Mynderse Academy - Myndersian Yearbook (Seneca Falls, NY)

Page 9 text:

MISS EMILY BENNING SMITH History Instructor WHEN MACAULAY SAID THAT TO BE A TRULY GREAT HISTORIAN IS PER' HAPS THE RAREST OF INTELLECTUAL DISTINCTIONS, HE MIGHT HAVE HAD IN MIND OUR MISS EMILY SMITH. HER WEALTH OF HISTORICAL LORE HAS BEEN SUCH A VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO SCHOOL LIFE THAT THE CLASS OF NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE IS HAPPY TO NAME HER DEDICATEE OF THIS, THEIR MYNDERSIAN. S EDICA IO

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F 0 R E W O R D 63? VERY COMMUNITY HAS ITS HISTORY, BUT FEW CAN BOAST OF A FINER TRADITION THAN THAT OF SENECA FALLS. CIVILIZATIONS POINT WITH PRIDE TO THE EMAN- CIPATION OF THE OPPRESSED, BUT FEW PEOPLE REALIZE THAT PIONEERS IN THE WOMEN,S RIGHTS MOVEMENT THAT FREED WOMEN FROM THE TABOOS AGAINST THEIR SEX FIRED THE OPENING GUNS IN THEIR CRUSADE FOR WOMAN,S POLITICAL FREEDOM IN OUR LITTLE TOWN. IN THIS ANNUAL DEDICATED TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE RECORD OF A SCHOOL YEAR MAY WE PAUSE TO HONOR THOSE DISTINGUISHED WOMEN OF THE PAST WHO HAVE GIVEN SENECA FALLS A PLACE IN THE SUN.

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SQ In an age when women have entered into every profession and every field of labor naturally and efficiently and have disclosed the great variety and relative importance of their achievements, it is proper that we look back and reflect upon the change in women's position and pay due respect to the agi- tators and organizers of the movement. The entering wed e of the movement in the legis- lature had been madge by Ansel Bascom, a practicing lawyer in Seneca Falls, in the legislature of 1845. Married women for the first time had the right to hold property. In the constitutional convention of 1846 and 1847, women were given the right to earn money and to be the uardians of their own children. Now it was demancied that there be a still more revolutionary bill giving them the right to vote. Seneca Falls not only had the honor of being the first village to recruit that crusading army, but it may also claim four of its outstanding leaders for her own: Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, and Miss Susan Mrs- Elizabeth Cady Stanton B. Anthony. On July 19, 1848, the first convention for women's rights was held in Seneca Falls in the old Wesleyan Methodist Church, which then stood at the corner of Fall and Mynderse Streets. This meeting was called by Mrs. Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had been a delegate to the Anti- Slavery Congress in London but was refused admittance because of her sex. Therewith, she conceived her idea of woman suffrage, and it was she who inspired Mrs. Mott with her crusading zeal. Both women were natives of this village of Seneca Falls, and together they convinced the women of this community of the necessity of improving their legal and political status. At this early meeting, the first proclamation that women should have the right to vote was voiced. After two days of discussions and conferences, a bill of women's grievances called the Declaration of Sentiments based in form on the Declaration of Independence was drawn up. Fifty women and almost as many men immediately sub- scribed. Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who is well-known for her famous Bloomer costume, attended the first meeting but did not enter actively into the movement at this time, being fully occupied with temperance reform. Later, however, she threw all her influence and that of her paper, The Lib, the first newspaper Mm Lucretia Mott published by women, into the cause.