Women's Museum of California

Our main community event is the annual production of the San Diego County Women's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Dinner, now in its 13th year in partnership with the San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women, SDSU and UCSD's Women's Center. Each year 5 local women are selected for induction into the Hall of Fame in recognition of her life's work and contributions to the community of San Diego. The Induction Ceremony is held in the community and attended by a wide and diverse audience including many school students who assist in production of the event. The event pays for itself through sponsors and sales of dinner tickets. In addition, we produce the annual Suffrage Parade in Balboa Park as a way to acknowledge Women's Suffrage Day each August. Public concerts which promote and support women artists draw between 500 and 1000 visitors. We participate with other museums in Dia de los Museos bringing arts and cultural education to under-served parts of our community.

We offer two traveling exhibits to the community: "Women Who Dare", 11 pillars highlighting the lives of 22 women from the Americas from 1600 to the present who made contributions to their community despite societal pressures upon their gender and "A Moral Earthquake" an eight panel exhibit illustrating the role San Diego women played in winning the vote for women in California. These exhibits are installed in city and school libraries for 2 to 4 accompanied by written material in both English and Spanish. We also offer academic speakers to present to students at no charge to the school.Part of our historic clothing collection includes replicas of fashions from 1600 to 1970. We offer to the community an hour clothing presentation which describes the social impact of women's clothing and what the fashion tells us about women's lives of the time. The program utilizes student volunteer as models who experience working with the public and understanding how history can be interpreted.

Our library of over 5000 books is a unique collection of books, journals and magazines which focus entirely on the history and experience of women's work, lives and experiences in America. It includes rare books as well as a contemporary selection written by, for and about women. The library is available to members for reading and research and is a prime resource in much of our programming. We have utilized the library for curriculum for many student projects. The titles of our current collection is available on-line to the public through our website. We are able to fulfill requests for information from researchers and students both locally and beyond San Diego. In addition, our archive collection which was begun in 1983 is a rich, broad and deep resource both both exhibit material and research demands. Students often have the opportunity to work in the archives both in assessment and in cataloging.

With our exhibition space now three times as large as our previous location, we have been striving to balance the installation of both permanent exhibits and temporary exhibits which change every 2 to three months. Our current permanent exhibits include: Origins of the Women's Museum 1983 to 2012; The March Toward Empowerment: the US Suffrage Movement; Women Trailblazers of California; and the San Diego County Women's Hall of Fame Interactive Exhibit. Next we will install the Second Wave of Feminism: 1969 to 1979 as a permanent part of the exhibition space. This allows us to mount 6 rotating exhibitions in the Gallery every year. Our immediate past exhibits included: a juried art show "Capturing the Wonder of Women"; "Women of the Issei Generation: 1942; a one woman Show "Francine Filsinger"; "Wonder Woman: On paper and off"; "Viva el Mariachi Feminil - 1903 - 2013"; "The Guts Behind the Glamour: 1920 - 1930. In 2014, the Women Artists of the West annual exhibition and paint off.

The Women's Museum of California hosts this multi-day festival annually in an effort to provide female storytellers a platform to share their work, connect with each other and a uniquely supportive audience.