Lisa Kathleen Graddy

Lisa Kathleen Graddy is a curator of American political history, reform movements, and women’s political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Her work and research centers on the ways that Americans, particularly women, have found a public voice and wielded political power through organizing, participating in, and building institutions such as reform movements, voting rights movements, suffrage organizations, and political parties.

Graddy’s recent work includes curating the museum’s exhibition, Creating Icons: How We Remember Woman Suffrage, for the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and the exhibition, American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith (co-curator). She is also the curator of the museum’s popular ongoing exhibition, The First Ladies. Her past work includes the exhibitions Votes and Voices: Democracy in America (co-curator); Hooray for Politics (co-curator); The National Woman Suffrage Parade, 1913; A Letter from George Washington, November 30, 1785 (co-curator); The First Ladies; A First Lady’s Debut; The First Ladies at the Smithsonian; and Exhibiting George Washington.

Graddy is a co-author of American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith (Smithsonian Books, 2017), a companion book to the museum’s exhibition and The Smithsonian First Ladies Collection (Smithsonian Books, 2014). Her writing is featured in Smithsonian American Women: Remarkable Objects and Stories of Strength, Ingenuity, and Vision from the National Collections (Smithsonian Books, 2019) and Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection (Smithsonian Books, 2013). She can be seen talking about voting and women in political life in programs like She the People: Votes for Women (Smithsonian Channel, 2020).

After spending the last few years working on exhibits and programs to mark the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, Lisa Kathleen is continuing to research and expand the collections documenting women in modern American political life.