The Hi Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley is opening a new exhibit next week that shines a light on the hardships, joys, and lives of female pioneers in California.
“Her Side of the Story: Tales of California Pioneer Women” will appear at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum from starting August 18th and will run until October 8. The traveling exhibit features 30 first-person accounts collected from women who arrived by land or sea to settle throughout California prior to 1854.
As preparations were being made for the commemoration of California’s Golden Jubilee in 1900, a letter printed in a San Francisco newspaper asked why “no provisions had been made for the pioneer mothers.” In turn, The Association of Pioneer Women of California was formed. The group collected and preserved the reminiscences of women who arrived in California before 1854 in a single ledger.
This incredible document, filled with over 800 handwritten stories of California pioneer women, is the basis for the exhibit. The ledger creates a more complete and balanced understanding of our shared history by highlighting women’s voices and experiences as they traveled to California.
The ledger, however, does not represent all voices. As such, an important section of the exhibit comprised of forty diverse portraits of unidentified women.
The special exhibit starts August 18th – and the Hi Desert Nature Museum’s permanent exhibits on the hi desert and its natural and cultural history can be seen Wednesday through Saturday 10am to 5pm.
For more information, visit hidesertnaturemuseum.org
