History, Natural History & the Arts
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED.
In honor of Women’s History Month, Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site, in Newburgh, is set to hold its annual program, The General’s Lady, Sunday, March 22nd. [Read more…] about Postponed: Washington’s HQ Honoring Women With Special Program
In the 2018 film On the Basis of Sex, young firebrand Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes dramatic use of Abigail Adams’ 1776 admonition to “remember the ladies.” Sadly, Abigail’s husband, future President John Adams, spurned her request to consider property rights and other protections for women in drafting a legal framework for the rebellious colonies. [Read more…] about 19th Century Women of Newburgh Bay
The Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, has opened a new, temporary art exhibit, “Pictures of Equality.”
This art installation was created in partnership with the International Fiber Collaborative, which worked with students and teachers to create art in response to the question, “What does it mean to be equal?” Nearly 500 students from 20 schools in New York, Colorado, Wyoming, North Carolina, Montana and Illinois created art for this exhibit. [Read more…] about Women’s Rights Park Features Youth Art Exhibit
The Nineteenth Amendment (the right of citizens of the United State to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation) was passed by the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919 after its initial introduction in 1878. The Senate passed the Amendment on June 4, 1919. The 36th state needed for ratification did so on August 18, 2020, and the amendment was officially ratified on August 26, 2020. In 1973 Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day. [Read more…] about Madison Co Prepares for Women’s Suffrage Centennial
Until the twentieth century, women were often overlooked by historians. Fortunately for those of us who live in Oneida and Herkimer Counties, a collaborative project, Women Belong In History Books, has captured many inspiring stories of notable women. [Read more…] about Women of the Mohawk Valley Program Planned
A local Women’s History event is set for Wednesday, March 21st at 7 pm, at the Warren County Historical Society, 50 Gurney Lane, in Queensbury.
This Women’s History Month event, which is free and open to the public, features talks by three local women on three notable women in local history Harriet Leonard Colburn, Jeanne Robert Foster, and Frances Garnar Kinnear. Light refreshments will be served following the presentation. [Read more…] about Queensbury Women’s History Event March 21st
A Women’s History Month Program has been set for March 15th from 7 to 9 p at the Alling Coverlet Museum, 132 Market Street, in Palmyra, Wayne County, NY.
This event will introduce attendees to the women of Palmyra’s history such as Dr. Harriet Adams, Clarissa Hall Jerome, Lavinia Chase, Harriett Hyde Sexton, Anna Webster Eaton, and Sybil Phelps, along with other women of the region such as the Fox Sisters. [Read more…] about Historic Palmyra Women’s History Month Event March 15th
Women’s Rights National Historical Park will be celebrating National Women’s History Month in March with an array of programming and special events. New exhibits will be unveiled featuring some of the park’s most significant historical objects related to the first Women’s Rights Convention held in the park’s Wesleyan Chapel in 1848.
Dr. Barbara LeSavoy, PhD, Director of Women and Gender Studies at The College of Brockport, will be sharing her experiences traveling in Russia in a lecture and conversation on women titled, “Comparative Perspectives on the United States and Russia.” And, WCNY will once again hold its Annual Central New York Women Who Make America Awards Ceremony at the park. These are just a sampling of the activities that will be on the park’s calendar during National Women’s History Month. [Read more…] about Women’s History Month Plans At Women’s Rights NHP
At the height of her career in mid-1873, Kate Field was said to be “a more prominent journalist than Clemens [Mark Twain].” The Washington Post said she was “one of the foremost women of America,” and the Chicago Tribune called her the “most unique woman the present century has produced.” Yet in her tales of adventure in the Adirondacks, she called herself “a babe in the woods.”
She wrote, “To be a babe in the woods watched over by a human robin redbreast, is as near an approach to Eden before the fall as comes within the ken of woman.” [Read more…] about Kate Field: “A Babe in the Woods” of the Adirondacks
Editor’s Note: This tribute to Lake George’s Winnie LaRose was written by the late Robert F. Hall and republished in his 1992 collection of essays, Pages from Adirondack History. He included this piece in the collection because, he wrote, “Winifred S. LaRose, who died on December 6, 1979, was the very embodiment of the environmentalist – a person whose love of her own native place and whose determination that its beauty would not be spoiled led her to the forefront of the environmental movement, not only in Lake George, but throughout New York State.”
Governor Hugh Carey proclaimed August 21, 1980, as Winnie LaRose Day, but any day would have served because that lady was busy every day of the year for the past 30 years in battling for the environment.
The governor chose that date because it coincided with a memorial service to the late Mrs. LaRose at the Fort George Battleground Park on the Beach Road at Lake George. This was an appropriate site for the service because Winnie, more than anyone else, was responsible for turning this swampy piece of ground into a park for people to enjoy. But it was done not only for people. As Victor Glider, a good friend and now retired as director of Environmental Conservation Field Services, told the gathering, Winnie insisted on clearing away the brush so that the statue of the martyred Father Jogues would have a good view of the lake where he served his mission in the 17th century. [Read more…] about Winnie LaRose: An Informal Tribute
Any recognition of influential and famous American women should include Frances Perkins and rank her close to the top of such a list. Perkins was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor during his entire time in office, from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman cabinet member in our history.
