Full text of DOI:10.1111/1468-0033.00297

Women's Rights National Historical
Park: where `rights' are our mission
Vivien Ellen Rose
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
Mary Ann M'Clintock, Martha Wright
and Jane Hunt were no ordinary
middle-class American housewives, and
the Women's Rights National Historical
Park in the United States commemorates
their activism. Vivien Ellen Rose,
In Seneca Falls, an industrial town in the contexts in which the American women's
Finger Lakes region of New York State, a rights movement took shape and the
determined group of women and men impact of the women's rights movement
met in July 1848 to reconsider the Declar- on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
ation of Independence, the founding docu- The 1995 opening of the Lily printshop
ment of the United States. Two days later, further enriched the park with a demon-
they had amended it into a `Declaration of stration press and school programmes for
Sentiments', claiming that `all men and 11- and 12-year-olds on the US consti-
women are created equal' and demanding tutional guarantee of the freedom of the
for women `immediate admission to all press, activists' actual access to the press,
the rights and privileges which belong to and the origins of a US women's press
them as citizens of these United States'. with the Lily in Seneca Falls in 1849.
The sixty-eight women and thirty-two
historian at the park, is responsible for
the historical content of exhibits and
programmes. The stated goal of the park
is to `inspire and educate visitors about
the struggle of women for their equal
rights', and this article presents some of
the recent activities aimed at attaining
those ends.
men who signed intended to `use every Now the park is restoring the Mary Ann
instrumentality within our power to effect and Thomas M'Clintock House, where the
our object', including employing agents, main thrust will be to interpret the im-
circulating tracts, petitioning state and portance of Quaker reform efforts for the
national legislatures for changes in laws, pre-American Civil War women's rights
and gaining support from the press and movement. Each park site allows an ex-
the pulpit.
pansion of the central educational pur-
pose of the park, as defined by Congress
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home, the Wes- in legislation to inspire and educate
leyan Methodist Chapel, whose congrega- visitors about `the struggle of women for
tion hosted the 1848 convention, and the their equal rights'.
Mary Ann and Thomas M'Clintock Home,
where the 1848 convention was planned, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
constitute the Women's Rights National Mary Ann M'Clintock, Martha Wright and
Historical Park. Created by the US Con- Jane Hunt understood fully the impli-
gress in 1980 `to preserve for the inspira- cations of their activism. Four were
tion and education of future generations Quakers, leaders in Indian rights, poor
the significant sites associated with the relief, prison reform, and anti-slavery
struggle of women for their equal rights', activism. Mott and M'Clintock, founding
the park has developed over the past members of the first interracial women's
twenty years. Included is the restored anti-slavery association in the United
home where Elizabeth Cady Stanton States, had already confronted angry mobs.
entertained husband, family, friends and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the newcomer to a
reformers, raised children and laid plots hive of reform activity kept humming by
for social change. It opened to the public the work of these women Quakers, had
in 1985, focusing the main message on met Mott in London eight years before at
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's remarkable the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention.
leadership of a growing movement while In their anti-slavery efforts, the organizers
she experimented with the co-educational encountered opposition and in some cases
rearing of her family of seven.
physical threats. Anticipating `no small
amount of misconception, misrepresenta-
In 1993, the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel tion, and ridicule', they determined to put
and adjacent visitor centre opened, adding into action their plan for expansion of
the important national and international citizenship rights for women.
32
ISSN 1350-0775, Museum International (UNESCO, Paris), No. 209 (Vol. 53, No. 1, 2001)
ß UNESCO 2001
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA)

Women's Rights National Historical Park: where `rights' are our mission
From this beginning, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton developed the political acumen
to become one of the most important
leaders of the nineteenth-century move-
ment for women's rights in the United
States. Guided through the 1870s by
Quaker activists, Stanton none the less
developed her own brand of organizing.
With her life-long friend and co-agitator,
Susan B. Anthony, she created suffrage
organizations, edited women's rights news
-
papers, petitioned the US Congress for an
immediate end to slavery, challenged
property laws denying married women
access to land or to wages, demanded
reform of marriage laws that allowed
husbands to confine or chastise wives,
and advocated women's equal access to
education, the professions, the Church,
and the state. In her final appearance
before the US Congress, she argued that the Declaration of Sentiments) greets Elizabeth Cady Stanton Home.
men assumed responsibility for the devel- visitors on their entrance to the visitor
opment of women's souls at their own centre. Though some recognize Elizabeth
peril, since no one could stand at the Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass or
doors of death or judgement for another. Lucretia Mott, few can identify all nine
Still later, convinced that religious intoler- signatories of the Declaration of Senti-
ance limited women's own belief in their ments. Visitors are introduced to each of
right to self-development, she wrote com- the convention planners and important
mentaries on the Bible. Her last letters, male supporters, and invited to think
written shortly before her death in 1902, about whether, 150 years from now, they
urged President Theodore Roosevelt and themselves will be known activists or
First Lady Edith Roosevelt to support the unknown supporters of a current move-
passage of an amendment to the US ment for social change. The statues are
Constitution giving women the right to full of the details of everyday life: fans,
vote.
purses, parasols, handkerchiefs, pockets
and hats. The grouping is the favourite
photo in the park: visitors delight in
placing themselves among the figures
and having photographs taken as they
Programmed for social change
The restored buildings allow visitors to stand in the `first wave' of the women's
walk in the footsteps of giants and the rights movement.
interactive exhibits and programmes en-
gage them in dialogue. The First Wave, a Running down the centre of the main
bronze statue grouping of nine known exhibits is a timeline. Designed to include
participants of the 1848 convention and all the important facts of history, it also
thirteen unknowns (who represent the expands visitor knowledge by including
roughly 200 attendees who did not sign the achievements of little known but
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33

