Newsletter of the Boston's Women's Heritage Trail (BWHT) -- Winter 2002
A Successful Collaboration Results in a New Walking Trailby Susan Wilson, BWHT Board member, Writer and
Photographer
It was Jean Gibran, our illustrious former BWHT board member, who “elected” me to represent the board, and contact the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late winter of 2000. The idea was to figure out how we might collaborate with the MFA on their upcoming art exhibit, “A Studio of Her Own,” which was slated to open on August 15. By March 2001, I had connected with curator Erica Hirshler (now a BWHT board member) and her assistant, Ellen Roberts, and we’d mutually agreed that creating a walking tour would be the best, ... er..., “route” to take. By May, Ellen, Erica, and I were actively researching, writing, and testing out trail ideas, and beginning a long master script which was completed and edited–in a hefty 18-page booklet of prose!–by the end of June.
The process of trail-blazing was a deliberate and detailed one: after (1) confirming that a number of women in the exhibit were also in the BWHT guidebook, (2) deciding that we wanted those included to represent as varied a socio-economic and ethnic grouping as possible, with a variety of art forms and art world connections, (3) agreeing that we
BWHT/MFA/City of Boston Collaboration Team at
the Opening Reception of "A Studio of Her Own"
from l to r: Mary Smoyer, Susan Wilson, Ellen Roberts, Erica Hirshler, Bonnie Smith, Pat Nickerson, Sylvia McDowell, Liane Curtis, Marie Turley
Photo credit: Bethany Versoy
wanted to include sites of artists’ former homes, studios, galleries, and schools, as well as their and extant artwork, and (4) determining that a finite trek through the Back Bay would be our best bet, we began the process of deciding Who, What, and Where.
After numerous brainstorming sessions, some additional research (adding to the extraordinary resources in the manuscript of Erica’s companion book to the exhibit), and on-foot excursions, we came up with the trail that was finally printed in booklet form: a 90-minute (in theory!) walk that begins in Park Square, winds its way through the Public Garden, continues through the early alphabet streets of the Back Bay to Copley Square, then ends on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. The tour finishes with discussion of the upcoming Women’s Memorial and Fenway Studios, both farther west than tour-time would allow.
The whole process of creating the trail with Erica and Ellen – then working with Marie Turley and the City of Boston to print the actual brochure–was exhilarating, educational, and, of course, exhausting! One exciting discovery, researched with the aid of Mary Frances O’Brien of the Boston Public Library, was that the block now occupied by the Four Seasons Hotel and Heritage on the Garden was a veritable haven of women’s studios and businesses in the 1890s. The information we collected on those women and their workspaces will be a fine addition to future editions of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail guidebook.
Partner # 2: The Museum of Fine Arts
by Ellen E. Roberts, Research Assistant, Paintings, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts and the BWHT enjoyed a wonderful collaboration with the creation of the new walking tour “Women Artists in the Back Bay.” Erica E. Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of Paintings in the Art of the Americas department at the Museum, assisted by Janet L. Comey and myself, had been working on the exhibition “A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870 -1940” for over two years when Erica and I first met with Susan Wilson in April 2001 about the possibility of doing a tour.
 BWHT
Receives Funding for Curriculum DevelopmentWe are thrilled to announce that we have just received not one, but two generous grants! Thanks to these gifts from the Cabot Family Charitable Trust and an anonymous donor, we’re off and running with development and dissemination of a curriculum centered on the upcoming Boston Women’s Memorial Sculpture. The grants also support our on-going projects. We have already hired Sara Masucci as Project Coordinator. Find out more about this new, exciting challenge inside and in upcoming newsletters. |
As we researched the 44 women artists included in “A Studio of Her Own”, we had often thought of how best to highlight aspects of their creativity that we could not bring to the MFA: the public art these women created and the sites of their art schools, clubs, and studios.
Many such places still survive all around us in Boston. We were delighted to have the chance to work with Susan. Her knowledge of Boston’s history, her infectious enthusiasm, and her experience designing workable walking tours, turned our vague ideas into a reality.
We decided to concentrate our tour on the Back Bay and designated certain important sites to serve as major stops. Susan helped us to turn our immense amount of information into a coherent script, and we were thrilled to discover, as we walked along our route, that we had created an articulate and manageable tour. Thanks to the interest of Board member Marie Turley, the City of Boston helped us produce an illustrated brochure that could serve as a self-guided version of our tour. We shamelessly edited Susan’s text and chose illustrations both from objects in the exhibition and from nineteenth-century photographs in the MFA’s and in Susan’s own personal collection. The brochure was designed by Laura Kelly, one of the MFA’s graphic artists, and was printed in the city’s own Print Shop. The MFA Ladies Committee Associates, who usually give architectural tours, learned our new tour as well, allowing us to offer guided walks four times during the fall.
Thanks to the work of all these people, our collaboration was a resounding success! Our first tour was held, appropriately enough, on August 26, Women’s Equality Day, the anniversary of the day women got the right to vote. Due to the dedication of the MFA Ladies Committee Associates, we were able to add guides for that day and for two of the three subsequent tours allowing us to fulfill the demand for spots. The MFA was kept busy fielding calls from people desperate to attend a tour. In the end, about two hundred people attended, allowing us to contribute $672 to BWHT. Most of all, our participants shared with us their appreciation and excitement about the history of women in Boston.
Partner #3: The City of Boston
by Marie Turley, BWHT Board member, Executive Director, Boston Women’s Commission
Through the Women's Commission, Boston Public Schools and the support of Mayor Menino, the City has enjoyed many collaborations with the BWHT since it began in 1989. Several years ago, Mayor Menino funded the printing of a Boston Women's Heritage Trail brochure and BWHT is a partner with the Boston Women's Commission in developing a curriculum to accompany the Boston Women's Memorial. (See "A Message from BWHT Project Coordinator Sara Masucci) For the BWHT's recent partnership with the MFA, Mayor Menino again funded the printing of a brochure. Designed by the MFA's Laura Kelly and printed by the City of Boston's Graphic Arts Department, the brochure was designed to be both elegant and functional. It was a wonderful complement to the exhibit and the walking tour.
 
 |