FINGER LAKES PARKCOMMEMORATES WOMENby Margaret Dornaus
It was July, 1848, when Stanton convened a group of 300 men and women to meet in Seneca Falls� modest, red brick Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. Attended and endorsed by such contemporary heroes as abolitionist/orator Frederick Douglass, the convention rocked the course of American history. Stanton--a plumpish Seneca Falls matron--preached that day for an unheard of equality: equality between the sexes. In 1848, a single woman could own property, enter into legal contracts, and earn wages; a married woman could not. Married women, in fact, were treated as chattel:: beaten by partners who feared no legal consequences for their actions. And all women--single or married--were viewed as inferiors. Stanton�s �Declaration of Sentiments� was a battle cry against such treatment, and the beginning of a sexual revolution that would endure skirmish after skirmish before culminating in a woman�s right to vote almost three-quarters-of-a-century later.
In addition to gaining insight into the struggle for equality through pictures, timelines and posted thumbnail histories, visitors can participate more directly in that struggle in several ways. Recorded first-person accounts, for example, offer extraordinary tales from typical 19th-century women: a middle-aged pioneer traveling to California; a missionary; a Native American; and an Irish immigrant. Their remarkably similar but diverse stories come to life when lifted handsets give voice to their experiences. And ain�t I a woman? former slave Sojouner Truth once asked an Akron, OH, courtroom. Her statue and the words that surround it set the stage for examinations of various kinds of gender-based subservience. One of the most interesting of these investigations is a glass case containing information and artifacts related to the use of whalebone corsets. The 19th-century obsession with a doll-like hourglass figure gave rise to too-tightly laced corsets and a condition known as �consumptive waist,� displacing and crushing a woman�s internal organs. Women�s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer offered an alternative to this fashion madness: long, free-flowing pantaloons under loose-fitting dresses that encouraged a woman to be �the free, healthy being God made her . . . .� We do not want separate little unequal, unfair laws and separate little unequal, low-paid jobs. We want full equality, Georgiana Sellers, a member of the League for American Working Women, said in 1970. Her words were spoken more than a century after Stanton first demanded the same equality. They are words that serve as testaments to the American woman�s struggle for independence, respect and freedom.
�2000 Margaret Dornaus. Reproduction of this article and/or images, in whole or in part, including reproduction in electronic media, without the express permission of the author, is prohibited. For reprint information, contact mdornaus@earthlink.net Images by Margaret Dornaus |
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The Finger Lakes area is known for its lush, wine-growing terrain. But, in the mid-19th century, the countryside�s most notable characteristic was its bumper crop of free-thinking radicals. Today, those radicals are celebrated at the Seneca Falls National Women�s Rights Historical Park. Located in the heart of New York�s Finger Lakes country, Seneca Falls was home to one of the most radical and yet the most �ordinary� of 19th-century women: Elizabeth Cady Stanton--housewife, mother, and Suffragette Movement spokeswoman and founder. 
All that remains today of the chapel where the first Women�s Rights Convention was held are the walled ruins of its foundation. But the spirit of the convention�s leaders (Stanton, Mary Ann M�Clintock, Jane Hunt) --and those who later joined their struggle--lives on in eye-opening exhibits illuminated by the adjacent national park museum�s clerestory windows. Entering that museum is like breathing in history, an audible breath that fills both imagination and space with images and words that seem to compound and gain momentum the more they�re contemplated. 
Night after night, by an old-fashioned fireplace, we plotted and planned the coming agitation . . . , Stanton wrote in her 1898 memoir. Her words and the words of other women--past and present--form a historical pastiche traced through museum exhibits that chronicle achievements and setbacks in American women�s history. Dominating those exhibits is an entryway grouping of 20 life-size bronzes depicting Stanton, M�Clintock, Hunt, and Douglass, and other convention attendees, including 11 �anonymous� participants. The sculpture is impressive--and surprisingly kinetic, given its weight and massiveness. Its front-and-center placement repeatedly commands attention as you climb to a second story of displays, many of which are interactive.
The Women�s Rights National Historical Park helps us understand that struggle. It honors the memory of all the women and men who have helped make modern life more modern . . . and more bearable. The park is (or should be) a pilgrimage site for any woman who came of age during the 1960s and �70s. It serves as a reminder of what life once was for women. Ultimately, it�s also a reminder that life is constantly in the process of improving, of becoming.