A bill to create a commission to build a National Women’s History Museum has been bipartisan effort, but will. face a long road before coming to fruition.
The museum would be the first world’s class history in a national capital, according to Joan Wages, president and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum.
The Committee on House Administration heard testimony from the bill cosponsors Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) who both urged that a museum dedicated to the achievements of “half of our population” was long overdue.
“This bill has significant bipartisan support, and to me, the question is not whether we should go forward with it, but how it will happen,” said Zoe Lofgren (D-Cali.), committee ranking member.
Currently, the bill has 44 bipartisan cosponsors. If it were passed, the committee would be made up eight members chosen equally in both the House and Senate.
“They will examine possible locations, devise fundraising strategies, analyze overall logistics of building the museum and asses the feasibility,” said Blackburn.
The museum aims to be privately funded, to avoid a taxpayer burden. It has already received donations from prominent women like Meryl Streep, who donated her salary from her role in The Grey Lady, the film where she played Margaret Thatcher.
“Women are used to doing everything on their own anyway, so we will find ways to fund this museum on our own,” Maloney said.
The asking price to build a museum is around $400-500 million, with annual operating costs at around $15-20 million, according to Wages.
The other major concern for the museum is location, as “there is only so much space available on the National Mall,” said Candice Miller, (R-Mich.) the committee’s chairwoman.
The F.B.I. building, which is in the process of moving, is in talks as an option. The museum could also be potentially become apart of the Smithsonian family.
Despite bipartisan support to get a committee off the ground, that getting the museum fully-funded, built and open to public will be a very long process.
“It will definitely be years, maybe even upwards of a decade, before you or I could walk through the doors,” said Dewey Blanton, spokesman for the American Alliance of Museums.
“While the educational opportunities this museum would provide would be fabulous, the fact remains that there are just more and more non-profits in the country, with only so many donors and philanthropies,” Blanton said.
The non-profit National Women’s History Museum has been pursuing a national museum since 1996.