Hear from the Curators of Women’s Work, a New Exhibition at the New-York Historical Society

Jefferson Market Library

425 Sixth Avenue

New York, New York 10011

Free Tickets Available Here

Allison Robinson and Jeanne Gutierrez, curators of Women’s Work, a new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society’s Center for Women’s History, will speak on how they chose 45 objects representing how “women’s work” defies categorization. The show’s highlights range from an 18th-century merchant’s collection of fabric swatches to a brown paper delivery bag used during the COVID-19 pandemic. This talk will focus on the exhibition’s 19th-century contingent, including a mahogany cradle, a birth certificate and indenture, a beaded pincushion, a medical kit, a lady’s work table, portraits, and more. These objects demonstrate that women’s work has always been essential to American society and is inherently political: women’s work is everywhere.

Allison Robinson, an associate curator at the New-York Historical Society, earned her bachelor’s degree at Yale and her PhD from the University of Chicago. Jeanne Gutierrez, a curatorial scholar in women’s history at the New-York Historical Society, holds a MA from the Bard Graduate Center and is a doctoral candidate in History at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Above: Lewis W. Hine, Group of women in sweatshop of Mr. Sentrei, 87 Ridge Street, second inner court. Small girl is Mamie Gerhino, 202 Elizabeth Street. She might have been 14 years old. Photo 5 P.M., February 21, 1908. Witness Mrs. Lillian Hosford. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Top Image: Sweatshop of Mr. Goldstein 30 Suffolk St. Witness Mrs. L. Hosford. February 1908. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.