Preserving the international museum of women: an interview with Marie Williams Chant

Abstract

In the early days of the Web, the International Museum of Women emerged with the mission to highlight the achievements of women throughout history. Headquartered in San Francisco, the museum experimented with the rise of new digital technologies and evolved into a virtual museum with global outreach. Through innovative online approaches, they actively engaged communities around the world and gathered perspectives from a wide spectrum of visitors, whose voices were included in the exhibition narratives. In order to safeguard the museum’s legacy and its groundbreaking digital exhibitions, The Feminist Institute in New York launched a digital preservation initiative, working closely with the Global Fund for Women, a non-profit foundation that merged with the International Museum of Women in 2014. On July 31, 2023, we conducted an interview with Marie Williams Chant, Director of Archives and Special Projects, to delve into the museum’s historical significance. We also discussed their archival strategies and procedures, along with its potential impact on the museum’s legacies.

Keywords:

• Web archiving
• online museums
• virtual exhibitions
• the Feminist Institute
• International Museum of Women

Acknowledgements

We like to thank Marie Williams Chant for her valuable insights and collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The interview has been edited for improved readability and accuracy.

2 The “California Woman Suffrage 1870-1911” exhibition opened in 1986 and was dedicated to women’s voting rights campaigns in California. The first public program of the International Museum of Women was dedicated to Sarah Wallis, pioneer of the Suffrage movement and the first President of the California Woman Suffrage Educational Association.

3 “Imagining Ourselves: A Global Generation of Women” launched in 2006 was an award-winning exhibition online exhibition addressing the question What defines your generation of women? and featuring public submitted content from more than 100 countries globally.

4 In addition, Social media also played a role developing collaborative exhibitions. The participants of Young Women Speaking the Economy used Facebook and other social media tools as a part of the exhibition’s development.

5 ‘Mama: Motherhood around the globe’ launched in 2012 was an online exhibition dedicated to motherhood and maternal health.

6 “IGNITE: Women fueling science & technology” in 2014 was a global media project explored the role of women in scientific and technological innovation. The Feminist Institute. “Storify” was a social media network platform open to the public from 2011 until 2018 allowing users to create stories or timelines by using content of other media sources such as Tweeter, Facebook or Instragram.

7 Old Web Today (OldWeb.today) is an emulating system allowing users to browse the web (live web, current websites, web archives) through a variety of emulated browsers.

8 Clara database of woman artists is an interactive database providing information on 18.000 women visual artists from all periods and nationalities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ismini Kyritsis

Ismini Kyritsis holds a master’s degree from Leiden University in Museums and Collections. Her master thesis “Rapid Response Collecting in times of COVID: A new path in museums identity?” explored how the extensive engagement with contemporary collecting during the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the collecting activities of museums and possibly opened new prospects in their identity as social institutions. Her interests revolve around digital arts and culture as well as museum digital collecting and exhibition strategies.

Karin de Wild

Karin de Wild is Assistant Professor in Contemporary Museum and Collection Studies at Leiden University (The Netherlands). Her research involves digital collections and the history of museums on the Web. Before joining Leiden University, she was a digital fellow in the “One by One” research at the University of Leicester (School of Museum Studies). She completed a Ph.D. in Digital Heritage at the University of Dundee (UK) and in her past life as curator and researcher, she collaborated with a wide range of museums including SFMOMA (US), Tate Modern (UK), the National Museum of World Cultures (NL) and the National Museums of Scotland (UK).