National Women's History Museum

“Determined to Rise” Traveling Lecture Series:
The Museum’s approach in developing the series has been to explore the suffrage movement from multiple fascinating angles, starting with women who were active in African American abolitionist groups in the 1830s and continuing through the Civil War, the Progressive Era, and other key periods.

“Determined to Rise” Capstone Publication
Exploring, preserving, and sharing key ideas from the lecture series.
Inspired by the quality and power of discussions that took place during the “Determined to Rise” lecture series, the Museum is bringing the series to a close with the publication of an anthology of related writings. One participant from each panel is authoring an original essay related to the session’s theme. The digital publication will commemorate the “Determined to Rise” celebration and allow those unable to attend events live to share in the ideas explored.

Regional Public Programs
Reaching audiences across the region and nation.
These quarterly events range from film screenings and artistic performances to lectures and facilitated conversations over dinner or cocktails. Their goal is to reach both women’s history enthusiasts and non-traditional museum audiences through engaging encounters with issues and ideas related to the experience of women and non-binary individuals—expanding awareness and generating meaningful dialogue.

Distinguished Lecturers Program
Connecting host organizations with engaging and informative speakers.
The Distinguished Lecturers Program is a speakers bureau, through which cultural organizations and others interested in hosting lectures can identify eminent scholars prepared to speak on a variety of topics related to women’s history and contributions. Host organizations reimburse speakers for their expenses, while lecture fees go entirely to NWHM’s Women’s History Education Fund.

A Different Point of View: The Magazine
Presenting stories of women’s history and sharing NWHM news.
Published quarterly, A Different Point of View highlights updates from the Museum and presents articles exploring both historical topics and contemporary women’s issues. A benefit offered to the Museum’s Charter Members, the magazine reaches an audience of more than 20,000 readers.

Mentoring the next generation of museum professionals, scholars, and public historians, while supporting the best in scholarly research.

Summer and Semester Internships
The Museum sponsors summer and semester internships for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates who are studying history, museum studies, women’s or gender studies, or related fields.

Predoctoral Fellowships in Women’s History and Gender Studies
This two-year program provides an opportunity for Ph.D. students in the humanities or recent master’s-level graduates to gain experience as research associates and in providing programmatic support to the Museum’s Education Department.

Summer Education Fellow
This fellowship award provides an opportunity for a teacher or educator, working virtually, to devote a summer to supporting the Museum’s programs for schools, students, and educators.

NWHM Study Collection
Established in 2008, NWHM’s donor-supported Study Collection includes art, books, and historical ephemera from the mid-19th century through the present day. The Collection is housed at the NWHM offices in Alexandria, VA, and open to scholars, students, and the general public by appointment.

NWHM Resource Library
A growing collection of source material on women’s lives and accomplishments. Open to students, scholars, and history enthusiasts, the NWHM Resource Library offers a sizeable array of biographies, autobiographies and books about women in STEM, the media, the visual arts, and the military, as well as a variety of other topics. Visitors may also explore NWHM’s institutional archives, with holdings from 1996 through 2019, including early NWHM incorporation papers, web content, newsletters, and event collateral.

“Where Are the Women?” Curricular Research
An influential research project on the place of women in social studies course content.
In 2017, NWHM launched a groundbreaking research project, a quantitative analysis examining the inclusion of women in social studies standards and textbooks in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The resulting widely cited report revealed striking gaps and imbalances in the curriculum and has prompted numerous efforts to augment content focusing on women’s impact and contributions. The study led the Museum to develop substantial content to support educators in delivering high-quality curriculum focused on women’s history. NWHM is now shaping plans for a follow-up study, slated for 2022, to trace curricular changes over the five years since the original research.

Providing resources to help schools make women’s history a more meaningful, memorable part of the curriculum.

Virtual Field Trips: Bringing the museum experience into homes and schools virtually.

Through this Zoom-based program, teachers, homeschoolers, and program planners nationwide can invite an NWHM museum educator into their classroom (organization, business, or home!) to share a live presentation on a curated selection of topics in women’s history, such as women in STEM, woman suffrage, and the civil rights movement. Content can be tailored to students in grades 3 though 12, or for extracurricular groups.

Digital Classroom Resources: Extensive materials to help educators teach women’s history effectively.
The Museum provides a wealth of classroom-ready resources, available to view or download through its website. Students and teachers will also find a variety of primary source materials, and for younger children, Brave Girls Story Time, archived videos of readings from engaging works of children’s literature.

