Women's Museum Opens in Dallas

Sept. 29, 2000 -- Ladies first.

The Women’s Museum, the first national museum devoted to women’s history, opened its doors today in Dallas, Texas.

The 70,000-square-foot museum is a nonprofit educational foundation begun by the Austin, Texas-based Foundation for Women’s Resources, and has been funded by nearly $30 million in grants and private donations.

Among the permanent exhibits at the Women’s Museum will be tributes to women who have made indelible contributions to American history, business, technology, sports, art, entertainment, and religious and spiritual affairs.

Interactive displays educate visitors in some of the lesser-known facts and timelines of women’s contributions to the American experience, such as the first woman to run for President (Belva Lockwood, 116 years ago), or the first woman pilot (Blanche Stuart Scott in 1910). Hands-on exhibits, such as the Career Scoreboard, encourage young people to explore a wide range of career choices.

Housed in a renovated coliseum that was once a site for livestock auctions, the site’s architectural history joins with high-tech exhibits to illustrate the museum’s goal: using the struggles of the past to encourage young girls to expand the scope of their dreams.

“The message here is that if you work hard enough and believe in yourself, you can accomplish any great endeavor,” museum founder Cathy Bonner says.

Selecting the Honorees

The museum honors 3,000 women from all walks of life, but for the curators, selecting whom should be honored was no easy task.

“The biggest challenge was deciding what stories to tell first,” Candace O’Keefe, the museum’s executive director, says. “These are not the only stories, the best stories or the most important stories. But they recognize women’s contributions to America.”

Visitors to the museum’s Web site voted online for the most influential women in American history, which became part of an exhibit at the museum called “Unforgettable Women.”

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas is one of those honored. She said the museum shows that “nothing is impossible.”

“I think women have been undersold,” the 80-year-old Thomas says. “The museum can certainly be great in terms of educating young people.”

Thomas, who recently left UPI after covering eight presidents for the news service, now writes a column for Hearst Corp. She said she is pleased to be recognized for a profession that was male-dominated when she joined the White House press corps during the Kennedy administration.

Instructive Interactives

Other exhibits include “Pathways to Health,” which educates visitors about various women’s health issues; and “Cyberspace Connection,” an interactive site where visitors can record their own stories.

The museum also hosts educational programs through its Ronya Kozmetsky Institute for the Future, with specialized courses for individuals and school groups — open to girls and boys — in the sciences, math, computer technology and digital video making. Participants can also join in affiliated programs such as the Mars Millennium Project, which invites students to help design a community for Mars colonists.

In November, the Institute will provide live chats and streaming video broadcasts following Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen in their quest to be the first women to traverse Antarctica.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.