Although she is largely unknown to most Americans, many historians credit Perkins as being the architect and driving force responsible for the key achievements of FDR’s New Deal program during the Great Depression of the 1930s. [Read more…] about Frances Perkins: Secretary of Labor Under FDR
During the first decades of the twentieth century, as women first agitated for and then began exercising the right to vote, many became intrigued by the political process and the possibilities for influencing public opinion. One of the topics of great interest and debate concerned the best use of forest lands in the Adirondack Park, and whether to uphold the protections of Article VII, Section 7, the forever wild clause of the New York Constitution. Although little has been written on this subject, I am convinced that women contributed significantly to this debate.
My source of information is a collection of letters saved by John S. Apperson, Jr., an engineer at the General Electric Company in Schenectady. By 1920, he had earned a reputation as a leading preservationist, and was fighting a vigorous campaign to protect the islands at Lake George. His connection to women’s organizations apparently got its start there, as he became friends with Mary Loines, from Brooklyn, New York, who owned land in Northwest Bay. [Read more…] about NY Women Helped Frame 1930s Preservation Debate
Research projects sometimes take unexpected, but fascinating, twists and turns. I had reason a few years ago to look into the case of a woman called Madame Sherri. She is mostly known for an unusual castle-like house built for her in a rural area of New Hampshire–its ruins are now popular with hikers and lovers of the odd and mysterious.
My investigation dragged me far from New Hampshire–to the world of cabaret reviews in New York City, the vaudeville circuit, and “soldier shows” (popular during World War I, with Irving Berlin’s “Yip Yip Yaphank” being the most well-known). And, for good measure, toss in a scandal involving sex and blackmail. [Read more…] about Madame Sherri: Early 20th Century NYC Show Business
Three women’s suffrage activists, four educators, two musicians, an artist, a psychiatrist, and a writer. These are just some of the amazing careers led by North Country Women of Courage who will be the subject of the Patricia Harrington Carson Brown Bag Lunch program tomorrow, Thursday, March 20th at noon at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association at the Silas Wright House, 3 East Main St., Canton.
Brown Bag Lunches are free and open to the public. Bring your own lunch and enjoy a beverage and dessert provided by SLCHA. [Read more…] about Canton Event: North Country Women of Courage
Helen Redmond’s life was that of a star, playing Broadway and touring the country for five years in the role of prima donna, but she hadn’t forgotten her family. In 1900, Helen’s mother, three brothers, a sister, and a nephew shared a Manhattan address with her. All were employed except for mom (age 64 and retired) and the nephew, who was in school. It was a far cry from 20 years earlier, when the single mother of seven toiled as a hotel servant and cook in upstate Vermont.
Clinging to her roots, and to escape the constant limelight and media attention, Helen occasionally visited her hometown of Port Henry, sometimes spending entire summers there, accompanied by her mother. [Read more…] about Helen Redmond: Big City Star with North Country Roots
The Adirondack Region of New York State is known for not only for its scenic beauty, but also for the strength and stubbornness of its people. This is especially true of its women. The early years of its history featured women who were particularly strong and resilient.
Phebe Cary was not only a woman, she was a full-blooded Abenaki. The story goes that at age 13 she was sold off by her father to William Dalaba. It is unclear if she was sold off by her father or whether William just paid her father a dowry. What is clear is that after William left money with her father, she was sent off – against her will – with a new husband to the 1857 wilderness of Bakers Mills, N.Y. [Read more…] about Some Notable Women in Adirondack History
The lives of the two Mrs. Boissevains of New York seem inseparable and incomparable. Both graduated from Vassar College, supported women’s suffrage, endured ill health, believed in free love, and attained popular fame. It is not surprising that they chose the same husband: the charming, witty, handsome Eugen Boissevain. Inez Milholland wed him on July 14, 1913, and after Inez died, he took Edna St. Vincent Millay as his bride on July 18, 1923.
Already known for “making suffrage fashionable,” Inez Milholland shot to fame as the herald atop a white horse at the head of the March 3, 1913, suffrage procession in Washington, DC. It was a shock to the world when a few months later the New York Times announced that Inez had met Hollander F. Eugene Boissevain aboard an ocean liner and married him in London. [Read more…] about The Two Mrs. Boissevains: Inez and Edna
There would be no Women’s History Month celebration without the life and work of the extraordinary Margaret Fuller. This founding member of the Transcendentalist Club with her friends and colleagues Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and A. Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, was treated as a social equal by these exceptional writers and thinkers. Her colleague Edgar Allan Poe, the only other outstanding literary critic in 1840s America, stated that there were three types of people: Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller. Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended Margaret’s “Conversations” for Women in Boston which allowed women for the first time the opportunity to express their opinions and thoughts in a public forum.
Who was this strong-willed and determined woman who aggressively pursued her dreams of integrating her feminine and masculine aspects of her psyche in the sacred marriage and insisted that men and women everywhere needed to embrace this for their well-being and happiness? [Read more…] about Margaret Fuller:
Transcendentalist, Women’s Rights Advocate
A Protestant revival movement, the Second Great Awakening (SGA), began in the 1790s in this country and lasted until approximately 1850. Consequences of this movement that its millions of adherents could not imagine are evident today and will continue to shape gender relations.
Most historians consider the SGA a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment values of rationalism, skepticism, and secularism that were paramount in the aftermath of the First Great Awakening that occurred between 1731 and 1755. [Read more…] about George Bryjak: The Cult of True Womanhood
On March 13, 1906, at forty minutes past midnight, Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 in her bed on the second floor of the house at 17 Madison Street in Rochester, her home of 40 years.
At her request, much of the ceremonial mourning of the day was not observed: no shades were drawn, no black crepe hung. Only a simple wreath of violets was placed on the front door. [Read more…] about Susan B. Anthony’s Death Anniversary Event Planned
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