The Whitewater Historical Society is pleased to announce a public reception for its new temporary exhibit, ‘At Home on the Job: Women’s Work 1830-1930,’ beginning at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 24 in the Depot Museum, 301 W. Whitewater Street.
Nikki Mandell, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, served as guest curator for the exhibit. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Mandell will present a brief program on the exhibit’s main themes and discuss how they played out in the lives of Whitewater area women. An informal viewing of the exhibit and refreshments will follow the program.
The exhibit explores the evolving nature and meaning of women’s work in the home during a century of change, from the 1830s to 1920. Although women’s productive labor remained essential to family and community survival throughout the 19th century, two factors – industrialization and the rise of the Victorian ideal – significantly changed the content and social value placed on that work.
Using the Society’s collections and representative circumstances found in the lives of Whitewater women, the exhibit examines a long-held complaint, first voiced by Martha Ballard in her 1795 diary entry, that “a woman’s work is never done.”
The reception is free and open to the public. The exhibit will run through June 2015.
To learn more, visit www.whitewaterhistoricalsociety.org. Depot Museum hours are Friday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.
