Hey, let's go down to the National Mall and see Lucretia and Gloria.

Quick, who am I talking about? Past and present heroines of American women's history, they are two of the most compelling characters in our national narrative.

In the beginning came Lucretia Mott, the Philadelphia Quaker champion for slave emancipation and early women's rights. She was 87 when she died in 1880. The modern women's movement leader, Gloria Steinem, was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934. Steinem, still a captivating writer and speaker, just turned 80 Tuesday. Nobody can get over that. She was recently honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

Here's the thing: Sadly, there's no place on the National Mall where the history of American women unfolds. If you know that national gathering place, you'll recall the new stone building for the American Indian. Now the National Museum of African American History and Culture is close to being finished, with a grand vision. It is overdue, too. Taking ownership of history is a political exercise.

But there's no site or space yet to be dedicated to a structure that tells the tale of women, behind the scenes of history class. A gaping vacancy exists among the national history museums, art galleries, archives, sculpture garden, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Air and Space Museum.

That's why a bipartisan push is underway in Congress to establish a National Women's History Museum. A House bill hearing took place on Capitol Hill Tuesday, and I went to "hear" what's still a slender figment of a proposal. The idea is that the museum will be privately funded. "Money is tight right now," Blackburn said.

In a dispute not fully addressed at the hearing, an advisory group of historians was abruptly disbanded earlier this month by Joan Wages, president and CEO of the National Women's History Museum nonprofit leading the effort. More on that in a later column.

The takeaway: A vote is expected in the House this year. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., co-authors of the legislation, expressed an urgency to clear hurdles that have eluded the effort for years. The glorious Capitol, adorned with murals and statutes of great men and deeds, is Exhibit A, with 210 statues of men and roughly a dozen of women.

It's almost as if women weren't there for society's dramas, struggles and progress. Oh, yes, we were, starting on the ships over from England. Oh, yes, we suffered the privations of the Civil War while the menfolk fought. Oh, yes, we were on the frontiers and the prairies, with the westward American dream. We weren't just along for the ride, even if the usual records are silent. Women often poured out their lives in diaries.

What rises as the North Star of our experience: Women had to claim every right we have as citizens. The vote was not "given" to women in 1920; it was taken and wrested away from President Woodrow Wilson.

That pattern fits the proposed museum; women will have to make it happen. Women leaders must make it first-class, with the best minds in the country involved. Lonnie G. Bunch, Ph.D., founding director of the African American History and Culture museum, came to Washington from the Chicago Historical Society. Women should insist on a premium Mall space and make it a private-public partnership to raise the highest sum possible. The endeavor deserves federal support.

Mott was born in 1793, when George Washington was president, on Nantucket. Her father, Captain Coffin, like all island seafarers and whalers, went for years on his voyages. So women and children on the island had to be self-reliant. Female Quakers, or Friends, felt empowered to speak their minds with spirit. Little Lucretia, who roamed the town wharves and picked cranberries in the bogs, lived in a white house on School Street. I love that house, but Nantucket does little to mark a major figure raised on the ruggedly independent island. We need more story, people, and not just in Washington.

Mott and Steinem both inspired with a remarkable public presence and a resonant voice. You can understand one better by connecting to the other. That's the kind of thing we need to know.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.