Just a day before the exhibit's opening, Katie Cavanaugh carefully pinned brightly colored woven clothes to a display at the Michigan Women's Historical Center & Hall of Fame while she explained how she got them.
Her black sweatshirt and blue jeans sharply contrasted the multi-colored Guatemalan dress and baby's outfit, which Cavanaugh bought in Guatemala while on the medical mission DOCARE.
An exhibit on the DOCARE project opened Sunday at the historical center, 213 W. Main St. in Lansing. DOCARE is an international medical mission made up of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and other volunteers who travel to underdeveloped countries and provide healthcare and supplies to those in need.
The DOCARE exhibit is an example of the historical center's mission. In addition to giving visibility to historic Michigan women, the center presents cultural and historical exhibits involving local women.
Cavanaugh, assistant director of the center, said she wanted to let other people know about the DOCARE mission, which includes female doctors from MSU.
She and her husband, a doctor, have volunteered with the group.
The DOCARE exhibit is one of four currently displayed at the center.
The Michigan Women's Studies Association, a group started at MSU, opened the center in 1987. They leased the historic Cooley-Haze House in Lansing for the cost of one dollar a year, plus the expense of renovating and maintaining the house.
Initially, the center received dollars from the state, but the funding stopped in the 1990s. It now does all of its own fund raising for its $160,000 budget.
"It's a constant struggle for us and other small museums," center Director Gladys Beckwith said.
Despite the strain for money, the center has displayed many different exhibits in recent years. They include: "A Few Good Women," an exhibit on Michigan women who served in the armed forces in World War II, "Creating a Community - Historic Women of Lansing," and others on the history of nursing, suffrage and the women's movement.
The permanent exhibit on suffrage and the women's movement looks into the history of American women's fight for the right to vote, own property and achieve overall equality. The exhibit uses photos of women's rights activists, memorabilia from marches and demonstrations, and mannequins with dresses from the different time periods.
Jennifer Savage, a 2003 graduate, arranged another current exhibit, "Votes for Women."
The exhibit picked up where the suffrage exhibit left off, covering what some women in Michigan politics since then, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Savage researched for the exhibit in places she had never been, such as the University Archives and Historical Collections and the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.
Along with the exhibits, the center is home to the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. With more than 200 women, the Hall displays information and pictures of each member. A back room, surrounded by windows, houses the exhibit where sunlight shines on some of Michigan's most brilliant women.
"They've been exhaustively studied by the time we make our selections," Beckwith said.
The exhibits in the center, such as the DOCARE display, attempt to highlight both modern and historic women.
"Anything that can make (DOCARE) known to the community is great," said Dr. Margaret Morath, assistant professor in pediatrics. She has gone on eight missions with the group - each time bringing a few MSU students.
"It gives them a real satisfaction in being a physician," Morath said. "It teaches them how to work without technology and gives them a whole different sense of medicine."
