Viewing page 84 of 110

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

There were two attempts made by women to create separate exhibitions for woman's work prior to the Woman's Building of 1893:
Both in Philadelphia and New Orleans, the plan of separate exhibits had been carried out as well as possible, but in both cases, the friends of women were disappointed by the meager showing made when the work done by women alone was separated and they were not credited with the immense amount in both variety and volume which women had done in conjunction with men. *



We now dedicate the Woman's Building to an elevated womanhood-knowing that by so doing we shall best serve the cause of humanity.
    Berthe Honore Palmer**

We have eaten of the tree of knowledge and the eden of idleness is hateful to us.  We claim our inheritance and are become worker not cumberers of the earth.

                   Maude Howe Elliot*

[[image]] [[caption]] GROUND PLAN WOMAN' BUILDING. [[/caption]]

[[image]] [[caption]] GALLERY PLAN WOMAN'S BUILDING. [[/caption]]

The Woman's Building was created to honor and share woman's culture, to make a place in the public sector for the variety of ways women have contributed, are contributing and will contribute to our society.  In co-founding the Woman's Building I have felt a participant in the creation of a context that made space for others, in all their magic variety - so that I would have space for the variety and complexity in myself within a public setting.  The importance of the actual physical space is riddled with meaning for me - it is a symbol of the possibility of complex association.   If there was a place where women could meet outside of the dominance of the culture that devalues some of our most precious - if conditioned - characteristics, perhaps there we would develop the forms, those cooperative and complex forms, that would allow us to fully participate in bringing a humane future closer.  It is this essential optimism about woman, woman's culture and future that is symbolized by the existence of the Woman's Building 1893, and 1973

       Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

[[image]] [[caption]]Women removing the realty signs, September 1973. [[/caption]]

[[image]] [[caption]] Women moving in to the Woman's Building [[/caption]]