Vivien Ellen Rose
The First Wave statue group, visitor
nationally significant women. This time- and student disagree about whether same-
line has been left unfinished. At the end, a sex schools provide a better education for
blank bulletin board poses the question, girls and women than co-educational
`What will it be like when men and schools. At each interactive area, the
women are truly equal?' Visitors respond debate stops suddenly with a request for
with various visions. Some expect dysto- the opinion of the bystander ± the visitor.
pias, where men and women war with Whether a visitor agrees or not, the op-
each other, ignoring children, human posing point of view is immediately
relations, art, culture and society. Others offered, with more information to buttress
believe equal rights will bring world the argument. After a few rounds of argu-
peace, social justice and racial harmony. ment, visitors are asked a final question,
Still others argue that men and women and then shown the percentage of visitors
have never been and never will be equal. to date who agree with their perspective.
Often, visitors respond to each others'
centre.
comments with arrows and rebuttals or
affirmations.
The printshop
In `Viewpoints', a series of interactive At the Lily printshop, an early-twentieth-
videos in each exhibit area, visitors ex- century platen press takes the place of the
press opinions about a current issue. In an Lily press, run by Amelia Bloomer in the
education section, for instance, a teacher late 1840s and early 1850s. Bloomer,
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Women's Rights National Historical Park: where `rights' are our mission
whose husband Dexter edited the county
newspaper, founded the Lily when the
ladies' temperance society decided to
publish a newspaper dedicated to ending
alcoholism. The Lily swiftly attracted a
national subscription base, and became
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's outlet for
opinion pieces, editorials and educational
columns. In it, Bloomer published the
pattern for an outfit credited to Stanton's
cousin, Elizabeth Smith Miller, consisting
of a knee-length skirt and long trousers.
Named `the Bloomer Costume' in the
popular press, the outfit was worn by
women's rights advocates in the early
1850s, earning them universal abuse.
The park's most popular educational
programme is the printshop programme.
The New York State curriculum requires
fourth and fifth graders (children 11±12 school, and petitioned the school princi- At work in the Lily printshop.
years of age) to complete a local history pal for equal access to playing fields
course. In the printshop, students learn to dominated by older schoolchildren.
apply lessons of the past to the present. Teachers reported that the skills used by
They discuss issues that they face, decide the students in their successful attempt to
on a message that they want to publicize, gain access to playing fields were first
set type, and print a `broadside' or a poster introduced to them in the printshop.
to take back to the classroom with them.
As they learn to set type, they also learn Demand for programmes demonstrates a
about the US constitutional guarantee of public desire for continued operational
freedom of the press. Students occasion- support, an important consideration for a
ally learn the history of the press itself: in historic site run by a federal agency.
the 1970s and 1980s, it was Helaine Educated and inspired by the historic sites
Victoria Press, a small concern that pro- and programmes associated with the
vided educational materials about the struggle for equal rights for women,
history of women in the United States visitors are reminded of the contentious
when such materials were not commonly debates in which the country first took
available.
shape. Finally, they remember that the
organizers of the 1848 convention
The effectiveness of the printshop pro- exercised freedom of speech to take an
gramme in provoking participation in cur- unpopular position in defence of rights.
rent events can be judged by its impact on This legacy is honoured in educational
students. In the second year of the pro- programmes that encourage visitors to
gramme, a fourth-grade class applied the stand among agitators, envision the
lesson of the printshop to a situation at future, choose sides in reasoned debates,
school. Students wrote letters to the editor and express views on current issues.
of the local paper, put posters around the
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35

Vivien Ellen Rose
`Honor the Past, Imagine the Future'
had honoured the past by re-examining
the 1776 Declaration of Independence,
1998 marked the sesquicentennial of the and had imagined a new future of equal
Seneca Falls women's rights convention rights for women in their own Declaration
and a year-long celebration at local, re- of Sentiments. Girl Scouts who earn the
gional and national levels. The anniver- badge must honour the past and imagine
sary offered an important opportunity to a future that includes important historical
explain the importance of the struggle lessons.
of women for their equal rights to audi-
ences far beyond Seneca Falls. New York Effects of the sesquicentennial are still
State created a gubernatorial commission being felt. A presidential challenge grant
honouring the achievements of women, to support the restoration of the
the United States Congress passed legis- M'Clintock House followed from Mrs
lation instituting a congressional commis- Clinton's visit to their home. The number
sion on women's rights history, and the of visitors in 1999 equalled the 1998
President of the United States established crowds, up over 100 per cent from 1997.
the President's Commission on the Cele- These facts indicate that the core educa-
bration of Women in American History.
tional mission of the park is important not
only to women's rights activists, but is
Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the becoming increasingly important to other
keynote address at the sesquicentennial segments of society. This is good news for
observances in Seneca Falls, after meeting the programmes of the park, for the citi-
with descendants of the signers of the zens of the nation, and for the organizers
1848 Declaration of Sentiments. In that of the 1848 convention.
address, she summed up the historical
■
importance of the 1848 women's rights
convention.
A
new `Honor the Past,
Note
Imagine the Future' badge for the Girl
Scouts [Girl Guides ± Ed.] encoded the The Women's Rights National Historical Park
basic interpretive message of the park. website is www.nps.gov:wori
The participants of the 1848 convention
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