Marlene Wagman-Geller

 While traditional museums are meccas for millions, an overlooked niche are home museums that provide a more interactive experience. 

My book, A Room of Their  Own: Home Museums of Extraordinary Women Around the World (2024) takes readers on an exploration of the homes of famous women currently open to visitors. Literature lovers can head to Haworth Parsonage in Yorkshire, England, a nineteenth century time capsule: the residence of Emily and Jane Brontë-the authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. In Tuscumbia, Alabama, the well where Anne Sullivan gifted Helen Keller the power of speech is on display at Ivy Green. Anne Frank’s Amsterdam Museum’s holds a red plaid diary the author named Kitty that serves as a voice for the silenced. In the thirty chapters the  profiled homes are where their former residents enter the confessional. 

My book, Women’s Home Museums of the Northeast: A Guidebook, showcases the homes of women from New England. Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, is where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women on her miniscule desk in her bedroom. In Rochester, New York, guests can stand in the  home where a U.S. Marshall arrested Susan B. Anthony for casting a vote. The final home of Harriet Tubman in Auburn, New York, provides a connection with the Civil War-era Moses.