IAWM - International Association of Women's Museums

Women’s Museums

IAWM monitors women’s museums (physical, virtual, and initiatives) around the world regardless of membership. For our purposes, we define these categories as:

  • Physical Museums
  • Virtual Museums
  • Initiatives for Women’s or Gender Museums

Timeline

The first women’s museum was founded in 1945 in the USA. During the following decades, many other women’s museums were founded in the USA. In Europe, the first women’s museum was established in the 1980s.

1950s 1950s
1960s 1960s
1970s 1970s
1980s 1980s
1990s 1990s
2000s 2000s
2010s 2010s

1950s

1955
USA: United States Army Women’s Museum, Fort Lee, Virginia

1958
USA: Pioneer Woman Statue & Museum, Oklahoma, USA

1960s

1966
Australia: Miegunyah House Museum, Brisbane

1969
USA: National Women’s Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, New York

1970s

1970
USA: Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, Marion, Alabama

1974
India: Shashwati Women’s Museum, Bangalore

1975
USA: National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, Forth Worth, Texas

1980s

1980
USA: Maryland Women’s Heritage Center and Museum

1981
Germany: Frauenmuseum, Bonn

1982
Australia: Pioneer Women’s Hut, Tumbarumba
Denmark: Kvindemuseet i Danmark, Aarhus

1983
USA: Women’s Museum of California, San Diego, California

1984
Germany: Frauen Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden

1985
International Museum of Women (now closed)
USA: National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House, Rochester, New York

1986
Germany: Das Verborgene Museum, Berlin
USA: International Women’s Air & Space Museum, Cleveland, Ohio

1987
Vietnam: The Southern Women’s Museum, Ho-Chi-Minh-City
Vietnam: Vietnamese Women’s Museum, Hanoi
USA: National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
USA: Michigan Women’s Historical Center & Hall of Fame, Okemos, Michigan
Netherlands: Museum Het Vrouwenhuis Zwolle, Zwolle

1988
Italy: Frauenmuseum Meran, Merano
USA: Women of the West Museum at the Autry National Center, Los Angeles, California

1990s

1990
USA: Women’s History Museum on wheels!, West Liberty, West Virginia

1992
USA: Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

1993
Australia: National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame Inc., Alice Springs
USA: Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, New Haven, Connecticut

1994
Senegal: MUFEM Le Musee de la Femme Henriette Bathily, Dakar

1995
Norway: Kvinnemuseet, Kongsvinger
Germany: Frauenmuseum Berlin, Berlin

1996
USA: National Women’s History Museum, Alexandria, Virgina

1997
China: Women Culture Museum, Xi’an
USA: Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument

1999
USA: Women’s Civil War Museum, Bardstown, Kentucky
USA: Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Knoxville, Tennessee
USA: The Ninety-Nines Museum of Women Pilots, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

2000s

2000
Austria: Frauenmuseum Hittisau

2001
Romania: The Musuem of the Romanian Peasant Woman, Dragomiresti

2002
Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan Gender Information Center, Baku (virtual)
Korea: National Women’s History Exhibition Hall, Seoul
Museum of the Kazakh State Women’s Teacher Training University “Aktumar”

2003
USA: Women at Work Museum, Attleboro, Massachusetts

2005
Feminoteka, Warsaw (virtual)
Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace

2006
Frauenkultur Regional International
Argentina: Museo de la mujer, Buenos Aires
Canada: Women’s Art Museum Society of Canada, Edmonton
Spain: Museo ethnologico de la Mujer Gitana, Granada
Museo de las Mujeres de Costa Rica (virtual)
USA: Appalachian Women’s Museum, Dillsboro, North Carolina

2007
New Zealand: Charlotte Museum Trust – For the collection and preservation of Lesbian History & Artifacts, Ponsonby
Canada: Musee de la Femme, Longueuil
Italy: Museo della donne valdesi, Angrogna
Netherlands: Museum van de Vrouw, Echt
USA: The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New YOrk

2008
Museo de Mujeres Artistas Mexicanas (virtual)
USA: Florida Museum for Women Artists
Italy: Casa Andriollo – Museo Soggetto Montagna Donna, Borgo
Women’s Museum of Iran, Tehran (virtual)

2009
Girl Museum (virtual)
Ukraine: Gender Museum, Kharkiv

2010s

2010
China: Chinese Museum of Women and Children, Beijing
Burkina Faso: Musee de Dano, Dano

2011
Argentina: MUMU Espacio cultural museo de las mujeres, Cordoba
Jordan: ICWA International Center for Women Artists, Amman
Mexico: Museo de la Mujer, Colonia Centro

2012
United Arab Emirates: Women’s Museum Bait Al Banat, Dubai
Germany: Das Haus der FrauenGeschichte (HdFG), Bonn
Women’s Museum of Ireland (virtual)
USA: Museum of Women’s Resistance, Brooklyn, New York
Istanbul Kadin Muzesi Women’s Museum (virtual)

2013
History Women Future (virtual)

2014
Sweden: Kvinnohistoriskt Museum, Ulmea
Turkey: Izmir Kadin Muzesi, Izmir

2015
Antalya Women’s Museum (virtual)

2016
Taiwan: Comfort Women Museum, Taipei

2016
United Kingdom: inVISIBLEwomen.org

2017
HERSTORYMUSEUM (virtual)

2018
Musee de la Femme de Marrakech

2019
United Kingdom: The Vagina Museum, London
Muzeu i Grave, MiG Albanian Women’s Museum

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Latest News

Gender Equality: Un-Gendering Memory And Museum Practices

Sep 18, 2023

We are delighted to invite you to the TRACTS workshop of WG2: Traces and Social Justice. Date: September 29-30, 2023 Venue: Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Metelkova ulica 2, 1000 Ljubljana Organizing committee:  Tina Palaić, Slovene Ethnographic Museum Polona Sitar,...

read more

The Congress of Women in Poland

Sep 8, 2023

The Congress of Women is behind us (2-3 September) - an event which for 15 years has been the most important place for active Polish women to exchange experiences. Where we can talk openly about our problems, find solutions and support each other. As a reminder -...

read more

Summer at the Women’s Museum Norway

Aug 30, 2023

We are currently finishing up an exciting and successful summer season at the Women’s Museum Norway. We are happy to have welcomed a mix of locals, Norwegians from other parts of the country and international visitors to our five exhibitions on local female pioneers...

read more
Share This