HBO Premieres Inspiring Documentary of Gloria Steinem

On Tuesday night, activists from across the entire nation tuned in to a special HBO feature about the life of prominent feminist activist Gloria Steinem and her role in jump-starting the national movement for equality in the 1960s and 1970s. Called "Gloria: In Her Own Words," the film profiles the nationally renowned speaker and author through both archival and recent interviews, footage, and first-hand accounts from Gloria herself.

The documentary embraces Gloria’s aspirations as both a journalist and a feminist. Starting out as a writer, one of her most ambitious projects was going undercover as a Playboy Bunny to expose the working conditions for what much of society assumed was a glamorous job. She found that there was nothing fun about it, but that the work was long and difficult. Gloria regretted having written the piece shortly after it was printed, as media outlets didn’t take her seriously because of it. But as feminism became a more integral part of her identity, she was grateful to have had the experience.

Gloria's next awakening came after she got an abortion at 22 years old. “I suddenly realized—why is it a secret?… I began to understand that my experience was almost a universal female experience.” She began attending abortion hearings and rallies in New York and Washington, DC, and reminisces about reactions from the media—for example: “We were accused in the press of having penis envy.” People thought feminism was irrelevant and destructive; but as Gloria points out in the film, “hostility is a step forward from the ridicule.”

In addition, living in New York City at the cusp of the gender equality movement in the mid-twentieth century was not encouraging. “There was no word for sexual harassment—it was just called life,” Gloria recalls. There were preconceptions about what it meant to be a single woman, and it was impossible for a woman to be both attractive and serious. This affected Gloria on a profound level. “I work really hard,” she says, and to have her successes attributed to her looks was “really painful.” Such notions continue to haunt her even after decades of accomplishments, but she would not change a thing about who she is. “Maybe I helped to break a false stereotype,” she reflects.

Gloria’s advocacy and commitment to equality has been an inspiration for multiple generations of women. “She became a vessel through which some women discovered themselves, their potential, and the strength to advocate for their own truths,” writes Marcia G. Yerman for the Huffington Post. “I first became a feminist because Gloria Steinem made feminism look appealing,” recalls Michele Kort for Ms. Magazine (the feminist publication that Gloria co-founded), noting her revelation that feminists included students, moms, professionals, and even men. “She was a feminist at a time when many dismissed women’s rights as a joke. She chose not to marry in an era when women were wives and mothers. And she did it all with wit, style and grace,” comments ElectWomen Magazine. 

Don’t miss out on this unique portrayal of one of the most inspiring women of the twentieth century. The documentary premiered on television Tuesday night, but if you haven’t seen it yet, upcoming showings also include August 20 at 2 PM, August 23 at 1:15 PM and 12:30 AM, and August 28 at 5:15 PM.

Women's eNews Hosts "Opening the Way" With a Special Movie Screening for Women's Equality Day

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28TH

Date: Sunday, August 28
Time: 11am Start, WeNews' Headquarters
Price: $20.00 Per Ticket

WeWalk for Equality

Join Women’s eNews to celebrate Women's Equality Day and discover women’s history in downtown Manhattan on a guide led walking tour.

The tour brings to life both famous and forgotten women and emphasizes their shared experience of overcoming obstacles in a society that, although always improving over time, was consistently unreceptive of their achievements.

The walks will be led by Women's eNews founder and Editor-in-chief Rita Henley Jensen and Women’s History Associate Angela Dallara and last a maximum of two hours. Limited to 40 tickets. 

RSVP: events@womensenews.org or purchase tickets online at: http://www.womensenews.org/donation

Women's Equality Day Screening: Iron Jawed Angels

   

Time: 1.00pm - 4.00pm

Join the celebrations for Women's Equality Day with a screening of Iron Jawed Angels, a film about three women who put their lives at risk to get women the vote in the suffrage movement starring Hilary Swank, Angelica Huston and Frances O'Connor.

 

Women in the United States were given the right to vote on August 26, 1920. Women's Equality Day exists in the U.S.A. to commemorate the giving of the vote to women throughout the country on an equal basis to men.

 

Women's eNews celebrates Women's Equality Day every year to continue the conversation around equality for women around the world today.

 

Iron Jawed Angels is a HBO film and appropriate for all ages. Lydia Dean Pilcher, a Women's eNews 21 Leader for the 21^st Century 2005, was an executive-producer on the film.

 

Limited Seating, RSVP to events@womensenews.org

New York City Women's History Walk Goes on Mobile Scavenger Hunt!

(NEW YORK)--Women’s eNews and Stray Boots are launching on Sunday July 24 a new partnership for fun-seeking tourists in New York City: A cell-phone-based, scavenger-hunt style interactive tour based on our women’s history walk of Lower Manhattan.

