Autry National Center's "How Women Made the West"

Forget the cowgirl, the demure Indian maiden, or the pioneer woman in a sunbonnet perched on a wagon buckboard. At the Autry National Center’s conceptual new exhibit “Home Lands How Women Made the West,” traditional stereotypes of women-out-west are replaced with a new narrative—one that puts women at the center as builders of home and community. “Seeing women in history makes history look different,” is the show’s opening statement and the Autry has done much to create an innovative and interactive exhibition that inserts real women into the American west’s saga.

Follow-up the exhibit with a visit to the bookstore and read my complete take on the exhibition at the Autry National Center in Griffith Park that runs through August 29.