My colleague here, Vicki Woolard, has just submitted a substantial
Masters these to Leicester University Dept. of Museum Studies on Mollie
Harrison, one of the 20th century pioneers of museum education in the UK
(and indeed internationally through ICOM and UNESCO) - particularly
through her work with the Geffrye historical museum in London.  No doubt
this thesis will become available in due course.

My impression is that proportionately far more senior museum directors
were women in the USA in particular in the first half of the century than we
have seen in more recent times (as in librarianship and school headships, to
talk two other examples) and I have come across quite a number of obituary
appreciations of such pioneering figures recently when working
through the professional literature in relation to the forthcoming 50th
anniversary history of ICOM.

I know that Jane Glaser of the Smithsonian has been interested in these
issues for a long time, and probably has far more specific bibliographic
references than I have - though I cannot think of any over-view
parallelling for museum staff the growing number of substantial
historical works on women artists.  Jane is a very activer MUSEUM-L-er
and will no doubt speak up for herself on this!


Patrick Boylan

=================================================

On Fri, 26 Apr 1996, Stacey Howe wrote:

> I am interested in researching the contributions of women in
> the development of museums.  Alexander's _Museums in Motion_ is
> a solid overview of the history of museums but he doesn't mention women's
> contributions.
>
> I have done some preliminary investigation at my university but
> have not turned up any works specifically devoted to this
> topic.
>
> Could you all recommend other sources of information?
>
> Thank you.
> Stacey Howe
> [log in to unmask]
> --
> *******************************************************************
> Stacey Howe                                     [log in to unmask]
> Instructional Technology                     University of Virginia
> *"The question is not what you look at, but what you see"--Thoreau*
>