Remember the Ladies Daytime Tour

In 1776, when Abigail Adams urged her husband and members of the Continental Congress to “remember the ladies” as they crafted a new code of laws, she could not have known how relevant her reminder would still be today. Take a stroll through women’s history at the National Portrait Gallery to recall the significant contributions made to American life by women from the early years of the Republic through the present day. 

Women or Progress: Early Camera Portraits chronicles the growing presence of women in public life as it coincided with the rise of portrait photography in the 19th century. This exhibit includes daguerreotypes and ambrotypes  of early feminist icons Margaret Fuller and Lucy Stone, abolitionst Lucretia Mott and best-selling author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Storied Women of the Civil War Era is an exhibit of photographs by Matthew Brady that include numerous women who rose to national prominence from first Lady Mary Todd Lincoln to actress and Union spy Pauline Cushman.

The 20th and 21st centuries are well represented in the collection and include a retrospective exhibit chronicling the life of Marion Anderson, as well as portraits of the four women Supreme Court Justices, civil rights advocate Rosa Parks, Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison, and first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Michele Obama.

General Information

• Meet your Smithsonian Associates Rep by the Information Desk, inside the G Street entrance, no later than listed start time.
• While there is metered street parking and several parking lots and garages near the museum, space is limited, your best bet is using METRO.