June 10, 2023 @ 09:00 EDT
Site Visit #92
In July 1849, some 300 women (and a few men) crowded into the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, attending the first Women’s Convention in the United States. Seneca Falls was chosen as it had been an early hotbed of abolitionist activity. Several abolitionists were in attendance including Frederick Douglass.
The Women’s Rights National Historical Park celebrates that convention and the efforts for women – and others – to attain equal rights with men. The visitor center is located in a two-story building with free parking in back. Next door is the Wesleyan Chapel where many of the meetings took place.
During the convention, the leadership drafted a Declaration of Sentiments based upon the American Declaration of Independence, with lines such as “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal”. The Declaration was then signed by many of the attendees.
The first floor of the visitor center holds an information desk, a gift shop, and a few artistic works (paintings, photographs, and statues). The second floor has a large exhibit, sectioned off by topic or time period. It not only covers the convention but other events over the subsequent 175 years. Very few exhibits utilized video or audio to enhance the message (a few did), but the displays presented lots of interesting information about the struggles women, blacks, and others have had to attain to freedoms and full rights granted to some men (not all!) by the country’s founding documents.
The Wesleyan Chapel was also open the day I visited. For some reason, it is not open on all the same days as the visitor center. I stopped in just to see the venue and read the information it had on the building and the convention. There are a couple of houses in other parts of Seneca Falls and nearby towns that are part of this NPS site, but also with erratic hours. I chose not to seek them out.
This was an interesting stop and one I was glad to make. In keeping with the general theme I’ve found in most of the parks I’ve visited, there was something (in this case, many things) I learned from this site.
Steve
