Region – To help celebrate the centennial of the right for women to vote in this country, and to highlight issues that impact women, Stephen Lewis has curated three local exhibits featuring some of the political posters he has collected throughout the past two decades. The posters will commemorate March 8, which is dedicated as International Women’s Day. The exhibits will take place at the Westborough Public Library, the Northborough Free Library, and the Milford Town Library. Approximately 80 posters will be on display between the three locations. The exhibits will open on Tuesday, March 3, and continue through Monday, March 30, at the three locations.
The posters are from Lewis’s collection of more than 9000 posters. The Malden resident has been collecting political posters for 20 years and has been staging exhibits around Massachusetts for the past 18 years.
In addition to commemorating International Women’s Day, these posters, he said in a press release, “highlight some of the issues and challenges facing women, or that women once faced. Some of the issues the posters address, are job discrimination, voting rights, and full participation in the workforce and in unions. It is an exhibit that may stimulate some more thinking on the subjects of gender discrimination and inequality.”
The posters hail from several countries including the US, Greece, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Pakistan, France and Germany. Through graphic art and written word, they address issues of discrimination, gender bias, and domestic violence, but they also celebrate women, he noted.
Lewis attributes his love for the posters and creating exhibits, to his background as a political activist and a union leader. He stated that many of his exhibits reflect issues he has been involved in over the course of his life. That includes his work in his union which is made up of 70 percent women members, and involvement in other issues over the years. Lewis can be reached at [email protected]
The project is supported in part by a grant from the Northborough Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; and by donations from Asbestos Workers Local 6, and Painters DC 35.
Posters from the collection of Stephen Lewis 
