BUFFALO, N.Y. — Melissa Brown, self-proclaimed history nerd and executive director at the Buffalo History Museum, is tasked with helping to preserve the Queen City's past for future generations.
A love of history is in her blood, but she never imagined she would be leading the museum. She worked in the museum's collections and exhibits departments before eventually becoming the executive director. She's been with the museum her entire career — all 25 years of it.
"The thing that lights me up [is that] I've always appreciated history, but being able to learn my own history in my own place...being able to help model a plan for sustaining the organization became exciting to me and knowing I can be a part of that," said Brown. "There are so many layers to it. You have a story. I have a story. This place has a story. This community has a story."
Brown is excited to tell more of those stories but especially those of the women who have helped shape Buffalo and Western New York.
"Right now I feel there's a real push to make that front and center," said Brown of the efforts to make women's history more than just a sidebar exhibit.
She notes impactful women with Western New York ties, such as international activist Mary Talbert, Louise Bethune, the first female architect, and Ida Fairbush, the first Black public school teacher in Buffalo.
"We're excited. The physical presence of these women in our landscape. If you see it, you can be it," said Brown of the impact these women can have on women of future generations.
Brown said the stories are definitely there but digging up women's history is often more challenging, in part because women had to take men's names.
"You have to be open to going to some unconventional spaces to find things. With men's history or military history, so much has already been written, so a lot of times you are doing original work," said Brown.
That work then becomes the foundation for the future.
"I think going forward, it's just being really mindful and having those conversations and raising people's awareness. This isn't some ancient history. This is recent to us and has an active connection in our life," said Brown.