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April 11, 2022 – For Immediate Release 

Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park Press Release 

Contact: Emily McCarter at FriendsofWRNHP@gmail.com

Staged Reading of Fossenvue at Women’s Rights NHP  

Seneca Falls, NY— The Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP) along with Women’s Rights NHP are pleased to announce a staged reading of Fossenvue, a play written by Chris Woodworth. This performance will take place in the historic Wesleyan Chapel on Fall Street, April 30, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public.  

For decades, Geneva suffragists Elizabeth Smith Miller, Anne Fitzhugh Miller, and others gathered at Fossenvue, a Seneca Lake summer retreat, for recreation and discussion of political and social reform. Playwright Chris Woodworth weaves together past and present, imagining the early days of Fossenvue and raising difficult questions about the legacies of race and suffrage activism today. Performers include: Samari Brown, Christina Roc, Joanne Saracino, Kathryn Snyder, and Eleanor Stearns. The production lasts 95-minutes, plus intermission.

Chris Woodworth is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Part theatre historian, part theatre practitioner, she describes herself as an artist-scholar. Her research primarily addresses intersections between labor, suffrage, reproductive politics, and performance.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Park on a program of local historical importance,” said Emily McCarter, President of the Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park. “Woodworth’s play invites us to examine issues of race and activism through a historical and contemporary lens.” 

For more information on Women’s Rights National Historical Park, please visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/wori or call 315-568-0024. 

For more information on Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park, please visit the website at https://www.womensrightsfriends.org. 

Virtual Convention Days 2021: From the Pages to the Streets

Seneca Falls, NY— Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP) is pleased to announce Virtual Convention Days 2021: From the Pages to the Streets, a series of online programs being held July 16-18, 2021.

Convention Days has been a signature event in Seneca Falls for many years. This annual event allows visitors to engage with women’s history, focusing on the revolutionary 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention through art, storytelling, speakers, and special programming. The park will continue this tradition virtually this year due to COVID-19.

This year’s Convention Days theme, “From the Pages to the Streets,” focuses on how women’s writing in the first wave of the women’s rights movement translated into powerful activism and real social change.

“The Declaration of Sentiments was only one of the significant writings that helped further the movement toward equality for women,” said Event Coordinator, Stephanie Freese. “Articles in newspapers, personal correspondence, satire, poetry, and even journals motivated others to support the cause, and help us better understand the intentions of suffragists.”

This year’s keynote speaker is author and scholar Ellen Carol DuBois. DuBois is one of the nation’s leading historians of women’s fight for the vote. She taught at the University of Buffalo and, for the last three decades, at the University of California at Los Angeles. Her most recent book, published by Simon and Schuster in February 2020, is Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote. This is the first comprehensive history of the seventy-five-year-long U.S. woman suffrage movement to appear in more than a half century.

Online dialogue and a live question-and-answer session following the keynote will allow virtual visitors to participate in discussions about the impact those words from the past continue to have on women’s rights today. Living history portrayals, along with presentations by scholars, artists, and park rangers, will aim to provide context and insight into lives and choices of those activists for social change.

This year, the Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park, the National Park Service, and the Seven Valleys Writing Project will also be hosting “Writing for Empowerment,” a virtual writing workshop, as part of the commemoration. This workshop will give participants an opportunity to discover their own voice and explore the tools used to fight for social justice–before the internet and social media.

A schedule of events, including full details of the weekend’s programs, and workshop registration information, is available on the park website http://www.nps.gov/wori/planyourvisit/virtual_convention_days_2021.htm and Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/womensrightsnps/

Public Affairs Contact: Janine Waller 315.568.0024
June 1, 2021 – For Immediate Release

Seneca Falls, NY— Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP) is pleased to announce our Summer 2021 Virtual Teacher Workshop: Reform, Revolution, & Relatedness. This four-day workshop will be hosted remotely, July 12-15, 2021. The workshop is free and open to educators at all grade levels, in all subject areas.

Through presentations by subject matter experts, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions, teachers will learn about social reform and revolution through the context of women’s history. Special attention will be paid to social activism at the intersections with race and religion.

Educators at Women’s Rights NHP will introduce the concept of place-based learning and help teachers explore how to carry the practice into their classrooms. Participants will also have ample opportunity to work in small and large groups to develop and share lessons plans which meet specific curriculum requirements for their district and discipline.

“We’re excited to offer this opportunity for teachers to explore the stories from women’s history and work with them to bring richness and relevance to their classrooms,” said Chief of Interpretation and Education Janine Waller. “The intersectionality explored in this workshop creates a perfect opportunity for interdisciplinary instruction. Teachers will be able to utilize placed-based teaching to create a more diverse and memorable experience for their students.”

To register for the workshop, interested teachers should email a letter of interest, including their school contact information, discipline, and grade level to WORI_Education@nps.gov by June 25, 2021. All 24 hours of this workshop may be submitted for continuing education units. Space is limited.

For more information on Women’s Rights National Historical Park, please visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/wori or call 315.568.0024.

Seneca Falls, NY– Women’s Rights National Historical Park and The Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park are pleased to announce the opening of Radical Optimism: The Enduring Power of the Women Who Won the Vote at the Fall Street Visitor Center. The exhibit on the second floor of the museum was commissioned by the Friends as part of the commemoration of the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920.

Radical Optimism features an overview of generations of women who dedicated themselves to the struggle for women’s voting rights. Spanning more than 80 years—from the first female public speakers to the vote that changed the future for American women—the exhibit brings viewers through the challenges and obstacles facing the suffragists, even those from within their own movement, and explores how they remained motivated, hopeful, and steadfast through years of frustration, conflict, and division.

“We are excited to tell this complex, yet hopeful story about the women who fought for their voting rights.” says Superintendent Ahna Wilson. “It is especially inspiring to see how they organized for a common goal and persisted in their struggle for equality, despite all the conflict and setbacks.”

“Everyday women from all walks of life made sacrifices and endured countless setbacks in their fight for suffrage,” says Friends’ President Emily McCarter, “but they also found camaraderie and purpose in their work. They were empowered by a radically optimistic worldview—one in which change felt possible.”

In recognition of the State of New York and Center for Disease Control’s recommendations for safe conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, Women’s Rights is also highlighting the exhibit through an online display and virtual walk-through on the 19th Amendment page on the park website and the park’s social media channels.

This exhibit was funded, in large part, by the Preserve the History of Women’s Rights in America Fund, established in 2015 by the Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park. The fund was created to protect and preserve park resources and support exhibits dedicated to the legacy of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, and to the ongoing Women’s Rights Movement in America.

The Fall Street Visitor Center in Seneca Falls is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10AM to 4PM.