Early Women Curators: Making the Museum in the Twentieth Century (Routledge Research in Art Museums and Exhibitions)

Without women’s curatorial work, the twentieth-century museum would never have developed as it did.Between the 1890s-1970s, women began accessing decision-making roles in museums worldwide.This volume provides a transnational exploration of the contributions of pioneering female curators with regards to museum practice, collection-making and display design. As scholarship begins unearthing the distinctiveness of women’s curatorial choices, we aim to map the scope and nature of their approach to collecting and curating.What did these first generations of women curators achieve, and what can a gender perspective on museum history uncover?This edited volume brings together research authored by scholars and museum professionals from across the globe who share a desire to understand the history of museums from a gendered perspective.It leads to a new understanding of women’s transnational, collective impact on the formation of collections and their role in the birth and development of moder