Women optimistic about drive for a women's history museum

[jaxx]

<snip> After that victory, the organizers kept bringing up the idea that Washington, and the Mall in particular, was ignoring an important swath of American history and needed a women's history museum. Their legislative fight began with the sponsors suggesting existing locations, such as the annex at the Old Post Office Building and the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries building.

<snip> Backers have accumulated $8 million and say they sense some momentum. But there's the Washington caveat: Two senators, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), placed a hold on the measure in July, blocking a vote before the full Senate. "At a time when we face a crushing national debt of more than $13 trillion and annual deficits of more than $1 trillion, it is simply not the appropriate role of this Congress to approve legislation with the potential to put taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars for purposes of establishing an entity that is duplicative of more than 100 existing federal, state, and private efforts," Coburn wrote in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

<snip> Meryl Streep summed up the frustration at a fundraising dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel recently: "We are not asking for a check -- we want to give them a check."

The actress has been the campaign's honorary spokeswoman since 2006, when she made a video appealing for support. The museum would tell the story of women, some famous and others forgotten, who contributed to American history, sports, politics, medicine, business and culture. To increase their campaign's visibility, the staff of the museum effort and historians have created an online museum, with features such as a history of women in early film, and developed education materials for teachers and traveling exhibits. The online museum, NWHM.org, links to 28,000 education institutions, the organizers say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100100048.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

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I would love to see this museum become a reality. To think that women have been ignored in the history of this country's growth is not portraying the true struggles throughout the years. The known, and the important unknown, women who have shaped the destiny of the USA need to be documented for all to see. Think of the pictures of history...the woman from the dustbowl is epic. The covered wagon journeys, the underground railroad women who risked it all to free the slaves, the women who got out there and secured voting rights....the list is endless.

If you are interested, contact your senators. And tell DeMint and Coburn to go to hell.