Women’s eNews and Stray Boots, both members of New York City’s tourist board NYC-GO, will blow the lid off the idea that New York was built with the power and ideas of men alone.

The women's history walking tour, called Opening the Way, takes walkers from sites commemorating historic figures from Susan B Anthony and Sojourner Truth to the female first responders to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Opening the Way was launched by Women’s eNews first as a guided tour in October in partnership with the New-York Historical Society. The tour has since become accessible online as a downloadable audio tour or a dial-in cell phone tour with contemporaries such as Gloria Steinem and Kathleen Turner giving voice to female heroes of past eras.

Women's eNews is partnering with Stray Boots, an organization that puts on interactive tours in other areas of the city, to create a fun and accessible twist to the women's history tour.

The July 24 interactive tour leads participants on a loop past the ornate architecture and hidden visual treats of old New York, from City Hall to Wall Street, and provides a rich narrative of the lives of women who changed the city, the nation and the world.

The launch event includes prizes donated by the Feminist Press, the Women's Museum, the Body Shop, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and Ms. Magazine.

Tickets for the launch event cost $50 per group, groups of up to 4 allowed and can be bought online at the Women's eNews website or over the phone at 212-244-1744.

Tickets will be $20 per download via the Stray Boots website after the launch.

About Stray Boots Interactive Tours:
Stray Boots LLC offers fun, interactive text-message based scavenger hunt-style tours for locals and visitors to explore New York City, Las Vegas, Boston and Philadelphia - with future tours planned for San Francisco, Los Angeles and London later this year. Launched in New York City in 2008, "NY: The Game" was recently awarded a 2011 Certificate of Excellence by TripAdvisor.
To learn more about Stray Boots and other city offerings, visit www.strayboots.com

A B O U T  W O M E N ' S  e N E W S

Women's eNews is an award-winning nonprofit news service covering issues of concern to women and women's perspectives on public policy in English and Arabic. It enhances women's abilities to define their own lives and to participate fully in every sector of human endeavor.

6 Barclay Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10007 Tel: 212-244-1720

Happy Birthday Margaret Fuller, Correspondent for Equality

On this day in women’s history, we celebrate the birth of Margaret Fuller, a woman whose name is associated with several important contributions to American history.

Fuller was born on May 23, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts to Unitarian parents, and received a strong classical education from an early age, becoming well-versed in languages such as French and German. She became a passionate advocate for transcendentalism, a philosophy that developed as a critique to the state of ideas in society and at Harvard in particular. A core belief of transcendentalist philosophy was the belief in an ideal spirituality that goes beyond the physical and empirical and is fulfilled only through a person’s intuition rather than organized religious doctrine. It affected literature, poetry, art and music from about 1835-1880. Fuller worked with prominent figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, and gained a respected reputation in this field, becoming the first editor of the transcendentalist journal The Dial in 1840.

In 1844, Fuller came to New York to work for Horace Greeley’s New-York Daily Tribune, one of the most influential newspapers in the country. There, she became the first full-time female book reviewer in America. She was considered one of the most well-read people in New England, and became the first woman admitted to use the library at Harvard College. In 1845, she published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which is considered the first major feminist work in the United States. The book was based in part on a series of “Conversations” or seminars she had held for women social reformers while in Boston, to compensate for their lack of access to higher education.

In 1846, Fuller left for Europe as the Tribune’s first female international correspondent. She settled in Rome and covered the Italian revolution. She had a son with Giovanni Ossoli, whom she married; and the three of them left on a ship on May 17, 1850 to return to America. But en route to New York, their ship was wrecked and the family tragically perished.

Margaret Fuller died at only 40 years old, but left a legacy in which she is considered one of America’s first feminists. She fought fiercely for women’s rights, particularly in the areas of education and work. She continues to be celebrated through the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Celebration, which will remember her this year on Wednesday, May 25, in Boston.

Celebrating Margaret Sanger's Role in the History of Birth Control

“I was resolved to seek out the root of evil, to do something to change the destiny of mothers whose miseries were vast as the sky.” – Margaret Sanger, recalling the death of a woman who was desperate not to bear any more children.

Today in 1960, the birth control pill was finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This victory came about primarily through the work of Margaret Sanger, with support from Katharine McCormick, who was just the second female graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sanger and McCormick first met in 1917, when Sanger was already a well-established activist and McCormick had a sizable inheritance, eventually becoming a major sponsor of the pill’s research.

Sanger began as a nurse on the Lower East Side, but became discouraged as she saw more and more poor women come in for treatment from self-induced and botched abortions. She left nursing in 1912 and founded the monthly publication The Woman Rebel, which included birth control information. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921—the predecessor to what would become the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942. In 1916, Sanger opened the nation's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn. Nine days later, police shut it down and confiscated its literature, contraception, and other materials, and Sanger served 30 days in prison. Nevertheless, in 1923, Sanger opened the first permanent birth control clinic in the United States. Today, the Margaret Sanger Center on Bleecker Street continues to be named for her.

