The Stories Behind Their Names: Queens Women in Action is a community-centered public history exhibition honoring women whose names are woven into our public landscape and whose stories are integral to the making of Queens. Presented during Women’s History Month by the Queens Memory Project in partnership with Urban Archive, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how history lives in our neighborhoods - on the streets, schools, parks, and buildings we pass every day, often without knowing the stories they hold.

Drawing from the Queens Name Explorer project, this exhibition honors the democratic power of participatory archiving by including photographs shared by families, oral histories recorded with neighbors, and records shared across generations. These materials reflect a collaborative approach to history-making, where community members are not just subjects of history, but active stewards of it.

From Long Island City to Jamaica to the northeastern corner of Queens, the exhibition highlights a diverse group of women whose contributions reshaped neighborhoods and paved the way for a more sustainable future. The women featured here are educators, activists, journalists, public servants, artists, and community advocates, many of them breaking barriers in race, gender, class, and language to create systems of change central to thriving communities.

These women's names mark more than the places they occupy. They tell stories of collective action and sustained efforts, stories that continue to resonate today. By uncovering the stories behind their names, we invite visitors to consider how public memory is constructed, and whose contributions are celebrated.

Curated by the Queens Memory Project team: Meral Agish, Dacia Metes, Aimai Reporter, and J. Faye Yuan. Thank you to Queens Public Library’s Archives and Marketing & Communications Department and John Paul Chirdon.

Contact the host of The Stories Behind Their Names: Queens Women in Action

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