In the spring of 1851 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were introduced to each other on a street corner in Seneca Falls NY. Immediately drawn to each other, they formed an everlasting and legendary friendship. Together, they challenged entrenched beliefs, customs, and laws that oppressed women and spearheaded the fight to gain legal rights, including the right to vote, despite fierce opposition, daunting conditions, scandalous entanglements, and betrayal by their friends and allies. Penny Colman weaves commentary, events, quotations, and personalities into her new book Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World and into her program on the two famous women’s rights activists. [Read more…] about Stanton and Anthony: A World Changing Friendship
Suffrage Movement
Peterboro Programs to Observe Women’s Rights
Equality Day has been observed on August 26 since 1971 when the efforts of Congresswoman Bella Abzug succeeded in commemorating the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – the Woman Suffrage Amendment. The final programs of the 2011 Peterboro Heritage season recognize women of the 19th Century who laid the ground work for extending suffrage to disenfranchised groups.
Equality Day Weekend will be observed in Peterboro by two presentations on three women who led the women’s rights movement. On Saturday, August 27 at 2 p.m. author Penny Colman presents Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed the World, and signs her new book by the same name at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro. The next day Dr. Carol Faulkner presents her new biography Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s History in 19th Century America at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro.
The Fourth Annual Elizabeth Smith Miller In the Kitchen Bloomer Tea will be held on Sunday, September 25 at 12:30 at the Smithfield Community Center with Dr. Judith Wellman speaking on Peterboro and the Road to Seneca Falls. Debra Kolstrud, the owner of the historical home at 9 S. William Street in Johnstown NY where Susan B. Anthony boarded in 1884 when she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the third volume of their History of Woman Suffrage, will update on activities in Johnstown, Stanton’s hometown. Selected letters between cousins Elizabeth Smith Miller and Elizabeth Cady Stanton will be read. (Reservations are required.: $35 by August 27. $40 by September 17.) Seating is limited. For more information and online reservations visit www.inthekitchentea.com.
On Saturday, October 22 the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will induct Abby Kelley Foster, the 19th Century Worcester abolitionist and women’s rights activist, into the Hall of Fame at ceremonies held at Colgate University. Stacey Robertson, Director of Women’s Studies program at Bradley University in Peoria IL, presents Abby Kelley Foster: A Radical Voice to the West at 12:30 pm in Golden Auditorium. That evening Lynne McKenney Lydick, Worcester Women’s History Project, will perform Yours for Humanity, a one woman play about Foster.
The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from May 14 to October 23 in 2011. Admission to each site is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. For more information: Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro NY 13134-0006. Call 315-684-3262 or visit online.
National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13134-0055. Call 315-684-3262 or visit online.
For more information and updates, follow www.sca-peterboro.org and www.AbolitionHoF.org
19th Amendment Festival in Susan B. Anthony Park
The annual 19th Amendment Festival will be held on Saturday, August 20, 2011 from noon to 5 p.m., in the Susan B. Anthony Park between Madison and King streets in Rochester.
Music and entertainment in the park will be provided by the Hochstein School of Music and Dance as well as the Genesee Harmonic Society of the Genesee Country Village and Museum. Authentic nineteenth-century base ball demonstrations will be provided by Genesee Country Village’s women base ball team, in period costumes, following the rules and etiquette of the game as it was played in the 1800s. [Read more…] about 19th Amendment Festival in Susan B. Anthony Park
A Teacher Open House at the Gage Center
The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, NY would like to share with teachers the opportunity to learn more about Matilda Joslyn Gage, an important local historical figure on Thursday, September 22, 3:30-5:30 pm.
Matilda Joslyn Gage (1824-1898) was involved in the Abolitionist Movement and the Underground Railroad. Along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gage was a major figure in the Women’s Rights Movement. With them, she co-authored The History of Woman Suffrage.
She was a supporter of Native American sovereignty and a proponent of the total separation of Church and State, she was the author of Woman, Church and State.
Because of her strong, liberal position on religious freedom, she was written out of history books until recently.
Gage’s ideas are as relevant today as they were in the 19th century and this is a great way to bring Central New York history into your classroom and promote discussion of the past and contemporary issues.
Materials for lessons, activities, and curriculum packets available.
For more information, call 637-9511.