But these accomplishments were hardly met without opposition. In 1914, Sanger was indicted on nine charges of obscenity deriving from the Comstock Act. Passed in 1873, the Comstock Act defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit, making it illegal for birth control—or even just information about abortion—to be distributed through the mail or across state borders. This federal law was named after its crusader Anthony Comstock, whose ideals of Victorian morality led him to create the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and advocate censorship in a number of areas.

Sanger witnessed the approval of the pill as an 80-year-old widow living in Tuscon, Arizona, and celebrated by herself with some champagne. She lived to see the Comstock Act’s repeal as well, and died in 1966. Margaret Sanger undoubtedly left her legacy, and today, 80% of American women have used the contraceptive pill.

Happy April Birthdays to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald

Billie Holiday

This month, we celebrate the birthdays of two jazz legends who have much in common, not the least of which is that New York City was integral to the success they made throughout their careers.

Bille Holiday was born Eleanora on April 7, 1915, to her mother Sarah Julia (known as Sadie), who had been kicked out by her parents for getting pregnant at 13 years old. Sadie was absent for most of her daughter’s childhood, leaving her to be raised by others. Eleanora skipped school often and was sentenced to attend Catholic reform school when she was 10 years old. At almost 12 years old, Eleanora and Sadie wound up working in a brothel, where Eleanora first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith that would greatly influence the rest of her life.

In 1929, Eleanora and Sadie moved to Harlem, and Eleanora teamed up with a neighbor and began performing at various clubs. She changed her name to Bille Holiday, taken from her favorite actress Bille Dove and her father, Clarence Holiday. She was recording for Columbia Records in the late 1930s when she came across the song “Strange Fruit,” based on a poem about lynching. Although too controversial for Columbia producers, she recorded it for Commodore and later Verve Records, and became a huge hit. Her popularity skyrocketed, and she became known for her sultry, emotionally charged voice. She gave performances to packed audiences at Carnegie Hall and popular New York nightclubs, until she was banned from them after a conviction of drug possession. Her last performance was on May 25, 1959, at the Pheonix Theater in Greenwich Village.

Holiday died in New York at a young age after complications due to drug abuse. “Miss Holiday set a pattern during her most fruitful years that has proved more influential than that of almost any other jazz singer,” wrote the New York Times in her 1959 obituary. Today, the Billie Holiday Theatre is an independent, non-profit theater specializing in African American dramatic arts and named after the legend, located in Brooklyn, New York.

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald was born shortly after Holiday on April 25, 1917. Her parents separated shortly after her birth, and she grew up in Yonkers, New York. After her mother died of injuries she suffered in a car accident, Ella became increasingly upset and entered a difficult part of her life. Her grades dropped, she frequently skipped school, and she was eventually sent to a reform school.

At 17 years old, Fitzgerald won a lucky drawing to compete in “Amateur Night” at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and there she made her debut appearance. She intended to dance, but when she became intimidated by another dance duo, she opted to sing instead—and won the first prize of $25.00. In the next years, she began performing with several Harlem-based bands, and in 1942 began a solo career under the Decca label. She joined Verve Records in 1955 and released “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook,” the first of eight Songbook sets she recorded, which eventually became her most commercially successful work.

By the end of her career, Ella recorded almost 70 records, sold over 40 million albums, and won 13 Grammy Awards. She was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom—America’s highest non-military honor—in 1992 by George H. W. Bush, and is considered one of the foremost American jazz musicians of all time. Called “the First Lady of Song,” her impressive three-octave vocal range changed the world of music. She died in 1996 after a long-term struggle with diabetes.

The two African-American jazz divas set high standards for their genre of music, and contemporary singer-songwriters are still influenced by each of them today. They both came from modest backgrounds and made their mark in different parts of New York City, contributing to its importance as an artistic and cultural landmark. Let us know what you think of their classics in the comments section below!

Pro-Choice Demonstrators Join Budget Battle Today | Womens eNews

Pro-Choice Demonstrators Join Budget Battle Today | Womens eNews

Pro-choice demonstrators and a variety of allied interests will demonstrate on April 7 as part of the major budget battle taking place in Washington. With a federal shutdown looming, GOP lawmakers are pressing a radical reshaping of health care policy.

The Centennial Anniversary of the Tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, NYC

Today marks one of the most significant days in women’s history this year. It is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—the largest workplace disaster in New York up until the World Trade Center attacks. It sprung into action a labor rights movement to enable fair and safe workplace conditions in the future.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company specialized in the popular “shirtwaist” which the New York Times blog describes as a “brash but sensible pairing of tailored shirt and skirt” that offers a scandalous peek of its owner’s ankles. It was preferred by women of the day for its utility, as opposed to the longer, more confining dresses that they watched their mothers wear. Located one half-block east from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, NYC, the Triangle factory was the largest maker of shirtwaists in the city. It packed hundreds of young female seamstresses close together on the top three floors of the Asch building, compelling them to work long hours for $5 or less per week.

