Just after Christmas, I realized that there was an exhibit at the Putnam Museum titled Literary Heroines: Their Times, Their Fashions. The museum had been on my radar for the past few months; it’s just across the border in Davenport, Iowa, about a two hours drive, and neither of us had been to Iowa before. It was the next to last weekend of the exhibit, so our last chance to see it.
The Putnam website described the exhibit as “Strong and influential female protagonists spring from the pages of some of literature’s most iconic books with the Putnam’s the newest exhibit, Literary Heroines: Their Times, Their Fashions — open NOW!”
The exhibit featured “the apparel and interests of exciting and memorable characters, as they come to life through vignettes,” with a range of heroines form Hermione Granger (Harry Potter, of course), Laura Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie), and Scout (To Kill a Mockingbird). I can only imagine how hard it was to narrow the list down to these twenty titles. Every exhibit included information about the book and the heroine, along with a mannequin outfitted appropriately.
I came out of it with a reading list; while I’m familiar with most of the titles, I think I’ve only read three of them. This is the list of books represented:
- The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)
Putnam Museum: Literary Heroines exhibit - The Atomic City Girls (Janet Beard)
- The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
- Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash)
- The Forest Lover (Susan Vreeland)
- Harry Potter series (JK Rowling)
- The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
- Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
- Little House series (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
- Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
- Miss Fisher Mysteries (Kerry Greenwood)
- Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker (Jennifer Chiaverini)
- Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
- The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah)
- The Plague of Doves (Louise Erdrich)
- Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)
- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
- Wonder Woman comic books
The rest of the museum was entertaining, with many hands on activities for children of all ages (including those of us who are children with jobs, aka “adults”). We took the time to watch a 3-D movie about Oceans; it was one of three choices in the time we were there. And we played a bit… infrared pictures are fun.
