The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, a museum-without-walls whose stated mission is to center women’s history on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., has launched a new augmented reality project called “Unhidden Heroines.” Starting on June 18, anyone with a smartphone (or a computer) will be able to conjure the presence of five women who helped shape the country over the past 250 years and learn about their history and influence.
The five virtual monuments will join those honoring iconic (male) figures from American history on the Mall, from Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Jefferson to Martin Luther King, Jr. They are dedicated to Julia Ward Howe (poet who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”), Polly Cooper (Oneida cook for the Revolutionary Army) Mary Katharine Goddard (publisher), Elizebeth Smith Friedman (WWI and WWII codebreaker), and Dorothy Height (civil rights activist). The program will pair an illustration of each figure with a pre-existing monument, eg. Height adjacent to the MLK Memorial or Howe within the Lincoln Memorial.
