot theater.
The space will also include a virtual wall of women’s history, with touch-screen displays, and the Skylight Room, also designed by Ms. Jiricna, for use by visiting teachers and students, or for conferences. Educational programs, symposiums and seminars and an annual conference on 19th- and early-20th-century women’s history are in the society’s plans.