The Women's Museum Norway

The Women’s Museum in Norway was established in Kongsvinger because of a special interest in women’s history taken by employees at the newly opened Kongsvinger Museum. They wanted to highlight women’s history and looked for stories and female pioneers from the local area. They found many women they thought deserved a place at a museum, and decided to work towards opening a women’s museum. Coincidentally, the villa Rolighed, where bohemian Dagny Juel had grown up, was empty and served as a fitting space to realise their dream. 

At the Women’s Museum we question why certain parts of history is either highlighted or hidden and strive to tell the sides of history that are not told at other museums. For generations, women were confined to the home. However, that does not make their stories less important. At the Women's Museum we tell the stories of women at home and through their enterance into the public eye.

The museum was opened in 1995 by HM Queen Sonja, and achieved status as a national museum a couple years later. We fill our national mandate by researching, documenting, and conveying women’s history. In addition to our exhibitions,we coordinate the National Network for Women’s History, where we work on projects to urge other museums in Norway to look at their museum practices through a gendered lens. Furthermore, we are part of the International Association of Women’s Museum with around 90 other women’s museums in the world, where our museum leader has held the presidency in two periods.