Special Exhibit: Honoring Women of the Nye Homestead – 300 Years of Women

Included with museum admission, this exhibit is now on view in our Grange Gallery for the 2023 season through
October 14, 2023!

This exhibit highlights the lives of women from different time periods connected
by the Nye homestead. Here we seek to illustrate the questions:
What was her life like? How did she manage family, chores, cooking and more?
How do we remember each one and her contributions to the Nye story?
Each of the nine women featured in this exhibit lived to see many aspects of daily
life evolve and witnessed changes to their community. Though rarely mentioned
as leaders in the same way men were, each woman had their own perspective
and influence on future generations.

In this exhibit we have sought to research, list, and acknowledge the many
women with a connection to the Nye Homestead. The written historical record
favors men, but here we seek to recognize the women whose accomplishments
were more associated with home, family, and community. We have had to study
evidence and piece together what it was like for those who did the crucial but
unrecorded work of keeping a home, raising children, and living under conditions,
indoors and out, that modern people would find exceedingly laborious and
uncomfortable.
Research revealed some 31 women connected to the Nye Homestead, ranging in
time from 17th century period of immigration and settlement to the early 20th
century. Of these, nine were selected to be featured in the exhibit through
images, antique objects, and text. Some of the objects were owned or handled by
the women.

This is a big story to tell, and the exhibit provides but a sampling of such a great
collective experience, but a sampling which we hope will be interesting, thought-
provoking to visitors, and a respectful acknowledgement of these women of the
Nye Homestead, and by extension, all women through history.