Suffrage Centennials

Seneca Falls, NY— Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP) has announced ots Virtual Convention Days 2021: “From the Pages to the Streets,” a series of online programs uly 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.

CONVENTION DAYS IN SENECA FALLS, NY THIS YEAR WILL BE VIRTUAL

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.”

ELLEN CAROL DUBOIS IS KEYNOTE SPEAKER

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.

Web site for An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights has a press kit, videos, postings, book events, and more. Sign up now!

Amazon Review about Marguerite Kearns memoir

Skywalker starts off readers with a review of book from SUNY Press

An Unfinished Revolution by Marguerite Kearns
6” x 9” Paperback; Published June 1, 2021 by SUNY Press; 354 pages; $34.95 retail.
Publisher’s Catalog & Purchase the Book: 
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-7061-an-unfinished-revolution.aspx
Learn More About the Book & Author: 
https://go.authorsguild.org/members/4469

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013.

WE STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF MANY COURAGEOUS ACTIVISTS

This video below received a lot of attention when we first published it years ago. Then in 2020 came a surprising announcement…that the first woman had been elected Vice President of the United States. This happened during the year US women had been voting for 100 years.

The early women’s rights movement wasn’t perfect. Volunteers carried out most of the effort, and the campaigning itself was decentralized. There were hundreds of votes for women organizations. And a single brush stroke can’t be expected to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers and diverse efforts it took to accomplish the goal.

ENJOY THE VIDEO AND REFLECT ON THE ACCOMPLISHMENT

The Vote: Choose it and use it! on Vimeo.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013.

ACTIVISM IN FOUR GENERATIONS?

Farmers’ markets have great fresh fruits & vegetables. Buy locally! on Vimeo.

An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights is now available from SUNY Press in Albany, NY.

I don’t stress my own activism in the book, An Unfinished Revolution. It would take another book. But one example is the blog I’ve been writing and editing since 2007. The Espanola Farmers Market is something I’ve considered extremely important over the years. Take a look at last year’s offerings: EspanolaFarmersMarket.blogspot.com

Our food supply isn’t separate from the climate, the way climate affects our supply of food, and more. The blog I’ve been writing and editing since 2007 is an excellent example.

Check with Unfinished-Revolution.com for news and views of my book, recently released from SUNY Press (State University of New York). In the work, I’ve highlighted the story of my grandparents, Edna and Wilmer Kearns, and how their activism in the early women’s rights movement affected other generations in my family. If there’s one example of my own activism, it’s the farmers market.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2009.

The City of Long Beach, New York celebrated the suffrage organizing of Edna Buckman Kearns on Tuesday, June 8, 2021. The historic marker funded by the Pomeroy Foundation is one of two markers on Long Island, New York that honors Kearns and her votes for women organizing.

About forty people attended the commemoration that was by invitation only due to pandemic restrictions. Kearns and her Spirit of ’76 suffrage campaign wagon visited Long Beach and other Long Island communities during July of 1913.

GRANDDAUGHTER MARGUERITE KEARNS’S NEW BOOK CITED!

Bob Keeler, retired editor of Newsday, spoke for Marguerite Kearns, the granddaughter of Edna Kearns and author of upcoming book from SUNY Press (State University of New York). Keeler spoke of the author’s life-long project to research and share the activist legacy of the Kearns family and how it influenced four generations including the author.

BOARDWALK SUFFRAGE MARKER IS PART OF NATIONAL VOTES FOR WOMEN TRAIL

Journalist Bob Keeler formerly an editor of Newsday represented Marguerite Kearns at the Long Beach dedication ceremony. The Long Beach Historical Society contributed a photograph of Edna Kearns speaking about women’s suffrage to local residents in 1913. Patti Bourne coordinated the event for the ceremony City of Long Beach. Photo of marker by Antonia Petrash. And a special thanks to everyone who participated in the Long Beach ceremony in June 2021.

This book is available from SUNY Press and book venues across the nation.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been puiblishing since 2013.

