Women’s Museum of California debuts Education Center in southeast San Diego

The Women’s Museum of California (WMC) calls itself a “museum without walls” but over the weekend, it pushed its boundaries. The museum debuted its educational space at the Jacobs Center in southeast San Diego — ushering in a new way to learn about the history of the women’s movement. 📝

Let’s take a look at the new space + the nonprofit’s ongoing work.

📚 The details

The 1,700-sqft WMC Education Center is located at 404 Euclid Ave. in Chollas View (on the ground floor of the Joe + Vi Jacobs Center). You really can’t miss it — there’s an art installation hanging above the entrance filled with handmade, pink pom-poms in the shape of the women’s symbol. The piece was designed by the WMC’s artistic director Katie Ruiz and created with the help of school + community groups.

The center is open to the public the first Saturday of each month, from 12-4 p.m — and admission is free. Schools + community groups can also book 90-minute weekday visits by appointment, and businesses can do the same for workshops and activities. The front area houses a library of free, female-written books.

The WMC says its mission is to provide a space where students + community members can learn and talk about the women’s movement, the power of grassroots activism, and creating positive change.

👗 The artifacts

The Education Center is currently home to “Crafting Feminism: Textiles of the Women’s Movement,” a brand-new WMC exhibit that highlights the role textiles have played in feminism over the decades.

You’ll get to see:

• Bloomer outfits + sashes worn during the first wave of feminism in the 1850s.
• Quilts created in the 1960s + 1970s as part of the Femmage movement.
• Hot pink knitted hats like the ones worn during the Women’s March in 2017.

The exhibit also highlights local textile artists like Michelle Montjoy, Diana Benavídez, Anna O’Cain, Siobhán Arnold, Irma Sofia Poeter, Claudia Biezunski-Rodriguez, and Maritza Contreras.

In a press release, WMC executive director Felicia Shaw said the exhibit shows how textiles “activate messages of gender equality, and how threads connect us.”

✨ The present + future

The Women’s Museum of California is the only one of its kind in our state — and only one of five museums in the US exclusively dedicated to women’s history.

The WMC stores its collection — nearly 300 linear feet of material documenting the life + work of prominent women — at the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park. You can also see artifacts via the WMC’s online archives.

As for the WMC’s exhibits, you can explore them digitally anytime, which cover everything from notable women activists to the history of suffrage in the US.

To keep the good work of the nonprofit marching forward, you can donate directly to the museum. You can also support the programs at the new WMC Education Center by enrolling as a member of the Sojourner Truth Society.