News and Views from the Empire State
Humanities New York’s (HNY) has announced the Amended podcast, a six-part series about the ongoing struggle for women’s voting rights.
Launching on August 26, 2020, Amended travels from the 1800s through to the present day to explore the quest for women’s full equality, one that has been as diverse, complex and unfinished as the nation itself. [Read more…] about ‘Amended,’ A Women’s History Podcast Series
I offer the following tribute to Anna Douglass, first wife of Frederick Douglass and mother of their five children, on the anniversary of her death Aug. 4, 1882:
Both Frederick Bailey and Anna Murray were born in rural Maryland in the early 1800s and grew up under harsh racist customs that strictly defined roles for men and women by sex, race and class.
By the time Frederick and Anna met in the 1830s in Baltimore, his owner valued him as a slave who was a skilled caulker. Yet Anna, despite being a free woman skilled as a domestic and cook, was not well paid by her white employers. [Read more…] about Anna Murray-Douglass: Frederick’s Most Important Ally
The organization Monumental Women has announced that actors Jane Alexander, Viola Davis, America Ferrera, Rita Moreno, Zoe Saldana and Meryl Streep will portray Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in English and Spanish-Language ‘Talking Statues’ monologues that will accompany the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument.
The Monument featuring Truth, Anthony and Stanton is set to be unveiled on Central Park’s Literary Walk on August 26, 2020, the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, when women won the right to vote. [Read more…] about Actors To Voice Women’s Rights Pioneers
Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP) has announced Virtual Convention Days 2020, a series of online programs being held July 17-19. [Read more…] about Women’s Rights Park Hosting Virtual Convention Days
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has launched a new exhibit: Women at the Helm, celebrating women leaders of the Champlain Valley from the 18th century to today. [Read more…] about Women at the Helm: The Maritime Museum’s New Digital Exhibit
Getting the vote was just one of the issues suffragettes encountered in the late 19th century.
They also faced the premise of some theologians who contended the afterlife was restricted to an exclusive old boy’s club.
“A benignant looking, white-bearded patriarch,” who distributed candy to local children annually on Christmas Eve, debunked the theory in a Sunday afternoon debate in 1894 at Psychical Hall.
No — not Santa Claus. [Read more…] about Meredith B. Little: Leading Glens Falls Spiritualist
Bill Greer’s new book A Dirty Year: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in Gilded Age New York (Chicago Review Press, 2020) looks back to a time of rigged elections, everyday shootings, and attacks on the press, to sexual impropriety, reproductive rights, and the chasm between rich and poor.
As 1872 opened, the New York Times headlined four stories that seemed symptomatic of the decay in public morals that the editors so frequently decried: financier Jim Fisk was gunned down in a love triangle; suffragist and free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull was running for US President; anti-vice activist Anthony Comstock battled smut dealers; and abortionists were thriving. [Read more…] about Sex, Suffrage, Scandal in Gilded Age New York
Born in Brest, the daughter of a novelist and educated in Paris, she was a lesbian, a feminist, and a formidable educationist. Today her presence may be largely forgotten, but she left a legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Marie Souvestre was born on April 28, 1830 in Brest, the daughter of a novelist. In 1846, her father Émile published the dystopian novel Le monde tel qu’il sera. Set in the year 3000, the story features remarkable predictions on the role of science in society, and contains reflections on future parenthood and education. He would certainly have inspired his daughter’s alternative ideas about learning in general, and the teaching of young women in particular. Having remained in the shadow of the mighty Jules Verne who stole the limelight, Émile Souvestre deserves renewed critical attention. [Read more…] about The Education of Eleanor Roosevelt
In recognition of 2020 and the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Women’s Rights National Historical Park has invited the public to participate in a virtual transcribe-a-thon through the Library of Congress to help build their available sources of research.
From the safety of their own homes, volunteers can lend their hands to transcribing historical documents belonging to leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. [Read more…] about Quarantine Pastimes: Help Transcribe Women’s Rights History
Women played a crucial role in the American Revolution, but information about them can be hard to come by. HVA Press has recently discovered and republished Catherine Schuyler: A Woman of the Revolution by Mary Gay Humphreys, which was first published in 1897. [Read more…] about Catherine Schuyler: Not All Rev War Heroes Were Men