BOOKS TO HAVE ON YOUR SHELF AT HOME TO CREATE YOUR OWN FAMILY STORY

Make sure that your own family archives are in shape. Archives, photos, stories and memorabilia pass from one generation to another.

NEWS ALERT: E-BOOK AVAILABLE FOR $19.22 FOR MEMOIR AND FAMILY HISTORY

BY MARGUERITE KEARNS

Lets Rock the Cradle—documenting the road to women’s rights! on Vimeo.

WHAT IS INCLUDED IN FAMILY HISTORIES ABOUT SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND WHAT IS LEFT OUT!

A message from Marguerite Kearns:

“I haven’t told every fact I learned in the research into my family. Some material has been saved for my next book when there is time and space to explore the personal and social implications. I left out a few anecdotes because I believed the individuals involved deserved privacy. I didn’t expose some tales that I felt were better explored in a different forum, such as all of my experiences during the 20 years I lived in Woodstock, NY. My cousin Rosalie Morales Kearns reminded me that I couldn’t possibly tell everything. There wasn’t enough room, or I hadn’t fully processed the emotional implications. There’s more to come, but later. I’m working on it,” Kearns said recently.

Follow LetsRockTheCradle.com by signing up for weekly news updates.

Suffrage Wagon News Channel has been publishing since 2009.

Support local, state, national, and global movements to address women’s rights.

There are no national holidays for women in the United States.

Support the book by Marguerite Kearns, “An Unfinished Revolution,” scheduled for distribution by SUNY Press on June 1, 2021.

“Patriotic protest” isn’t an original term. It has been around for a long time. The definition of patriotism is something we should be thinking about if we aren’t already. There are two (and possibly more definitions of patriotism). But whether we think about it or not, generally we subscribe to one of two versions.

THE DEFINITIONS OF PATRIOTISM

There is patriotic patriotism. Many folks have gotten behind this point of view. It’s the idea that if there is something wrong in society, it should be fixed. Look at parade and demonstration signs carefully. Occasionally you’ll see one that says, “Protest is patriotic.” Ask a random sampling of those attending the event, and chances are that the other definition of patriotism, “My country, right or wrong,” is more widespread during times of conflict and at Fourth of July ceremonies when militarism and forceful action is paraded into view.

DEFINING PATRIOTISM IS SPLITTING THIS NATION DOWN THE MIDDLE

It doesn’t have to be this way. Both positions can get confused and messy. People of varying and often opposite positions can be brought together or stand apart, depending on which perspective they favor.

Nationalism often finds comfort in “My country, right or wrong.” “Patriotic protest” can justify a wide range of positions as well. The point is that patriotism isn’t viewed the same way, and that our personal and internal positions often depend on numerous variables. Taking a position or acting to support one perspective or another on a specific issue usually has more than one reason behind it. Patriotism is one example.

PATRIOTIC PROTEST IS CALLED UPON OFTEN IN ISSUES OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

One example is the women’s suffrage movement. In 1848, the drafters and supporters of the Declaration of Sentiments relied on the principle of “patriotic protest” when changing the wording of the Declaration of Independence to “all men and women are created equal.” The structure and wording of this document as an inspiration owes a great deal to “patriotic protest.”

Numerous thinkers and advocates of social justice over the decades and centuries have used the principles of “patriotic protest” as grounding for their arguments. Frederick Douglass is one example. There are also many specific examples in the gay rights movement, civil rights movement, contemporary rights issues, etc.

IN ESSENCE, PATRIOTISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR JUSTIFYING MANY POINTS OF VIEW

Scratch the surface of women’s voting rights advocates and the same thing is true. But there are other issues and emotions involved. And patriotism as an argument has also been used as reasoning for those on the opposite side of fences to rationalize resistance to social change.

This is a discussion that takes up lots of space. So, stay tuned. We’re not done yet.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013.

Suggestions for celebrations and special programs at Suffrage Centennials! on Vimeo.