Monday, August 3, 1998
Anniversary reminds all of struggle for suffrage
WOMENS RIGHTS: Celebration of movement draws 16,000 to New York
Falls
By Kara Vona
Independent Florida Alligator
Seneca Falls, 1848. That was all I learned about women’s history
while I was growing up. I think it may have been a paragraph that
read something like, "Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met
in Seneca Falls, NY, and organized for women’s suffrage, which was
won with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920."
So when I heard about the 150th anniversary of that convention
happening this summer, I decided to take advantage of my sister and
her husband, who live two hours away from Seneca Falls, to go see
what it was all about.
We drove along a hilly road that wound through small towns with
cornfields and grape orchards until we reached the town of Seneca
Falls. It looked like Anytown, USA, with small mom-and-pop
storefronts decorated in red, white and blue and a banner hanging
above the street that read, "Seneca Falls Proud!"
First stop was a National Organization for Women (NOW) rally
held in Declaration Park. A temporary stage was set up in front of
the marble wall that has the Declaration of Sentiments etched into
it. At the 1848 convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the
Declaration, which she modeled after the Declaration of
Independence.
One hundred of the conference attendees (32 of them men) signed
the Declaration, which included the revised sentence, "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created
equal."
The rally featured speakers like Patricia Ireland, national
president of NOW, and Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist
Majority (which, incidentally, runs one of the best web sites I’ve
ever seen at www.feminist.org), plus some campaigning for NY
gubernatorial candidate Betsy McCoy Ross.
The women shared their visions of equality and justice for all
women and men, regardless of sexual orientation, class, color or
religion. Ireland stood at the podium and asked, "So what do you
think, is feminism dead?" (This was a reference to a recent Time
article citing Ally McBeal and the Spice Girls as evidence that
yes, sadly, feminism is no more).
Ireland’s question was answered with a resounding chorus of
"No!" followed by cheers. The rally ended with a tribute to Rosie
Jimenez, a single mother and full-time honors college student who
died from complications from a back-alley abortion after Medicaid
wouldn’t pay for one in a hospital.
Nearby was what remains of the Weselyan Chapel, where the
meetings were held in 1848. All that’s still standing are two brick
walls and part of the original roof, which has been covered in
order to prevent it from further decay.
As I sat in the metal folding chair, looking up at the crumbling
roof and at the space where the other walls should have been, I
felt strangely connected and disconnected at the same time. I felt
rooted to this history, sitting where the foremothers of the
movement that I am part of now sat 150 years ago.
But at the same time, I felt like a stranger. Who were these
women? And why don’t I know them like I know Thomas Jefferson and
Ben Franklin?
From there, we went on to the Women’s Rights National Historic
Park Visitor’s Center, which was right next door. I must admit I
was a little skeptical about women’s history as told by our
national government, but the Center’s museum was fantastic.
It was subject to some of the toughest feminine scrutiny (mine
and my sister’s) but it passed with flying colors.
The next day we went just down the street from Women’s Rights
Park to the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Women as diverse as
Sarah Winnemucca, Oprah Winfrey and Ida B. Wells are represented
there.
The walls are lined with the biographies of the 157 honorees,
and space in the center of the rooms is filled with display cases
of personal items of the Hall-of-Famers (including the scarf worn
by Amelia Earhart and later by Sally Ride).
The official opening ceremonies of Celebrate 98 occurred on our
third day there, with keynote speaker Hillary Rodham Clinton
addressing a crowd of about 16,000 (which, I’m told, is about twice
the population of Seneca Falls).
When we arrived at 7:30 that morning there were already a whole
lot of people there. We settled on the Little League field to wait
for things to start in two hours.
Thankfully there were vendors there for coffee … as well as
sandwiches, lemonade and Chinese food (yea, capitalism).
There were also snipers positioned in towers all around the
field, I guess for Hillary’s protection.
Yipes. Hillary didn’t give her speech until after eight other
people talked. One of those was an actor portraying Frederick
Douglass, freed slave and noted 19th century orator.
Douglass was one of the men who signed the Declaration of
Sentiments in 1848, declaring that he was "a women’s rights man."
Damn. I know some men now who could take a lesson from him.
I think it was close to noon when Hillary finally was
introduced. By then, all 16,000 people on that baseball field were
about three degrees away from heat stroke. But for the half-hour
she spoke, I forgot about how uncomfortable I was.
She spoke about the women (and men) who were courageous enough
to attend the 1848 convention, and how they (not unlike feminists
today) faced ridicule and scorn for standing up for what they knew
was right. Also, she spoke of the sad irony that the women we were
honoring spent 72 years struggling to get the right to vote, yet,
in the last national election, 52 million American women didn’t go
to the polls.
It was a moving and inspiring speech that made me glad I had
come this far, gotten up that early and sat in the sun that long
just to hear it.
After the speech, we headed home. On the way back, I thought
about all I had seen and heard over the previous three days. It was
such a phenomenal event that occurred in 1848; for me, the 1998
anniversary was equally phenomenal.
The area surrounding Seneca Falls has been referred to as the
cradle of the women’s movement. Not only was there the convention,
but Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and
Harriet Tubman all lived in the area.
And there are the Iroquois, whose inclusion of women in all
facets of tribal life was an inspiration to the white women who
forged a movement. I thought back to a phrase I’d heard many times
in my three days at Seneca Falls and smiled.
Yes, it’s the cradle of the U.S. women’s movement. It’s the
cradle that rocks.Vona is a student at the University of
Florida.