History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff

The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff will produce and install an exhibit exploring how the midcentury’s interpretation of modernity shaped women’s roles in society, creating new freedoms while retaining and reinforcing substantial barriers to equality in work, voice, and financial independence. The project will involve working with an academic advisory team, an undergraduate intern, and graduate fellow to identify and write four to five vignettes relating to each of the four exhibit themes, then enlisting the public for feedback. Final panels and vignettes will be installed alongside mounted objects and artifacts either from the museum collection or on loan. The exhibition will give audiences an enhanced understanding of the influence of the midcentury on the expectations for women’s roles.