Her Story: The Legendary Women Of Sag Harbor

On Saturday, August 27, the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum will open a new exhibition, “Her Story: A Celebration of Notable Sag Harbor Women, 1800-1970,” which will run through October 17, when the museum closes for the season.

History tends to be shared through the recorded lives of men. Deeds, financial transactions and records from legal proceedings are the kinds of documents that typically tell the stories of American lives. Often absent from those documents is any mention of women, whose place has traditionally been tending hearth and home.

But the women of Sag Harbor are not to be so easily dismissed, and they have left their mark in unique ways. “Her Story” celebrates some notable Sag Harbor women who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, left their mark behind in one way or another — through literature, music, social activism, journalism, art and yes, even the more quiet and hidden ways of traditional women’s work.

Some of the women featured in the exhibit are: Annie Cooper Boyd (artist); Betty Friedan (author and feminist); Vicky Gardner (newspaperwoman); Amaza Lee Meredith and Maude Terry (founders of Azurest in Sag Harbor); Mrs. Russell Sage (philanthropist) and Daisy Tapley (opera singer). Local women’s groups such as the Ladies Village Improvement Society and the Sag Harbor American Legion Auxiliary are also featured.

The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum is at 200 Main Street in Sag Harbor and is open Thursdays through Mondays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m. The museum is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Ample parking is available in the rear of the building, off Garden Street. Visit sagharborwhalingmuseum.org for more information.