Area Scholar to Speak at Women's Rights National Historical Park in Honor of African American History Month

Date: February 1, 2012
Contact: Andrea DeKoter, 315.568.0024

Seneca Falls, NY - Women's Rights National Historical Park invites the public to a special program in honor of African American History Month on Saturday, February 18 at 2 p.m. in the Guntzel Theater, located in the park's Visitor Center at 136 Fall Street in downtown Seneca Falls. Dr. Dianne Wheaton Cappiello will present a talk entitled, "'We would insist on the universality of freedom': Black Antislavery Activism, 1770-1840."

Cappiello, a native of Binghamton, NY, received her Ph.D. in American History from Cornell University in August 2011. She is the recipient of a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship and a Peabody Essex Museum/Phillips Library Research Fellowship and has presented numerous papers on black abolitionism. In May 2011, Dr. Cappiello was awarded the Cornell University History Department's prestigious Messenger-Chalmers Prize for Best Dissertation on Human Progress and the Evolution of Civilization for her dissertation, "'Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom': Black Spirituality and the Rise of the Antislavery Movement, 1740-1841."

Following the program and question-and-answer session with Dr. Cappiello, visitors are invited to stay for a printing demonstration and reception in honor of the park's suffrage printing press, which is moving to the Cracker Factory at 35 Lehigh Street in Geneva, NY, where it will be used in book arts and other programming provided by the not-for-profit Three Stories.

For more information about this event, please call [phone]. You can also follow the park's social media sites for Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/womensrightsnps) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/WomensRightsNPS) to learn more about our upcoming programs.