ALBANY — Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy announced the opening of the exhibit Shaping Narratives, a new Women’s History Month exhibition that pays tribute to the New York women communicators who have been a pivotal force in shaping our culture through their actions and voices. The exhibit is located in the Governor’s Reception Room on the Capitol’s second floor and will run through the end of March.
Shaping Narratives celebrates the history of New York’s great women communicators whose legacies continue to inspire change. New York State has long been at the forefront of the fight to advance women’s equality and ensure fairness for all. In 1848 when the first women’s rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York State became known as the birthplace of the women’s rights movement.
The exhibit focuses on a diverse group of women who represent progressive thinkers, journalists, authors, and activists who broke through social norms by using their voices and pens to tell the stories that continue to inspire generations of women and men.
Among the New York women featured in the exhibit are:
Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate in literature and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, editor, and professor, is one of the most prolific American authors whose books explored the Black experience and identity in America.
Melba “Malín” Falú Pesante, producer, radio and television personality, and model, advocatesagainst gender and racial biases in the media. She founded the League to Promote the Advancement of Blacks in Puerto Rico.
Connie Chung, an American journalist and the first Asian person to co-anchor the CBS Evening News.
Barbara Walters, an American broadcast journalist who was the first woman to anchor an evening news program whose work amplified women’s voices, from hosting the show Not for Women Only in the 1970s to co-creating and moderating ABC’s The View until 2014.
Suzan Shown Harjo is a poet, writer, and activist who has advocated for Native American rights for over five decades. Since the 1960s, she has advocated for removing derogatory Native American names from national sports teams’ names and mascots.
Audre Lorde was a poet, essayist, novelist, and equal rights activist whose works are is about confronting injustice and oppression from racism, homophobia, and sexism.
Nellie Bly, a pioneering figure in investigative journalism, wrote an exposé on the abhorrent conditions at the “Women’s Lunatic Asylum” on New York’s Blackwell Island.
Isabelle Dolores “Dee” Wedemeyer, an American journalist, was among the first women to be admitted to the Legislative Correspondents Association when the organization began accepting women in 1967. She reported for Albany’s Knickerbocker News, known today as the Times Union.
Susan Sontag, an award-winning writer, activist, critic, philosopher, and film director, was regarded as one of the most significant figures of art and cultural theory.
Zora Neale Hurston, an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker whose work centered on the Black experience and Black folklore.
Lorraine Hansberry was a playwright and activist and the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway: A Raisin in the Sun.
Margaret Bourke-White was one of the first photographers for Fortune (later the first female photographer for LIFE) and the first female photographer to work as a correspondent on the battlefields and skies of World War II.
The Women’s History Month exhibit is free and open to the public from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays. Find more information about the exhibit and visiting the New York State Capitol at https://empirestateplaza.ny.gov/shaping-narratives.
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