{"id":967,"date":"2014-03-10T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T16:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephaniesilberwordsworks.com\/?p=967"},"modified":"2014-03-10T12:26:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T16:26:00","slug":"from-this-tiny-village-a-national-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hometeamproductions.tv\/wordsworks\/from-this-tiny-village-a-national-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"FROM THIS TINY VILLAGE, A NATIONAL MOVEMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rights<\/a>More from the vault, in honor of the women who laid the groundwork, with gratitude and admiration.\u00a0 Without them we wouldn’t have Women’s History Month to celebrate!\u00a0 The following was a sidebar to accompany A WOMAN’S PLACE…in HISTORY<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

CONNECTICUT POST<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

From this tiny village, a national movement<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Sunday, March 1, 1992<\/strong><\/p>\n

By STEPHANIE SILBER, Correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/b>It happened in 1848, in the kind of little upstate town that nothing ever happens in.\u00a0 \"Seneca<\/a>Nothing, that is, except a new westbound turnpike, a railroad, revivalist preachers crying salvation for all and a generous measure of abolitionist sentiment.\u00a0 It happened in the Finger Lakes village of Seneca Falls, N.Y., when writer and feminist-to-the-core housewife Elizabeth Cady Stanton put the world on notice that women weren’t going to take it anymore.<\/p>\n

“Hellraisers!” says Susan Lowell Butler, Executive Director at the National Women’s Hall of Fame.\u00a0 She is referring to the fiercely humanist spirit that swept the region, which was to become known as the “burned-over district” for its climate of moral reform and passionate idealism.<\/p>\n

\"abolitionist<\/a>“The world exploded into individual rights in the 1840’s and 50’s,” Butler continues.\u00a0 “There was suddenly in America a coming to the forefront of a pursuit of the real language of the Constitution.\u00a0 And I think abolition more than anything else really stirred women.”<\/p>\n

Certainly, that was true of Stanton, whose husband, a prominent abolitionist lecturer, traveled nine months out of the year.\u00a0 Relocated to Seneca Falls from an active city life in Boston, the mother of seven found herself isolated, frustrated, and very much confined, she wrote, to “the women’s sphere.”\"ElizabethCadyStanton-1848-Daniel-Henry\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That sphere was not just domestically confining.\u00a0 Says Butler, “Women weren’t allowed to own property, they couldn’t inherit things, all those laws that were in place at the time were pinching more than emotional nerves, they were pinching financial nerves.”\u00a0 In short, she adds soberly, “It was very difficult for women to survive.”<\/p>\n

Stanton, surmises Butler, was “at the end of her patience with nothing to lose.”\u00a0 She convened a group of like-minded fellows to produce the “Declaration of Sentiments,” a document which called for equal rights for women in matters ranging from wardrobe to wages.\u00a0 And, audaciously, it demanded the right to vote, an issue most of the convention participants eventually backed away from.<\/p>\n

But the die was cast, and there’s been no turning back.\u00a0 Now, the legends linger in this community steeped in history.\u00a0 Residents are happy to recount tales like the one that has suffragist superstar Susan B. Anthony babysitting for Stanton’s children while Stanton wrote her speeches.<\/p>\n

“People are<\/em> proud,” says Linda Canzanelli, who is superintendent of the Women’s Rights National Historic Park here.\u00a0 She cites as proof the Women’s Hall of Fame, an institution she works closely with, as well as the state-run Urban Cultural Park.\u00a0 Then there’s the annual “Convention Days,” at which the 1848 gathering is re-enacted, and all and sundry are given parts to play.<\/p>\n

\"when<\/a>“You might get to be the minister who says, ‘God’s will is that women remain in the kitchen,'” Butler says, laughing.\u00a0 “In a weird way it’s very moving.\u00a0 What this whole thing is about is enduring values.\u00a0 When you hear those words spoken today, and we read from the Declaration of Sentiments, they hold up.\u00a0 They do endure.\u00a0 They come and go and ebb and flow, but they do endure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More from the vault, in honor of the women who laid the groundwork, with gratitude and admiration.\u00a0 Without them we wouldn’t have Women’s History Month to celebrate!\u00a0 The following was a sidebar to accompany A WOMAN’S PLACE…in HISTORY. CONNECTICUT POST … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n