Rochester: 19th Amendment Festival August 20th
A 19th Amendment Festival will be on Saturday, August 20, 2011 from noon to 5 p.m., in the Susan B. Anthony Park between Madison and King streets in Rochester, NY. The event celebrates the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, finally giving women the right to vote, after a campaign that lasted more than 70 years. [Read more…] about Rochester: 19th Amendment Festival August 20th
NY Suffrage Writer Hits PBS in September
Writer Louise Bernikow uncovers the long Suffrage Campaign in New York City, a place she says “where the urban landscape became a prop for incomparable political spectacle. The Statue of Liberty, the transit system, Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, parks and streetcorners– all became venues for a complicated, shifting alliance across lines of race and class, ending in a historic victory in 1917.” [Read more…] about NY Suffrage Writer Hits PBS in September
Eleven Named to National Women’s Hall of Fame
The National Women’s Hall of Fame has announced the upcoming induction of eleven American women who have made valuable and enduring contributions to our nation. These women will be formally inducted on September 30th and October 1st, 2011 in Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the American Women’s Rights Movement.
The National Women’s Hall of Fame is the nation’s oldest membership organization recognizing the achievements of great American women. Inductees are selected every two years based on their lasting contributions to society through the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy and science. From a group of over 200 completed nominations, a national panel of judges conducted a rigorous scoring process and selected eleven women for Induction. [Read more…] about Eleven Named to National Women’s Hall of Fame
NYS Museum: Women’s History Exhibit During March
In celebration of Women’s History Month, the New York State Museum will open a small exhibition March 1 featuring artifacts and images from the woman’s suffrage movement of the early 20th century. “Women Who Rocked the Vote” will be open through March in the Museum’s front lobby window.
The exhibition chronicles the history of the suffrage movement, which was officially launched when Elizabeth Cady Stanton added the demand for equal suffrage to the Declaration of Sentiments at the first woman’s rights convention in Seneca Falls that she helped organize. Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, the declaration condemned male tyranny. It also claimed for women “all the rights and privileges” of citizenship. News of the convention sparked controversy and helped ignite a national movement.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a large wooden wagon that was once covered in suffrage banners and hand-painted signs as suffrage activists used the wagon as both a prop and a speaker’s platform. There also are historic images and a large painted banner carried in a massive suffrage parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City. The parade came just 10 days before the November 1917 election which gave women the right to vote in New York State. Two years later the state ratified the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibited sex-based restrictions on the right to vote.
The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.
Photo: Suffrage Parade, NYC 1912
Books: Madison County’s Frank L. Baum, Wizard of Oz
This summer the film “The Wizard of Oz” marked its 70th anniversary. Just in time comes The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum
by Rebecca Loncraine, the first full biography of L. Frank Baum – from his birth in 1856 and his youth in the Finger Lakes region, to the years following his death – that looks at the people, places, history, culture, and literature that influenced the renowned storyteller. From the Civil War to women’s suffrage, from amputation to modern medicine, from psychics to industrialization, Baum saw it all and it was reflected in his writings. Loncraine is an acknowledged expert on Oz and Baum who traveled the US to study him, his works and the impact they had on our culture for the book.
When The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written at the turn of the century, it quickly became an icon of American Culture. The public and the media were entranced by myths surrounding Baum’s creation, all covered in the book:
Was OZ really named from the O-Z on his file cabinet?
Was the book really a reaction to the Populist party?
What was Baum’s incredible connection to PT Barnum?
Ten Named to National Women’s Hall of Fame
To coincide with Women’s History Month, the National Women’s Hall of Fame announces its 2009 Inductees. Included in the group of ten outstanding American women are world-renowned artist Louise Bourgeois, biochemist Dr. Mildred Cohn, attorney and women’s rights activist Karen DeCrow, domestic violence advocate Susan Kelly-Dreiss, attorney and social justice activist Dr. Allie B. Latimer, ecologist and limnologist Dr. Ruth Patrick, and atmospheric scientist Dr. Susan Solomon. These women, along with three historic figures, will be inducted during a weekend of celebration to be held in Seneca Falls, New York on October 10-11, 2009. Seneca Falls was the location of the first women’s rights convention, held in 1848. The event began a 72-year struggle for women’s suffrage. [Read more…] about Ten Named to National Women’s Hall of Fame