Loyola Professor Nominated to Committee for New Smithsonian Museum

Loyola history professor Michelle Nickerson was named to the Committee of Scholars for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum which is in the early stages of planning, according to the Smithsonian website.

As a member of the Committee of Scholars, Nickerson said she will be working to ensure the museum’s exhibits are representative of what visitors want to see, as well as provide professional expertise on topics surrounding women’s history. 

Due to the amount of planning necessary for projects such as these, the museum isn’t projected to open for another ten years, and there is no set opening date according to Nickerson.

“I want to be part of it from the ground up,” Nickerson said. “It is a wonderful opportunity within my career to be part of something that is going to have — it’s going to sit on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and draw people from all over the world to see it. I pinch myself thinking I was invited to be part of that.”

The museum is intended to emphasize the importance of recognizing women’s history as an integral part of American history, according to the Smithsonian website.

Nickerson said she didn’t apply for the position but was hand-picked by officials within the museum for her qualifications and the research she has done during her 12 years at Loyola. Her website reads that she is an expert in areas of women and gender, social movements, history of politics and religion in 20th century America.

The committee is made up of 15 people, 12 of them history professors from different universities but a few coming from other areas of expertise as a way to ensure the exhibits are approved by a variety of professional backgrounds before opening to the public, according to the Smithsonian website.

After being offered the position, Nickerson said she was very excited to accept and begin working. As part of her role, she said she meets with the team three times virtually and once in person in Washington every year.

Brad Hunt, chair of the History Department, said Nickerson’s experience in late 20th century conservative women’s history makes her highly qualified for the position. He said he is grateful she will be able to create connections within the Smithsonian which can in turn help students hoping to go into similar fields. 

“We care a lot about students learning to do history,” Hunt said. “Professor Nickerson has really taken the ball and run with it.”

Hunt said Nickerson has done a good job of finding ways to connect Loyola history with the general history of the U.S. and world, helping students to understand the ways social change is taking place around them directly.

Scholars are initially invited to serve on the committee for three years but may choose to continue their work after those three years are up if a mutual agreement between the scholar and the museum director are met, according to Melanie Adams, interim director for the museum.

Since many of the students in the department of history want to go on to work in museums post-graduation, Nickerson said her experience with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum will allow her to give her students more insight into the work they will be doing.

“I really do hope that my experience of learning, I guess, how the sausage is made in terms of museum building will help me teach that first of all to my graduate students, who are going to do that work someday,” Nickerson said. 

Nickerson also said she is excited about the idea of being able to learn more about specific areas of women’s history during her time on the committee. 

“It will help me get to know a broader range of women’s experiences in history, which I’ve been learning from the time I was an undergraduate,” Nickerson said. “That’s always been the best part of my job is learning new things about different groups of women.”

Ella Wagner, who graduated from Loyola with her doctorate in public history and U.S. history in 2022, had Nickerson as her dissertation advisor. She said she chose Nickerson because of the parallels between her dissertation, which was written on the women’s temperance movement, and Nickerson’s previous research into women’s history in the late 20th century. 

Wagner said having professors who can speak to the experiences of working in the field of history is very beneficial to the students’ learning environment. 

In order to find candidates for the committee, recommendations came from Smithsonian colleagues and the museum’s Advisory Council members beginning in summer of 2022, according to Adams.

During her time at Loyola, Nickerson said she has always felt supported by the university in her research endeavors. 

“My administrators and mentors have done everything they can to help me do the publishing and research that I want to do,” Nickerson said. “The college department sees a strong relationship between scholarly research and teaching.”

At the end of the process, Nickerson said she hopes visitors are able to feel welcomed and represented by the museum. 

“I’m really hoping that people will travel to this museum and say, ‘This, this belongs to me. This is a museum that helps me understand who I am in relation to history,’” Nickerson said. “I want people to seek it out. I want to hear that people, especially women, are coming from every corner of the United States and beyond. To see that, not just to be entertained, but to say ‘That’s my story. I’m part of that.’”

Featured Image courtesy of Brian McConkey