Trekking through Women's History with Heritage Trails

One of the more intriguing interpretative strategies we read about during our research into expanding historic preservation to include women’s history was the use of heritage trails. By now, we are all familiar with heritage trails – those walking and driving journeys around to different historic sites that historical commissions, museums, public agency, community organizations, and even private individuals put together to motivate us put on our shoes, grab our keys, and plan a trip to explore history.

And motivate us it does, who doesn’t read about a particular heritage trail and decide they *don’t* want to make that particular journey?

Which is why a historic preservation master’s thesis we stumbled across piqued our interest with its title, “Commemoration and Protest: The Use of Heritage Trails to Connect Women’s History with Historic Sites” submitted to the University of Pennsylvania by Marissa J. Moshier.

We’re not going to bore you with a full-blown rehash and review of the excellent information Moshier conveyed in her thesis, mostly because you can read it for yourself right here, but also because we’d really rather make a better use of this space (and your time) to discuss this topic.

You see, for all the information Moshier presented (and believe us, you should read it, because it was a ton), it was what was missing from that information that stood out the most to us. For all those wise, wise words, for all her obviously extensive research, for all the astute observations and connections she made, for all the motivation her writing inspired, for all her details on the women’s heritage trails in states and cities across the country, there was one thing Moshier failed to include in her information: any mention of a woman’s history heritage trail in Pennsylvania.

Because there isn’t one.

So what we would LOVE to discuss is how a heritage trail could be developed, promoted, and used by the public to connect women’s history to the rich network of historic sites we have here.

Here are our beginning questions, let’s open up the discussion. Feel free to give us your thoughts in response to these questions, or respond with more questions you might have.

Who would develop this heritage trail?

How would they develop it?

Would it be contained to publicly operated sites?

Could it blend both publicly and privately operated sites?

What were the important contributions women made in
Pennsylvania’s history?

What were the roles they played

throughout our history?

How are those contributions and roles already
represented in our history sites?

How can we connect those sites with a heritage trail?

Which sites would we use?

Which sites specifically include women’s history already?

Are they the best ones to use to tell women’s stories in

Pennsylvania history?

Do we need to develop new ones?