譯/李京倫 The New-York Historical Society's Center for Women's History will open its doors this spring, a season many expected to spend settling into life with the United States' first female president.
Instead, the country finds itself in a different moment, one that brought millions of people to women's marches in Washington and around the world in January. But the need for a permanent space devoted to the history of women in America has not changed.
紐約歷史學會的女性史中心將在今年春季開幕，許多人原本以為會在這個季節逐漸習慣美國首度出現女性總統的生活。
結果卻不然，美國發現自己處於一個不同的時刻，數百萬的人今年一月在華府和世界各地參與了女性大遊行，不過，美國需要有個常態展示本國女性歷史的場所，而這個需要並未改變。
"There isn't any museum where women's history in the general sense is on the permanent agenda," said Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive of the New-York Historical Society. "There just isn't."
In America, there are museums devoted to spies, to roller skating and to Bigfoot, and yet stories of half the population are told mostly around the margins of narratives focused on something else. While there are museums devoted to specific themes in women's history, like the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington and the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, the New-York Historical Society says it will fill a crucial void by examining women's history writ large.
路易絲．米瑞爾是紐約歷史學會的會長兼執行長，她說：「沒有一個博物館常態展出女性整體的歷史。就是沒有。」
美國有專為間諜、滑輪溜冰和北美野人而設的博物館，然而占了人口半數的女性的故事，卻多半只在以其他事物為主的故事中簡略提到。美國雖有博物館專門展示女性史的特定主題，如華府的「國際女性藝術博物館」與紐約州塞內卡弗斯鎮的「美國女性名人堂」，但紐約歷史學會表示，將藉由放大檢視女性歷史以填補重要的空白。
The idea for the center began to percolate 10 years ago, Mirrer said, when the historical society put on an exhibition of Tiffany lamps. It centered on a discovery that the lamps, always assigned to the genius of a man, Louis Comfort Tiffany, had, in fact, been designed and created largely by women, led by Clara Driscoll, the head of the women's glass-cutting department at Tiffany Studios.
The Center for Women's History will take over the fourth floor of the New-York Historical Society, housed in an imposing beaux-arts building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, across from Central Park. One hundred Tiffany lamps will be on permanent display there, in a dim space where they will glow like luminescent jewels.
米瑞爾表示，建立這個中心的想法從10年前開始萌芽，當時歷史學會辦了一場「蒂芙尼燈」展。展覽的重點是，雖然人們總把這些燈歸功於美國裝飾藝術家蒂芙尼的天才，實則這些燈大半是由女性設計並創造，領頭的是蒂芙尼作坊玻璃切割部的主任克拉拉．德瑞斯科。這個部門裡全是女工匠。
女性史中心將使用紐約歷史學會四樓整層。學會位於曼哈坦上西城一棟壯觀的布雜藝術建築裡，在中央公園對面。100個蒂芙尼燈將在中心內常態展出，這些燈會在一個昏暗的區域發亮，宛如曖曖含光的珠寶。
The center will also have rotating exhibitions, the first of which, "Saving Washington," will focus on women's contributions in the early years of the United States, especially those of the former first lady Dolley Madison. Catherine Allgor, a consultant on the show and the director of education at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, said Madison helped create a social arena for politicking and deal-making in the early republic.
"Women in Washington built this sphere where you could lobby for legislation, where you could bring people of two parties together without them killing each other," Allgor said.
中心還會舉辦定期輪換的展覽，打頭陣的「拯救華府」將關注美國建國初期女性的貢獻，尤其是第一夫人桃莉．麥迪遜的貢獻。凱瑟琳．歐格是加州聖馬利諾市「杭廷頓圖書館、藝術館與植物園」的教育總監，也是「拯救華府」展的顧問，她說，麥迪遜在美國建國早期創造了政治活動和交易的社交舞台。
歐格說：「當時華府的女性建立了一個場域，你可以在這裡為立法而遊說，讓兩黨的人聚在一起而不必鬥得你死我活。」
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文/李京倫
writ large是片語，意為「誇大了的、更明顯的」。writ是written的古老寫法。說某個事物is writ large，表示這個事物「非常明顯」，例如：They now have to cope with the legacy of their past incompetence writ large on their balance sheets.（他們現在不得不處理過去工作不力遺留下的問題，這在資產負債表上一看便知。）
若說「A is B writ large」，表示A是B的誇大版本。例句：Hollywood is often said to be American society writ large.（好萊塢常被稱為美國社會的濃縮版。）
Beaux-Arts是一種建築風格，源於法國「美術學院」（Ecole des Beaux-Arts），19世紀到20世紀初，世界各地曾有無數的建築師到這座學院學習。Beaux-Arts就是法文的「美術」，建築界一般譯為「布雜」。布雜風格大量採用古希臘、古羅馬的建築形式，特點為外觀裝飾繁複精細，少有地方沒裝飾到，常用於量體龐大的公共建築，如火車站、學校和政府機關。
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