The Evolution of the International Museum of Women

The Feminist Institute worked closely with Global Fund for Women to address feminist digital preservation with an initiative to preserve and document the work of the International Museum of Women (IMOW), an innovative digital museum with a mission to inspire creativity, awareness, and action on vital global gender justice issues. Utilizing web archiving technology and migrating exhibition media in obsolete file formats, the TFI staff captured the most recent iterations of the IMOW digital exhibitions and made them available in the TFI Digital Archive.

This two-part blog series will cover the vital legacy of IMOW, the history of IMOW’s digital exhibitions, and our feminist approach to sunsetting this born-digital initiative.

The International Museum of Women (IMOW) began as the Women’s Heritage Museum in 1985 to document women’s history around the world. As a grassroots organization emphasizing local public programming, the Women’s Heritage Museum provided the foundation upon which the International Museum of Women was established. In 1997, the board of directors, led by Elizabeth Colton, began a strategic planning process to create a physical location in San Francisco, California.

The initial building plan, titled “Shooting for the Stars (A Plan for the Women’s Heritage Museum at Presidio) 1995–2035,” was undoubtedly ambitious. The board envisioned building the physical location in the Presidio and adding a coalition of similar women’s museums in South America, Africa, China, Japan, and Eastern Europe around this time.[1] They also elected to change the name from the Women’s Heritage Museum to the International Museum of Women, which better reflected the museum’s new mission and scope.

In 2005, after difficulties with the building project, the institution shifted gears to expanding its audience through a digital-only model, which would allow more people to engage with its exhibitions and programming. [2] IMOW dabbled in digital exhibitions before shifting to this model, including digital companions to the in-person exhibitions Progress of the World’s Women (in collaboration with UNIFEM) in 2000 and Women of the World exhibition in 2001.

The IMOW digital exhibitions were progressive and revolutionary and told critical stories from women worldwide. They also show the progression of web design and technology over the past 15 years.

Launched in 2006, Imagining Ourselves: A Global Generation of Women was a comprehensive digital exhibition that also included a “published anthology, a series of over 100 events in more than thirty countries, and a celebrity blog on Yahoo!.” [3] The exhibition was groundbreaking at launch, incorporating early social networking features and engaging with notable individuals, including Queen Rania of Jordan, Madeleine Albright, and singer Toni Braxton. The exhibition attracted approximately 16 million hits and about one million online visitors from nearly 200 countries in less than a year. [4] Imagining Ourselves curator Paula Goldman won the Anita Borg Social Impact Award in 2007. [5]

The next exhibition, Women, Power, and Politics, launched in March 2008. Curated by Masum Momaya, the exhibition explored how women make a difference in politics worldwide. Through online exhibitions, community-building tools, and a live speaker series, the exhibition crossed international barriers and connected women across the world.

Also curated by Masum Momaya, Economica: Women and the Global Economy addressed issues encompassing two cross-currents affecting women worldwide. Economica intended to illuminate the range of ways that women interact with money—as earners, consumers, caretakers, and decision-makers.

Related projects of Economica include Picturing Power & Potential: A Project of Economica, Focusing on Latin America, and Young Women Speaking the Economy.

MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe explored the realities and ideas of a new global generation of mothers through art, stories, and powerful new voices. The exhibition aimed to turn inspiration into action to help fuel a worldwide movement of advocates for mothers’ human rights and advances in maternal health.

Curated by author and activist Samina Ali, Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art and Voices presented a collection of thought pieces and artwork from contemporary Muslim women who have defined their own identities and shattered pervasive stereotypes. Muslima includes exclusive interviews with global leaders of the movement for a more equitable world and original content from established and emerging artists and thinkers.

Imagining Equality: Your Voices on Women’s Human Rights explored the state of women’s human rights and the future of gender equality in light of the United Nations’ development goals circa 2014.

IGNITE: Women Fueling Science and Technology, an online multimedia project, showcased inspiring, global STEM role models with content, stories, and art sourced from around the world.

IMOW won a prestigious Muse award from the American Association of Museums for innovations in digital exhibitions in 2009. In 2014, IMOW merged with Global Fund for Women, an IMOW funder, which allowed the organizations to combine forces on communications and storytelling and create additional compelling digital content that illustrated both missions.

As with many digital initiatives, the IMOW digital exhibitions were challenging to maintain over time. As technology shifted, the functionality of these websites changed and required active attention, which can be difficult to upkeep.

Here at The Feminist Institute, we take a dynamic, collaborative, and feminist approach to digital preservation. The next blog post in this series will discuss the preservation process for this initiative.

Know of a feminist digital initiative in need of preservation? Email us at partnerships@thefeministinstitute.org.