Women of the west.

• Author: Ott, Christopher
• Position: New museum about women's contributions to western America, The Women of the West, Boulder, Colorado - Brief Article

IF PEOPLE THINK at all about women's contributions to the development of the western United States, they're likely to come up with images of colorful characters like Calamity Jane, white men's wives along for the ride in westbound covered wagons, or maybe Lewis and Clark's guide, Sacajawea. Not many know about the contributions of women to the founding of hospitals and schools throughout the West, or that settlers--women and men of many different cultural backgrounds--came from all points on the compass, not just east. The Women of the West Museum, currently scheduled for a 2001 opening in Boulder, Colorado, aims to change all that. The idea for the museum came to Toni Dewey, a former corporate vice president at Motorola, in 1991, when she became interested in the "avalanche" of scholarship on the roles that women played in the development of the West. However, Dewey found to her disappointment that only three of the roughly eight thousand museums in the United States deal with women's history in a significant way.

Seven years later, plans are well under way for a 100,000-square-foot museum of sandstone and glass, designed by architect Joan M. Sorrano. The Women of the West Museum will be built on sixteen-and-a-half acres of land on long-term lease from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and corporations like AT&T, Motorola, and General Motors have given early support. All the living former first ladies of the United States have also endorsed the project and serve as honorary trustees. The museum will feature exhibitions as well as a library and archive for diaries, letters, and other original documents. About 200,000 visitors are expected each year.

Museum plans call for a deliberate effort to showcase the multicultural nature of the West's history. According to Marsha L. Semmel, the museum's director and chief executive officer, "The sense of the whole West as a meeting ground for many diverse peoples is central to the museum's message."

Semmel noted that one of the most important immigrations to "the West" was actually to the north, from Latin America. A series of "Meeting Point" exhibitions will explore significant encounters between...