Girl Scouts Workshops and Merit Badge Programs
Special opportunities for learning and achievement for girls ages 5-17.NWHM has partnered with the Girls Scouts to create three programs focusing on uniquely valuable themes: the Behind the Ballot merit badge, which explores voting rights, suffrage, and elections; Playing the Past, a badge option, through which girls take on the personas of a women from history and perform in costume; and Budgeting Workshop, which teaches young scouts how to track spending, save money, and develop a budget.

Coming Up!

Women’s History PlungeTM: An engaging educational game.
Currently in the prototyping stage, Women’s History PlungeTM will allow both children and adults to explore women’s history through several enjoyable and instructive games played with a set of card decks each featuring notable women. The game will be rolled out through a series of classroom workshops conducted in collaboration with Washington, D.C., Public Schools.

The Inclusive Museum: Empowering students as curators of their own women’s history exhibits.
This K-12 program, to be piloted in partnership with Washington, D.C., Public Schools, is designed to guide student curators through the challenging and fascinating process of researching, developing, presenting, and evaluating their own women’s history exhibits for their schools. Working with NWHM museum educators, students will hone key abilities ranging from research, writing, and analysis to collaborative decision-making.

Bringing women’s history to life through accessible, high-quality, and innovative online content.

Online Exhibits: Fascinating topics in women’s history revealed in words and images.
NWHM develops virtual exhibits that explore notable topics in women’s history with richness and interactivity. Members of NWHM’s Scholars Advisory Council, a committee of eminent scholars, carefully vet exhibits for accuracy.

NWHM Biography Project: 150 inspiring lives—and counting.
The Museum has compiled biographies of a diverse array of eminent women, both historical and contemporary, who have made an impact on our nation’s history. An ever-evolving tribute, the Biography Project grows by over 50 new stories each year. NWHM biographies are frequently referenced by researchers, textbook editors, journalists, students, and educators and stand out as highly readable resources, fully accessible to a range of interested audience members.

Know Her Story Videos: Biographies of notable women presented in engaging one-minute segments.
Shared through the Museum’s YouTube channel, each video provides a sixty-second overview of an eminent or influential woman or a notable period in history shaped by women’s activism and actions.
History Glimpses: Brief articles exploring dozens of little-known yet important topics in women’s history.
These two- and three-page articles, spotlight moments, movements, and personalities from women’s history through a multitude of unique lenses.


Rosie the Riveter Oral Histories: Audio interviews with women working on the home front in WWII.
As American men left the industrial labor force to enlist during World War II, some two million American women took jobs in the war economy, making their mark in domains that had been almost entirely male. This small sampling of oral histories aims to capture through firsthand accounts the life-transforming and society-changing experiences of these “Rosie the Riveters.”

Chronicles of American Women: Your History Makers Submissions from NWHM visitors recognizing women they’ve known and known about.
This inclusive and interactive program welcomes any visitor to the NWHM website who is a supporter of the Museum to honor the life and legacy of a woman the visitor has known, whether she is now living or dead. The program reflects the belief that we all share ownership of history, and that lives and achievements of every kind deserve a place in the historical record.

Women on the Web Link Guide: A wealth of resources to explore beyond NWHM.
From Muslim Girl to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Web offers vast riches of well-presented information on women’s history and women’s lives today. The Link Guide collects some of the very best online resources, providing access to high-quality content from more than three dozen organizations, and the list continues to grow.

When the COVID pandemic upended daily life, including the school routines of most American students and teachers, requests for online learning opportunities flooded into NWHM. Staff responded with a series of new and expanded o!erings, useful to educators now teaching remotely, to parents now home schooling, or to anyone seeking a virtual cultural experience while confined at home.

Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project
Recording the experiences and insights of women as history is made.
Through this exciting project, NWHM is enlisting the partnership of women across the country and around the world in recording history as it happens, specifically by documenting their unique experiences during the global COVID pandemic. The program has swelled to include 1,225 participants from across the United States and other countries, including Poland, the U.K., Sweden, Colombia, and Argentina.

NWHM Presents! features Zoom-based virtual workshops through which NWHM offers live presentations on a variety of topics in women’s history. These include author talks, film screenings, culinary demonstrations, and live panel discussions with opportunities for audience members to engage in meaningful dialogue with the presenters, ask questions, and be inspired.