Coline: The 19th amendment of the U.S.
Constitution is going to be exactly 100
years old
in 2020. And what's important is there's
this
72-year revolution
from the "Demand of Elected Franchise" in
Seneca Falls,
Wesleyan Chapel, arching over
to the ratification of the 19th
Amendment. That's a
very interesting social movement. It's
called the world's greatest
bloodless revolution.
Women's Rights National Historical Park
is in Seneca Falls, NY.
It's on the Erie Canal, or near
the Erie Canal, which was the main
artery from the east to the west.
Andie: You're along a major trade route with the Erie Canal.
You have abolitionists, you have
Frederick Douglass, you have Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
All these people are traveling in the
same networks
and they're coming together in this
place at this particular time.
Women's Rights National Historical Park
includes four
important sites. Two sites are in
Waterloo,
including the home of Mary Ann M'Clintock
where the convention was
planned and the Declaration of
Sentiments was drafted,
and the home of Jane Hunt, another leader
in the women's rights movement.
The other two sites are in Seneca Falls
to the east
along canal. They are the Wesleyan Chapel
where the first women's rights
convention was held in 1848
and the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
which she referred to as
the center of the rebellion. This was a
hotbed
of radical activism in the mid-19th
century.
There were a number of women activists,
and men activists as well, in the women's
rights movement.
The five organizers who are credited for
bringing the Seneca Falls
convention together are Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Mary Ann M'Clintock, Jane Hunt,
Martha Coffin Wright, and Lucretia Coffin Mott.
The convention was first discussed as a
possibility
at the home of Jane Hunt. She was
gathering friends for we call it a tea
party. It was a group of women who came
together as friends and began talking
about the injustices that they had
experienced, that they witnessed.
And they said wouldn't it be incredible if we
did what we as abolitionists have been
doing for the anti-slavery movement had
a convention
to talk about women's rights. So this is
in Waterloo on July 9th of 1848.
And from there the women would meet at
the M'Clintock House
just a few days before the convention
was held.
So on July 16th, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Mary Ann and Elizabeth M'Clintock,
there may have been others as well we
don't know for sure, but we know that the three of them sat down
and drafted the document
in Waterloo, NY called the
"Declaration of Sentiments."
And sentiments at that time meant that
they were listing the grievances that
they had about the ways that women were
treated unequally.
Coline: The Declaration of Sentiments
was modeled on the Declaration of
Independence,
which is a brilliant strategy to take
something the nation
accepted in 1776 and say
all men are created equal and then
we need to add two words; all men and
women
are created equal.
Andie: The convention would move over to Seneca Falls.
It would be held in the Wesleyan
Methodist Church in downtown
Seneca Falls, NY.
Nathan: They assembled and read the Declaration
of Sentiments and then call for a vote.
So it's - uh it's just amazing to be in
that space.
It's really a hallowed space and you can
feel it when you when you walk in there.
And I've been there
numbers of times when I come up here for the
convention days. And everybody...
it's a palpable thing that everybody
feels.
At the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House you
get a full view
of who she was as a woman, how she kept
her house,
the story of how she raised her children
while she was doing all these other
things.
The times that I have been there and sit
on the porch and talk to
people you get the full sense of the
full
woman of Elizabeth Catie Stanton.
Andie: I do think that the quest for women's rights
is an ongoing process.
On the second floor of our visitor
center, we leave visitors with one last
question, which is:
what will it be like when men and women
are truly equal?
And there are some who will leave notes
behind stating we've already achieved
equality.
We achieve that with the 19th amendment.
There are others who feel differently.
But I do think that right now in our
society we -
we are continuing to see the ripple
effects of the women's rights movement
today.
And that we continue to recognize that
there are areas where women
do not receive equal consideration with
men.
Nathan: It doesn't mean that okay we have the
right to vote that's it you know we
we can end the party. I mean women still
have
a ways to go as far as equal rights in
America.
Nadia: Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
and alike, they work very hard to
gain many rights that women did not have
in 1843.
And as hard as it is to gain those
rights,
it could be taken away from us much
faster. We need to preserve
the history, and yes it is relevant
today because our daughters, our
granddaughters,
they have to know the origin they have
to know the history in order for
us to gain more rights, not to let go of
those rights.
Everybody should know about Seneca Falls, because this
is where it all began. Women's rights.
Human rights.
