womens history

Poor Richard’s Women: An Intimate Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

September 30, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin — the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era — but not about his love life. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years.

Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England. [Read more…] about Poor Richard’s Women: An Intimate Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

Girl Scouts Unveil New Women’s History Patch

August 26, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Monumental Women and the Girl Scouts of Greater New York have announced the launch of the Celebrate Women’s History Girl Scout Patch Program in honor of Women’s Equality Day.

The Patch Program gives Girl Scouts the opportunity to learn about women’s suffrage and the history of abolition in New York, the space to learn about the importance of recognizing and honoring these activists, and the tools to advocate for women’s representation in public spaces. [Read more…] about Girl Scouts Unveil New Women’s History Patch

Garden Club of Lake George Celebrates Centenary

August 12, 2022 by Anthony F. Hall Leave a Comment

The Garden Club of Lake George was founded in the summer of 1922 by nine women: Mary Whitman Knauth; Marianne Schurz; Gertrude Ranger; Elizabeth Brereton; Mona Hawkins; Mary Hayden; Elizabeth Kreitler; and Charlotte Hyde.

These were no ordinary women. [Read more…] about Garden Club of Lake George Celebrates Centenary

New York: A Metropolis of Murals

August 2, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Plastered on walls in public spaces and civic buildings, scattered in hotels and restaurants, hidden in private mansions, a plenitude of murals form part of New York City’s infrastructure.

Although American interest in the medium originated in the 1893 World Fair which presented visitors with numerous large-scale murals, the vogue for this form of artistic expression dates back to the Great Depression. With the introduction of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933, federal funds were made available to support and promote public art. Muralism became fashionable. [Read more…] about New York: A Metropolis of Murals

Aeronaut Carlotta Myers In The Clouds Over Saratoga

July 28, 2022 by Dave Waite 1 Comment

It was a quiet September afternoon at Saratoga Springs’ Grand Union Hotel, with families and small groups gathering to relax and be seen by Saratoga’s high society. As the clock struck 4:30, a hush fell over the hotel’s piazza and every eye was drawn across Broadway to Congress Spring Park where a huge net shrouded sphere slowly rose above the trees.

When the giant ball had cleared the treetops, hanging below it was a small figure standing suspended in an open wire cage waving a handkerchief to the onlookers below. The crowd that day in 1884 witnessed a gas-filled balloon ascension by female aeronaut Carlotta Myers. [Read more…] about Aeronaut Carlotta Myers In The Clouds Over Saratoga

The Sewing Girl’s Tale: The 1793 Rape of Lanah Sawyer

July 8, 2022 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, John Sweet is author of The Sewing Girl’s Tale, the story of the first published rape trial in American history. In 1793, Lanah Sawyer, a 17-year-old seamstress, charged she had been raped. The defendant was “a very great rake,” the scion of two wealthy Dutch families who lied about his identity and took her to a brothel and sexually assaulted her. Alexander Hamilton was among the many well-connected lawyers who represented the defendant in various aspects of the case.

Sweet researched Sawyer’s decision to charge Henry Bedlow with rape, leading to a raw courtroom drama in the city of New York, riots in the streets, and public debate over class privilege and double standards. [Read more…] about The Sewing Girl’s Tale: The 1793 Rape of Lanah Sawyer

Arrested Attention: The Women’s House of Detention

June 29, 2022 by Kathleen Hulser Leave a Comment

The quick-witted Hugh Ryan has a nose for history, as demonstrated in his book When Brooklyn Was Queer. His latest The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison mines little-known historical sources to point out how a large and vocal population of queer-identified and trans people passed through the old cement monstrosity that used to stand next to today’s Jefferson Market Library in Manhattan‘s Greenwich Village.

Now a community garden, the site is a shout away from the Stonewall Inn, and Ryan writes the story of some of those imprisoned voices left out of the customary tales of the riot. In fact, prisoners set fire to their bedclothes and tossed them from the barred windows overlooking 6th Ave chanting “gay rights, gay rights gay rights.” Even before Stonewall’s impassioned response to police exploitation of gay bars, House of D. queer women, transmasculine people and other women were rioting for their rights in the jail. [Read more…] about Arrested Attention: The Women’s House of Detention

Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George

June 23, 2022 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

On this episode of A New York Minute in History, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts discuss how the poor conditions of female textile workers in Capital Region cities led to the creation of a retreat on Lake George where women could “escape” the cities. [Read more…] about Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George

Susan B. Anthony Childhood Home Historic Marker Dedication

June 16, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Washington County Historical Society and the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) have announce the dedication of a new historic marker to be placed at the Susan B Anthony Childhood Home at 2835 State Route 29 in Battenville (Town of Greenwich) on Saturday, June 18th. [Read more…] about Susan B. Anthony Childhood Home Historic Marker Dedication

The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

June 3, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells.

Some of these inmates — Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur — were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. [Read more…] about The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison