HOW DALLAS BECAME THE WORLD CAPITAL OF GIRL POWER

A STONE MAIDEN SITS ON A STONE saguaro cactus outside the new museum ai Fair Park. People who work at The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future like to think she has maintained her prickly perch for 64 years to protect and preserve the building.

If the Raoul Josset statue-originally carved for the Texas Centennial celebration in 1936-is the museum’s guardian spirit, Dallas native Cathy Bonner is its driving force.

The museum was Bonner’s idea. And it was her determination, enthusiasm, and refusal to entertain conventional wisdom that ensured the dream she had in 1996 culminated in the sleek, high-tech facility that now occupies the comer of Washington and Parry avenues.

The Women’s Museum is her legacy and the greatest achievement-to date-of what can only he called The Good Ol’ Girls Network. “It took 28 years to create a network of powerful women around the state and around the country who know us and trust us,” says Candace O’Keefe, the museum’s executive director. “We are now in positions of power and responsibility to say ’yes’ to things like The Women’s Museum. I don’t think it could have been done before now.”



1996

O’Keefe remembers the moment, four and a half years ago. when Bonner first told her about the dream. It was February 12,1996 at the Upper Crust Bakery in Austin. “I had this dream that in the year 2000, we would have a big exhibition on the history of women in America,” says Bonner.

But how would such a thing he accomplished? For Bonner, the obvious answer was the Foundation for Women’s Resources, an Austin-based national nonprofit organization co-founded by Bonner and dedicated to improving the status of women through nonpartisan educational projects and programs. O’Keefe is (and was) the Foundation’s executive director and had run Leadership Texas. a Foundation program designed to help women build leadership skills. So Bonner invited her to lunch and described the idea. O’Keefe was intrigued. “I could see ii was a monumental opportunity,” she says. “I knew if Cathy was behind it. it would get done.”

Bonner had already articulated the idea that same month to her friend, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk. He encouraged her to pursue the plan.

The first order of business was a venue. For Bonner, a 1968 graduate of Bryan Adams High School, Fair Park was an obvious first choice. As executive director of the Texas Department of Commerce from 1991 to 1994, she knew its value as a major tourist attraction in one of Texas’ busiest cities. So she called a Leadership Texas grad, Dallas public relations specialist Rita Cox, a member of the Friends of Fair Park, the nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring the architecture of Fair Park. Cox arranged a breakfast at the Melrose Hotel with city officials and members of the Friends of Fair Park. “1 laid out the idea and everyone was very positive,” says Bonner. “At that point they probably thought. ’Yeah, sure.’ They didn’t know me, so they didn’t think 1 could pull it off.” The Friends of Fair Park suggested the Hall of Administration building for Bonner’s project. Originally built in 1910, it had been used for a livestock exhibition and as an opera hall. The building was spiffed up with an art déco facade in 1936 as part of the Texas Centennial celebration at Fair Park. But by 1996 it was in bad shape-so bad, in fact, that the city had turned off the electricity for fear that a wall would collapse and start a fire. The Friends group had been trying unsuccessfully for years to interest someone in restoring the building.

Not long after that breakfast at the Melrose, Cox met Bonner and O’Keefe at the building for a tour. “There were holes in the roof, the floor was rotting, and you couldn’t walk across for fear of falling through,” remembers Bonner. Bui she could see its potential. “The minute I went in there, I felt there was something magical about the building,” she says, “When I saw the statue, I knew for sure.”

About that time, Bonner began thinking about creating a permanent facility instead of a traveling exhibition. Through research and a series of discussions with people about the project, she came up with an initial cost of $10 million.

Bonner then began searching for an architect. She found one in a June 1996 profile in Working Woman on Wendy Evans Joseph, a New York City woman who, while working for KM. Pel, designed the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Evans Joseph, an an deco fanatic, knew the building and was interested in an opportunity to restore it.

Bonner and O’Keefe arranged to have breakfast with the architect in New York. To their surprise, Evans Joseph agreed to do the museum gratis.

With one of the country’s top architects on board, Bonner and O’Keefe signed on Austin builder Dealey Herndon of Herndon, Stauch & Associates to handle the construction. “[The project] seemed like a long shot.” recalls Herndon, “but it was a very exciting idea.” She told Bonner, “If you get this together and you get the money, we will do the project.”

To garner support, Bonner planned to pitch the project at a meeting at the Stoneleigh Hotel on Oct. 15, 1996. About two dozen women had agreed to attend.

From the beginning, Bonner had been working on the museum in her “spare” time. She had a public relations business to run, commitments to the Foundation for Women ’ s Resources, Leadership Texas and its spin-off. Leadership America, and she had family obligations. Her father became ill and, in October 1996, died. His funeral was scheduled for the same day as the meeting at the Stoneleigh. Bonner attended both.

“My family completely agreed with me about going to the breakfast,” she says. “All these people were coming, including Dealey and her crew. I had to be [here.” She took the women on a tour of the building, got enough support to move forward.

In Novemher 1996, she pitched the project to the board of the Foundation for Women’s Resources and asked the group to pay for an engineering study of the building to gauge whether it was salvageable. By then she knew that the City of Dallas owned the building. She wanted the foundation to take on the museum as its legacy project. The board approved $50,000 for the study.

That same month-with the foundation and its money behind her and the support ol’ Dallas’ mayor-Bonner went to the City of Dallas and outlined the project for the Fair Park Commission. The engineering study showed that the building was viable. Before the museum could open, she would have to deal with the city parks and recreation board, the city landmark commission, the city council, and the state historic commission,



1997

In January 1997, the Austin-based Bon-ner hired Leadership Texas grad Carol Reed as a communications consultant in Dallas and met with the Friends of Fair Park to discuss getting approval for the project.

