Women in the First American West - Maureen Lane
What do the Filson’s collections reveal about the women who lived in the First American West? Maureen Lane, Curator of Museum Collections will share some of the manuscripts and artifacts that document the lives of women who colonized Kentucky. As part of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Filson is reimagining a 2002 project originally funded by the Library of Congress. No longer accessible, The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 digitized historical material including maps, books, manuscripts, and artifacts which documented the lives of entrepreneurs, landowners, women, Indigenous, and the enslaved from the Colonial to Early Republic. The reboot of the project will include additional documents and artifacts not included in the previous iteration and will feature material representing previously excluded groups. The project will be publicly accessible online.
Maureen Lane has an M.A. in American Studies with a focus on American Art and Material Cultural from Penn State University. She also has an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Her interests include women’s history, American textiles, and American art. She is inventorying, researching, and cataloging the Filson’s museum collection and working toward making the museum collection accessible online. She is part of the First American West project team.
This program is presented through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and its Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Initiative. With this support, the Filson will present a series of public programs and launch Resurrecting the First American West, a digital exhibit on the diverse Ohio Valley frontier.