Women’s Voices

In 1974, the U.S. Senate dress code forbade women from wearing pants. Emily Card, then a legislative fellow, was too busy drumming up support for the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to comply. “By the time I went to the floor … I was in a white pantsuit … and platform shoes. I was really dressed up like a California woman.” Although she anticipated resistance to the legislation, it passed, transforming American women’s lives.

Card’s story launched We Do Declare: Women’s Voices on Independence, a new oral history and education initiative on economic independence on the website of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.

“Museums have a real opportunity,” said Rachel Seidman, curator at the museum. “Because of changes in technology and changes in popular culture, we are in this moment where people are listening to things all the time … people really respond to listening to other people’s stories and their voices.”

Read more about oral history projects happening across the Smithsonian.

Published Winter 2025 in IMPACT Vol. 11. No 1