History, Natural History & the Arts
The Women’s Rights Alliance of New York State Inc. has announced the agenda for it’s upcoming Women’s Rights and Justice in New York State, Past and Present Conference, set for November 1st and 2nd, in Syracuse.
The conference will include 15 presentations and 43 presenters, all representing programs produced in preparation for the 2020 women’s suffrage 100th anniversary celebration for women’s right to vote in the United States. [Read more…] about Women’s Rights Alliance Conference Nov 1-2
We tend to view gay marriage as a cultural and legal development of the 21st century.
But did you know that some early Americans lived openly as same-sex married couples? [Read more…] about Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
The Women’s History Institute of Historic Hudson Valley has announced they are now offering Summer Research Fellowships to support college and graduate students engaged in scholarly research connected to the women who shaped the culture and chronicle of the Hudson River Valley.
Fellowship stipends are $3,000 for a minimum of 6 weeks and a maximum of three months’ duration. Applications are invited for residence between June 1, 2018 – October 1, 2018. The deadline for application is April 15, 2018 and applicants will be notified of results before May 15, 2018. [Read more…] about Hudson Valley Women’s History Research Fellows Sought
International Women’s Day Events are scheduled for March 8-11, 2018 at the Oneida Community Mansion House, 170 Kenwood Avenue, in Oneida, NY.
On March 8 and 10 The Oneida Community Mansion House will have guided tours at 10 am and 2 pm that explore the role of women and gender equality within the Oneida Community, as well as their interactions with the outside world. [Read more…] about International Women’s Day Event in Utica
Albany Institute of History & Art has opened a new exhibition exploring Albany and Anti-Suffrage Movement.
The year 2017 marks the centennial of woman’s suffrage in New York State.
Albany was considered a stronghold of the anti-suffrage movement. The exhibit tells the story of the women who first met in 1894 before the New York Constitutional Convention convened, organized the Albany branch of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, lobbied to make their views heard in 1915, and lost their fight in 1917. [Read more…] about New Exhibition Explores Albany Anti-Suffrage Movement
Women won the right to vote in New York State in 1917, but the story really began much earlier and with particular fervor in the mid 19th century.
In the 1840’s, upstate New York was a hotbed of radicalism. The “Second Great Awakening” brought with it spiritual revivalism, penal and education reforms, abolitionism and the temperance and women’s right movements. This turbulent atmosphere of ideas and events was not unlike the cultural upheaval of the 1960s.
In 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Coffin Mott and several other women gathered around a tea table in Waterloo, New York and drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments” based upon the Declaration of Independence. By inserting into the text that women, as well as men, were created equal, they renewed the revolution that was started seventy two years earlier in 1776. The protracted and arduous road to women’s right to the elective franchise took until 1917 to be realized in New York State and not until 1920 in the entire United States. [Read more…] about Suffrage Centennial Exhibit at Athens Cultural Center
On Sunday, June 18, at 1 pm at the Oneida Community Mansion House, 170 Kenwood Ave., Oneida, historian and author Tamar Carroll and Mansion House curator Molly Jessup will lead a discussion entitled ‘It Saved My Life:’ AIDS & Reproductive Rights Activism in the Creation of Queer Politics.
The discussion will focus on AIDS and women’s health activists in New York City during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the face of official silence and avoidance, members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP New York) and of the Women’s Health Action Mobilization (WHAM!) joined together to advocate awareness and a public health response to the HIV epidemic and for the right to health care. Carroll’s extensive interviews with some of those activists formed the basis for her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism. [Read more…] about Event: Queer Politics, AIDS, Reproductive Rights History
Fire! … Please send help — there’s been a car accident! … We found our son in the pool … please help us! … We need an ambulance … I think my husband’s having a heart attack! … My wife can’t breathe and she’s turning blue! Many of us have experienced terrifying moments like those at one time or another. In modern times, amazingly quick responses are the norm from fire and EMS personnel directed by information received at county emergency service centers.
Until several decades ago, those positions were nearly all filled by men. But for much of the twentieth century, most rural areas lacked coordination of services. A vital cog in emergency situations back then was the local switchboard operator, who was nearly always a woman. In almost every instance where policemen and/or firemen were needed, the telephone operator was key to obtaining a good outcome. She was the de facto emergency services coordinator of yesteryear.
Her importance during times of crisis was often overlooked, with most of the glory going to policemen and firemen capturing criminals, rescuing victims, and saving lives. But emergency personnel and telephone-company executives were aware of the vital role operators played on a daily basis. [Read more…] about Ida Blanchard: Heroic Switchboard Operator
This week on “The Historians” podcast, Sam Maggs discusses her book on women who
made often unheralded contributions to history, Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. On part two of the podcast Bob Cudmore and Dave Greene discuss the story of a debutante spy for America during World War II, Gertrude Sanford Legendre.
Listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about Historians Podcast: History’s Wonder Women
A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum continues with We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85.
Focusing on the work of more than forty black women artists from an under-recognized generation, the exhibition highlights a group of artists who committed themselves to activism during a period of profound social change marked by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, the Women’s Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and the Gay Liberation Movement, among others. [Read more…] about New Exhibit: Black Radical Women 1965-85