Event
How Important Were African Americans at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention?
Fee:
Free.Location: LAT/LONG: 43.000000, -77.000000
The program will be presented in the Guntzel Theater, within the visitor center for Women's Rights National Historical Park.
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Description
Historians have long emphasized the abolitionist roots of the early women’s rights movement. But they have also routinely ignored the importance of African Americans. A new look at the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention challenges that omission. Highlighting the lives of people color who lived in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, Judith Wellman argues that several African Americans—many of whom had escaped from slavery on the Underground Railroad-- almost certainly attended the first women’s rights convention. Come and meet these fascinating people!
Judith Wellman is Principal Investigator, Historical New York Research Associates; Professor Emerita, State University of New York at Oswego; and President, 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum. The author of The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Women’s Rights Convention, she was also the first historian at Women’s Rights National Historical Park. She lives in a house built about 1830 by an African American miller on the banks of a millpond. Her work focuses on historic sites relating to women’s rights, the Underground Railroad, and African American life. She views historical work relating to equal rights as a contribution to a future of mutual respect and justice for all people.
This program is offered in conjuction with the 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum.
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Reservation or Registration: No
Image Gallery
NPS Photo/J. Wellman