It would be a first on a French scale. A project to open a museum of the history of feminisms is currently being worked on in Angers, we learned from the association carrying out this initiative. It should be laid out on the Belle-Beille university sitein a library that already houses an archive of feminism.
“Of the 3,000 French museums, none was yet dedicated to the history of female emancipation,” said Julie Verlaine, professor of contemporary history at the University of Tours and co-president of the Museum Prefiguration Association. feminisms (Afemuse).
This Angevin museum would be intended to present the history of the struggle for the emancipation of women in various fields: rights, politics, arts, literature… It will be officially announced on March 8 at the University of Angers as part of the “Month of gender”, then March 13 in Paris, at the Audacious City.
A non-academic place dedicated to this history
“Research on the history of women is in full development, but we want it to come out of the academic world alone,” added Julie Verlaine. “Five years after #MeToo, there is a misunderstanding among younger generations about the absence of a place dedicated to this story,” she said, referring to the “success” of the exhibition “ Parisian Citizens! at the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, which ended on January 29.
This museum should hatch as part of the planned renovation of the Belle-Beille university library, a 10,000 square meter building which has housed the Center des archives du féminisme since 2001. This documentary fund brings together documents, magazines, posters and objects relating to the struggles for women’s rights. It was set up by Christine Bard, professor of contemporary history at the University of Angers and co-president of Afémuse.
Temporary exhibitions to wait
If the end of the work of the library is planned for 2027, the Afémuse plans to organize each year, from 2024, temporary exhibitions prefiguring the future museum. A crowdfunding campaign was also launched to acquire a painting by the painter Léon Fauret representing the lawyer Maria Vérone speaking at a feminist meeting in 1910. “It has long been forgotten and really illustrates the struggles of the first feminist wave at the beginning of the 20th century to obtain the right to vote”, according to Ms. Verlaine.
Since 2004, the University of Angers has already been running a virtual museum on the history of women called Museum and launched numerous researches related to the genre.