Video. The “Spirit of 1776” is the name of a suffrage campaign wagon that’s part of New York State history. And it’s also representative of the national suffrage movement because it carries the theme that started in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. The Declaration of Sentiments, written by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others rewrote the 1776 Declaration of Independence to include women. In 1913 the “Spirit of 1776” wagon began its journey in Manhattan and headed to Long Island for a month of intensive grassroots campaigning. The women wore colonial costumes to deliver their message of “Taxation without representation was tyranny in 1776. Why not in 1913?” With the presentation ceremony in Manhattan covered by New York and Long Island papers, the horse-drawn wagon emphasized the theme of the “Spirit of 1776,” the wagon’s name and references to equality, what the activists insisted were the founding principles of the nation. Because social movements don’t always have artifacts and memorabilia that lend themselves to exhibition, this suffrage wagon has come to represent the national theme of the movement, the “Spirit of 1776,” that was repeated in suffrage speeches, events, literature, and visual rhetoric. For more information: #1. #2. #3. Image: Puck, Library of Congress. Reading by Amelia Bowen.