What is Women's Rights National Historical Park ? Where is Women's Rights National Historical Park? These are the usual questions that most people ask when they first hear about this unique national park

Located in central New York, the park tends to elicit emotion and controversy just based on its name, Women's Rights. The concept behind it is also new ground for the National Park Service. It is not a historic site dedicated to the memory and achievements of a great woman, although there are great women associated with the Park. The interpretive story for the park revolves around a document fashioned after the Declaration of Independence. It is these broad ranging social and political changes stated in the Declaration of Sentiments that serve as the focal point for the park.

The story actually begins in 1840 when two of the organizers of the First Women's Rights Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met at an Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Both swore to change the lot of women but their personal and political lives interfered.

While on a tour of upstate New York for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Mott met Stanton on July 9, 1848 in the adjoining town of Waterloo for a tea party hosted by Jane Hunt. Also attending the tea party were Waterloo Quaker Mary Ann M'Clintock and Auburn Quaker Martha Wright, the sister of Lucretia Mott. Finding herself among friends, Stanton poured out her discontent with her life to a sympathetic audience.

That day the five women decided to hold a convention to discuss what was wrong with society from a woman's point of view, and they drafted the notice of the Convention which would appear in the local paper a few days later.

A week later, around a table in the front parlor of the M'Clintock House, Stanton, Mary Ann, her husband Thomas, and probably their daughters and some of the household servants who were treated as part of the family, drafted the Declaration of Sentiments. This far reaching document was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and contains the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal . . ."

The Declaration went on to outline the grievances that women had against society in the mid-1800s including the legal inability of a woman, if married, to own property or to retain her own wages; laws which gave custody of her children to her husband if they divorced, even if he was a drunkard and/or beat her; exclusion from the running of churches; and policies and practices that prohibited her from attending college and from most employment opportunities, especially the most lucrative.

Stanton proposed the most controversial of the articles of the Declaration--the right of women to vote. Even Mott considered it an idea too far ahead of its time.

A week later on Wednesday and Thursday, July 19 and 20, 1848 the First Women's Rights Convention was held in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York.

Despite the short notice and at the height of hay harvesting season in an agricultural community, 300 people attended. Included in this number was Frederick Douglass, a life-long supporter of women's rights, who had traveled from Rochester, New York for the event.

During the Convention each of the resolutions in the Declaration was read and voted on. The only one which proved controversial was the resolution of suffrage, but after much debate that too was passed. After the Convention, people were invited to sign the Declaration of Sentiments. One hundred people signed-- 68 women and 32 men.

The Convention sparked controversy and many derogatory newspaper articles but the issues raised there and outlined in the Declaration of Sentiments caught the imagination and hearts of the general public. Two weeks later another convention was held in Rochester. Soon meetings to discuss women's rights were happening in many places.

One of the things that makes the Park so exciting is that the concerns identified in the Declaration of Sentiments have not been resolved. Using the framework of the historic event, the Park is able to talk about these issues in the present. Seneca Falls continues to be a focal point for women's issues. People continue to come here to speak on issues or introduce new ideas. Alice Paul came here in 1923 for the first reading of the Equal Rights Amendment from the steps of the Presbyterian Church; a large group gathered in 1948 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Convention; the National Organization for Women visited here in 1988; and each year people from across the country gather in Seneca Falls to celebrate Women's Equality Day.

The park features a wealth of interactive exhibits which focus on issues raised in the Declaration of Sentiments, including the thematic areas of "Inauguration of a Rebellion," "True Womanhood," "Women at Work," "Fashioning Women," "Women and Political Action," and "School Matters." Using hands-on exhibits, computers, laser-disc technology, photographs, artifacts and thought provoking questions, visitors will examine the world of 1848 and decide for themselves how much things have or have not changed. The exhibit emphasizes the role each of us plays in shaping society.

Women's Rights National Historical Park has something for everyone. You can view the Park story as an historic event in the past with no connection to your life; as a place to voice your opinions no matter what they may be; as a place to gauge your perceptions against others; as a place to be inspired; as a place to learn. Each person discovers something different. All you have to do is be open enough to walk through the door.

National Park Service