Skip to main content

A.R., Female, Age 24



Exhibit: Fort Smith in Fact and Fiction

These posters are one of the first things you see when walking into the museum. I find it interesting that between the two there is only one woman pictured and she is sexualized. Both of these movies came out in the late 60’s. When the movies were produced they had the option to give women a story as well, but from the look of these posters I would say they did not.


Exhibit: Women Behind Bars

Near the very back of the museum they had this exhibit “Women Behind Bars.” I completely looked over this exhibit at first. If you notice at the top of it is a picture of a group of men. I noticed the men and just assumed that’s what the entire article was over until I went back and actually read the entire thing.


Exhibit: Lady Desperado

All of the women that are in the exhibits who are named are named because they are criminals. Each one who is named their brother and father are also named. This exhibit is about Belle Starr. It never states what she is famous for. In this exhibit it gives a description of Belle Starr’s appearance. In any exhibit speaking about a man it does not give a description of their appearance.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 8, 2019 at 2:07 PM

    Hello! I am a ranger at Fort Smith National Historic Site. For some more background and information, True Grit is a fictional story where the main character is a young woman named Mattie Ross. She is pictured in the True Grit poster. It is unfortunate that in Hang 'em High, the female character is displayed in a sexual manner, that is interesting to note. Also, it is unfortunate that many of the women's stories related to Fort Smith were not recorded as frequently as the stories of the men. However, in this museum, there are exhibits on the first floor about Anna Dawes, a journalist who used her powerful talents to write an article that moved the government to appropriate money for the second jail, so the inmates in jail would have better living conditions. Let us know if you have any questions! Thank you for visiting, and very interesting blog about our site!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DR, Female, Age 24

Exhibit: Lady Desperado  One of the pieces that stood out to me the most was the section about Belle Starr. She is the only female with her own section in the museum compared to the numerous displays dedicated to men. I noticed that in this particular section her physical appearance is used to describe her, and she is referred to as “flamboyant” and compared to Cleopatra. Out of all of the plaques with men on them none of them described what they looked like, dressed like, or how they drew attention to themselves like hers did. They were remarked on for their accomplishments or their wrong doings, but she is noted for how she looked.  Exhibit Detail: Photo of Belle Starr Another point concerning the Belle Starr section is that any time she is mentioned so are the men in her life. This particular picture shows her picture with a short description underneath that talks about her brother and her father. The museum uses her pictures and titles the boards with h...
Post a Comment
Read more

K.K., Male, Age 24

Exhibit: Belle Starr--Bandit Queen After viewing this photo, I realized that women maybe weren’t as incarcerated as commonly as men were. The caption states that the only time she went to jail was for one occasion of horse theft. I’m thinking that maybe people in that time didn’t see women criminals as serious threats to society as commonly as men were. Now that I think more about it, that’s probably a major advantage if you’re going to be known as a “Bandit Queen.” Exhibit: The Workings of the Court The thing that stuck out to me in this picture is that it was not ever often in that time for a woman to be in a major position of power. It seems like you would always see women in supportive roles rather than leadership roles. All throughout this exhibit we see several pictures of noteworthy men but not a lot of women. It is inspiring to me as I think about how far we have come today. Exhibit: The Gallows This correlates with the first picture pretty well. Hang...
Post a Comment
Read more