In February, the Foundation for Women’s Resources had a one-day retreat with Evans Joseph, who presented them with three designs. They chose one, then brainstormed ideas about the exhibits.

Though they were full of enthusiasm and good ideas, they still hadn’t raised any money. All expenses were coming out of the foundation’s reserves-$20,000 in addition to the $50,000 for the engineering study. Before the museum spun off into its own 501(c)3, the foundation spent about $100,000-almost half its cash reserves.

In May 1997, the park board voted to give the Foundation for Women’s Resources exclusive control of the building for a year. In effect, the nonprofit got an option on the building. It was time to go public.

The organization called a press conference in June. “It was pretty bold because we didn’t have adimeraised,”says Bonner. The press conference brought the project a lot of attention, but Bonner knew she had to start raising money or the museum would become the latest Fair Park scheme abandoned for lack of funding.

In August. Bonner and O’Keefe met with some Leadership Texas alumnae who worked for SBC Communications, parent company of Southwestern Bell, which had a gram foundation. A meeting with SBC chief Ed Whitacre was set up for September. Bonner and O’Keefe were going to ask for $10 million in the hopes of gelling a fraction of that figure.

Whitacre agreed to give (he foundation a $10 million challenge grant because half of his employees and half of his customers were women. “For the first time in my life, I was speechless,” says Bonner.

The grant had no lime restriction, but Bonner knew she’d have to raise the matching funds quickly. The more money she raised, the more credibility she-and the museum-had. By then, the project had a $20 million budget-$12 million for renovations and $8 million for the exhibits.

Bonner gave herself a year and started working through her Leadership Texas and Leadership America contacts. By March 1998. Bonner, O’Keefe and their army of contacts had managed to match the $10 million. And they kepi on raising money.

They also started lobbying for an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution. Once again. The Good Ol’ Girls Network proved invaluable. A Foundation for Women’s Resources board member knew someone with the Smithsonian Associates Program and paved the way.

In September 1997,O’Keefe got a phone call from Herndon, who had just found out about a federal grant-Save America’s Treasures program-for which the Museum qualified. But they had only one day to write the grant proposal.

O’Keefe called in her staff and said. “We can do this.” But they would have to wait until the following June to find out if they were successful.



1998

In January 1998, just two years after Bonner dreamed about a women’s history exhibition, the City of Dallas gave its final approval to a $l-per-year, 30-year lease for the building. In February, the Foundation for Women’s Resources chose the exhibit designer, and that spring Dallas voters approved a bond package that included $1.5 million for improvements at Fair Park.

Throughout the spring and summer of that year, Bonner. O’Keefe, and others from the Foundation for Women’s Resources met with exhibit designers. By the fall, they were ready to go to the stale for approval. Because of Fair Park’s historic designation, the Texas Historical Commission must approve all building projects there. Mayor Kirk went to Austin on behalf of the museum in September 1998 and got the approval to proceed.

Bonner was determined that the museum would open in 2000-she liked the symholism of the new century. But so far, not a single improvement had been made to the building. That was about to change.



1999

By May 1999-when construction started under Hern-don’s strict supervision-the Foundation for Women’s Resources had created a separate board to handle the museum. Bonner was its president and most-but not all-of its members were also on the foundation board. The museum opened a Dallas office and launched a nationwide search for a museum director. O’Keefe got the job.

In June, the museum learned it would receive the whole $3 million from the Save America’s Treasures program. The one-day turnaround had worked.

Construction continued throughout that year and into the next, slowly turning (he decaying old opera house into a high-tech haven for women’s history.

2000



IT TOOK ALMOST ONE YEAR TO FINISH THE construction. At its completion this May. the exhibit installers got to work and readied the museum for its September opening-just in time for the Texas State Fair.

As of press time. Bonner, O’Keefe, and the museum board have raised $30 million, established a $2.1 million annual operating budget, and booked almost all of the museum’s public facilities through year’s end.

Looking back, Bonner says she was naively optimistic-but she’d do it all over again. “It’s my legacy project, as well as the Foundation’s. If I die tomorrow, I can he happy that I accomplished something important on behalf of women.”

WHY I FOUNDED THE WOMEN’S MUSEUM



BY CATHY BONNER



MOST MUSEUMS PRESERVE HISTORY. At The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future, we make it.

This national women’s history museum is the first and only one of its kind in the world. We will tell the untold stories of women’s accomplishments and contributions through the use of interactive technology.

After four years of working to make this dream a reality, ! feel like the students in the film Dead Poets Society, when the teacher had them stand on their desks so they could see the world from a different vantage point. When you change perspective, you understand that to miss one-half of our country’s history is to deny future generations their heritage.

Museums are ritual places where societies display what they value. Can you imagine people’s faces when they realize that women authors wrote words that changed the world? Whether it was Harriet Beecher Stowe and her book igniting the Civil War or Betty Friedan starting the modern women’s movement, their words have changed American life.

Did you know that a Japanese American woman, Mitsuye Endo. bravely petitioned for freedom from U.S. concentration camps during WWII? How many military people have gone to college on the Gl Bill? We should thank Congresswoman Edith Nourse for passing this landmark legislation. How many people know the first woman bank president in the country was an African-American woman named Maggie Walker in Richmond, Va.?

Visitors will see and hear stories never known before as we chronicle women’s struggle for achievement. The Women’s Museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and the artifacts showcased here are as rich and textured as the history they display.

Harry Truman said, “The only new thing in the world is the history you do not know.” At The Women’s Museum, you will experience 19 exhibits that show American history from a different view-standing on top of the desk.



Cathy Bonner is the founder and president of The Women’s Museum.