"Modern and contemporary art museums Paris." PARiS: Official Website of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed November 7, 2017. https://en.parisinfo.com/discovering-paris/themed-guides/contemporary-art-in-paris/contemporary-art-hotspots/modern-and-contemporary-art-museums.

"Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris." PARiS: Official Website of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed November 7, 2017. https://en.parisinfo.com/paris-museum-monument/71068/Mus%C3%A9e-d'Art-moderne-de-la-Ville-de-Paris.

"One venue, one collection." City of Paris Museum of Modern Art. Accessed November 7, 2017. http://www.mam.paris.fr/en/one-venue-one-collection.

Riding, Alan. And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.

The Musée d'Art Moderne acts as an example of how women were involved in the resistance movement from it's very early stages, particularly by looking at the role Agnes Humbert played. Humbert's role began with her one day returning to her job as the curator at the Musée des Arts Traditions Populaires[1] to find books by Jewish authors had been damaged and replaced by German authors she deemed to be second rate.[2] This event results in Humbert becoming angry with the Nazis and collaborators, as shown by how she says "The Fourth Republic will have nothing to do with people like that."[3] In this anger, Humbert travels to here, the Musée d'Arts Moderne to meet friend Jean Cassou, who together decide to create both anti-Nazi and anti-Vichy propaganda, as well as a newspaper titled Résistance.[4] Within this group, Humbert takes upon a few different roles. Firstly, she was the typist and secretary of the group that would be later called the Musée de l'Homme Resistance.[5] Humbert herself comments on how this role had to do with her gender, saying: "I am the typist, naturally."[6] In addition, Humbert also plays a role in the distribution of the paper, as she introduces the group to Edouard D. who she states "is keen to work with [the group], and he will distribute [Résistance] among the circles in which he moves, to which we otherwise have little access"[7] This introduction leads to Humbert having to travel across Paris with one hundred copies of Résistance in a briefcase.[8] The story of Humbert's beginning and role within the resistance shows how women were not just simply passive in the resistance movements of occupied Paris. Women such as Humbert not only joined in on these groups, but were instrumental in their establishment. Often, once the groups formed, the roles taken by women, while crucial, were still seen as feminine jobs. Despite this, Humbert stepped out of those roles and a was instrumental to distribution, even placing herself in risky situations while completing tasks. Ultimately, it is clear how women, such as Humbert, were important throughout the resistance movements as they had the ability to aid in starting the movements and held crucial, dangerous jobs within them.

[1] Alan Riding, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 109.

[2] David Shoenbrun, Soldiers of the Night: The Story of the French Resistance (New York: The New American Library, 1980), 73.

[3] Agnes Humbert, Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France, trans. Barbara Mellor (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), 26.

[4] Schoenbrun, 73.

[5] Margaret C. Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France 1940-1945 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), 59.

[6] Humbert, 25.

[7] Ibid, 26.

[8] Riding, 112.