Edith Mayo

Edith P. Mayo (born March 18, 1940) is an American historian. She is curator emerita for political history at the National Museum of American History. Mayo is a subject matter expert on women's suffrage, specifically African American women's suffrage, and the first ladies of the United States. She has been featured on C-SPAN, CNN, ''The Morning Call'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', PBS, ''The Baltimore Sun'', and ''The Washington Post'' regarding her areas of focus. In 2020, she was named an honoree of the National Women's History Alliance.

Early life and education

Mayo earned her degree in American History from George Washington University. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Career

Mayo was an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where she taught material culture as part of a co-branded program with the university and the Smithsonian Institution. She is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She serves on the board of the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial. In 1995, she wrote the foreword for Doris Stevens's book ''Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote''.

Mayo curated ''Rights for Women'' at the World Financial Center in 1998 and ''The Pleasure of Your Company'' at the Museum of Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She curated an exhibition about women entrepreneurs, called ''Enterprising Women'', in 2002 for the Schlesinger Library.

Smithsonian Institution

In the 1970s, Mayo was Political History Division Assistant Curator at the National Museum of American History. She eventually transitioned into the position of curator emerita, managing major exhibitions about political history, women's history and voting rights.

As curator emerita, she curated the major exhibit, ''From Parlor to Politics: Women and Reform in America, 1890-1925'' in 1990 and in 1992 she curated the museum's major exhibition about the first ladies of the United States: ''First Ladies exhibition, First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image''. The exhibition toured nationally from 2004-2007.

Author

Mayo's book ''The Smithsonian Book of the First Ladies'' was published in 1996. Hillary Clinton wrote the foreword.

Recognition

In March 2015, the Fairfax County, Virginia Board of Supervisors named her an honoree for her work at the Smithsonian. In 2020, she was named an honoree by the National Women's History Alliance.

Selected works

*''The Smithsonian Book of the First Ladies''. New York: Henry Holt & Company (1996).
*"Teaching the First Ladies Using Material Culture" by Edith P. Mayo, ''OAH Magazine of History'', vol. 15, no. 3, 2001, pp. 22–25. JSTOR
*''First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image'' by Edith Mayo and Lisa Kathleen Graddy, London: Scala Publishers (2004)

References

Further reading

*''First Ladies: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women'' by Susan Swain, New York City: PublicAffairs (2015) pp 77–80. .

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo, Edith
1940 births
Living people
American women historians
American women curators
American curators
Smithsonian Institution people
Political historians
George Washington University faculty
George Washington University alumni
Organization of American Historians