American Women’s History Initiative Pool

Two young women stand together, looking at a photograph displayed on the wall as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum installation.

SAAM Installation photographs, 2023, by Albert Ting, Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

The American Women’s History Initiative Pool (AWHIP) is a centrally managed federal award program to provide financial support to Smithsonian units for research, exhibitions, collections and archives, conservation, public and educational programs, and academic and professional development programs. These projects must further the Smithsonian’s mission to research, share, and amplify the histories of American women. Acting on the recommendations of a review panel, we direct funds to programs and projects which demonstrate the greatest public impact and represent and enhance the inclusion of women’s stories as fundamental to the American story.

An illustrated notebook page by Louise Marianetti featuring a woman standing at an easel with art supplies, and another reading a letter, surrounded by pink text.

Archival Processing of the Papers of Women Artists, Art Historians, and Arts Administrators

The Archives of American Art arranged, preserved, and created detailed, fully searchable, online finding aids for the archived papers of 271 women working in the visual arts to promote their discoverability by researchers and the public.

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A group of people standing in front of a banner that reads “DC Women Speak.”

Women of Washington DC Speak: Digitization & Cataloguing of Collected Interviews

The Anacostia Community Museum preserved and documented over 300 oral histories, originally recorded on magnetic tape, from which they curated a selection of audio-stories for the museum's website. 

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A photo of a pink beaded dress with gold lamé belt.

Black Fashion Museum Processing Project

The National Museum of African American History and culture is working on a four-year project to preserve, catalogue, digitize, and make the Black Fashion Museum collection and records available online.

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An unfinished portrait of Martha Washington.

Expanding Public Access for Images of Women in Portraiture

The National Portrait Gallery completed a digital enhancement project that allowed a significant collection of portraits related to the history and biography of women to be disseminated with new digital assets and enhanced collection data to the Smithsonian's websites.

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A page from the Money Order Cash Book featuring Postmaster Bessie Malone's signature. 

In the Accounts: The Work and Lives of Female Postmasters as Recorded in Two Postal Ledgers

The National Postal Museum digitized and updated collection records related to two logbooks and a collection of papers that had been used by four female postmasters in rural communities in the United States during the twentieth century.

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Ceramic frieze with a procession of animals and people.

Women and Wildlife: Stories of American Women Artists at the National Zoo

The National Zoo researched, documented, and re-interpreted artworks created by women at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washinton, DC.

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An acrylic painting on canvas featuring a still life with an arrangement of objects including a queen chess piece, queen playing card, and a red rose.

Digital Artist Biographies and Video Interviews to Extend SAAM's "American Voices and Visions" Installation

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has been enhancing the presence of women in their collection by creating searchable biographical summaries on their website and interviews with artists on their YouTube channel.

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Williamina Fleming stands in the center of a group of women working at the Harvard College Observatory.

Credit Where Credit is Due: Undoing the Ongoing Erasure of Women’s Labor in Astronomy

In the final phase of a six-year project, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory created a new database to link over 500,000 historic glass plate images of the Universe with over 2,500 historic notebooks of women astronomers from the 1880s-1960s.

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A woman standing next to a yellow rose bush.

Horticultural HERstories: Amplify the Contributions of American Women to the History of Landscape, Garden Design, and Horticulture Through Digital Resources

Smithsonian Gardens worked with a digital content curator to identify stories from living, museum, and archival collections that could be developed into digital resources for public audiences.

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Outreach & Impact

Since 2018, the American Women’s History Initiative Pool has supported over 200 projects totaling more than $13 million across 29 Smithsonian units. The following are some projects that received funding:

2024

  • Anacostia Community Museum, Center for Community & Environment 
  • National Museum of African American History and Culture, Black Fashion Museum Processing Project
  • National Portrait Gallery, Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939
  • National Postal Museum, The FeMAIL Story: Documenting the History of Women in the United States Postal Service and Related Industries
  • Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Diaries of the Cosmos –The Women Behind the Science

2023

  • Archives of American Art, Women’s Voices in the Arts
  • Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture Home: Smithsonian Design Triennial Exhibition
  • National Museum of American History, Women, Food, and Climate Change
  • National Museum of the American Indian, Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of D.Y. Begay
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum, Pattern and Paradox: Quilts by Amish Women

2022

  • Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Women in the Blues: A Smithsonian Folkways Learning Pathway
  • Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Young at Art: Empowering Girls and Their Futures
  • National Museum of American History, Pass the Mic! Exploring the Power of Blues Women
  • National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Women and Wildlife
  • Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Witnessing Working Women: Digitizing SI’s Primary Source Audiovisual Recordings

2021

  • Smithsonian Gardens, Digitize and Catalog 250 Historic Images From the Ellen Shipman Garden Photography Collection
  • National Air and Space Museum, Harvard College Observatory Bruce Telescope: Women’s Work in Twentieth Century Astronomy
  • Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Archives of Women Designers at Cooper Hewitt
  • Anacostia Community Museum, Women of Washington DC Speak: Digitization & Cataloguing of Collected Interviews
  • Asian Pacific American Center, Re:Presence – AAPI Emerging Art for a Post-Pandemic World - Four Community Art Projects Drawing Inspiration From the Histories and Practices of Feminists of Color

2020

  • Smithsonian Gardens, Orchids: Hidden Stories of Groundbreaking Women
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum With the Archives of American Art, Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women
  • Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage With Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Music HerStory
  • National Museum of African Art, From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya With Ayana V. Jackson
  • National Portrait Gallery, Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands

2019

  • Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Reaching Out Across the Stars: Augmented Reality for Women, Girls, and Their Families
  • Smithsonian Libraries and the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Unstacked OutBox: Women’s History Made Accessible
  • Anacostia Community Museum, Urban Waterways’ Women’s Environmental Leadership Initiative
  • Asian Pacific American Center, Ke Kualima o Nā Wāhine Kālai Wa’a (The Seven Generations of Women Carvers)
  • National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian, Native Women Making History

2018

  • National Museum of Natural History, Digitization for Preservation of the Pollen Micrographs of Dr. Joan Nowicke
  • National Portrait Gallery, Conservation and Framing for Selected National Portrait Gallery Portraits of Women
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Archives of American Art, Conservation Assessment and Treatment of Fiber Works by Women Artists in SAAM’s Collection
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian Institution Gardens, Preservation, Rehousing, and Presentation of 150 Watercolors by Mary Vaux Walcott
  • National Air and Space Museum, Dorothy Cochran’s Northrop T-38 Talon Aircraft Treatment and Display Plan