The infamous fire took place towards the end of the work day on March 25, 1911, when somebody tossed either a lit match or cigarette into a waste basket. It spread rapidly as it caught to the scraps of fabric hanging overhead, and workers scrambled to escape. But the doors had been locked to prevent them from stealing or leaving early, and fire ladders could only reach the sixth floor, whereas most workers were on the ninth floor. (The owners, who were on the tenth floor, were notified by telephone and got out safely, as did other high executives.) Onlookers watched in horror as more than 50 people jumped to their deaths. An additional 19 people fell into an empty elevator shaft, 20 fell from a fire escape, and at least 50 burned to death. The fire ultimately killed 146 people, all but 23 of whom were young (mostly immigrant) women.

Frances Perkins, advocate for safety

One of the onlookers was Frances Perkins, a social worker who was having tea in Washington Square Park across from the factory. The fire motivated her to later become one of the most important advocates of reform, and she was named executive director of an organization that formed as a result of the tragedy, called the Committee on Safety. New York State subsequently passed the strongest workers’ laws in the nation and became a role model for other states. It began to mandate automatic sprinklers in high-rise buildings, fire drills at large companies, and factory doors that swung outwards rather than inwards. It established minimum wages and maximum hours, and demonstrated that the state indeed has a responsibility to protect its workers.

Women’s eNews will be hosting filmmaker Jamila Wignot on Sunday, March 27, to screen and discuss her recently released PBS documentary “Triangle Fire,” which examines the circumstances behind the fire and the impact it had on reform, labor rights and women’s rights in American history. The event is free, so if you haven’t RSVPed yet make sure to do so soon!

DNAinfo Staff Explore Women's History of Lower Manhattan

Reporter Julie Shapiro joined Opening the Way staff last week to take our Women’s History Walk on one of the most beautiful spring days New York has had so far. She and her editors subsequently posted a great article and comprehensive slideshow of different sights on the tour, as well as information about the female historical figures associated with them.

Read the article and view the map and slideshow here!

DNAinfo (for which the acronym stands for “Digital Network Associates”) is an online news outlet that focuses on local Manhattan neighborhood news coverage, sports, events and entertainment. Billionaire Joe Ricketts founded DNAinfo in order to “figure out the future of news,” according to the New York Observer, and to place a special emphasis on the role of multimedia in contributing to the spread of knowledge. “The upheaval facing traditional media provides a great opportunity for DNAinfo. Now is the right time to experiment with new ways of storytelling, content delivery, and revenue generation,” DNAinfo's website explains.

Feminists for Choice Profiles Opening the Way

Opening the Way staff were excited to recently talk to Serena Freewomyn, the founder of Feminists for Choice, when she interviewed us to discuss our women’s history walking tour of downtown Manhattan and what we think the future will bring in learning about women’s history.

“Women are everywhere, and we’ve all got a story to tell,” Serena writes, titling the piece “History Is Hip.” She notes that Opening the Way includes both physical and virtual tours, and examines the role of technology as a catalyst for future women’s history educational opportunities. “The Women’s e-News tour is particularly unique, because visitors can participate virtually, using their cell phones and the internet, in addition to going on the in-person group tour on March 27th,” she writes. Her piece was thoughtful and well-written, and we thank her for profiling us!

Feminists for Choice is a blog that describes itself as a collective of women's rights advocates, founded in the spring of 2009. Their mission is predicated on the notion that feminism is inherently connected to a woman's right to control her own body. The bloggers at Feminists for Choice have authored an impressive selection of topics on women’s history for the month of March so far, including a piece the history of women’s menstrual products; a round-up of articles about Margaret Sanger, whom Opening the Way honors on the first stop of our tour for her dedication to reproductive rights; and an examination of the life of Gwen Araujo, who was brutally murdered in 2002 for being transgender. Give the blog a look if you haven’t seen it yet!

The History Behind International Women's Day

Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which highlights the accomplishments of women around the world while bringing awareness to their ongoing plight. On this day, March 8, we encourage activists to educate themselves and others about women’s history in order to emphasize the struggles women have overcome in the past and the important contributions that they have made when given the opportunity. 

The United Nations describes International Women’s Day as “the story of ordinary women as makers of history.” It is rooted in a tradition where women worldwide hold a common oppression in political, economic, and sexual subordination due to their gender, but the origins of Women’s Day differ in various parts of the world. 

The first National Women’s Day was celebrated by the American Socialist Party on February 28, 1909, and American women continued to celebrate it every last Sunday in February until 1913. Likewise, in 1910, the Socialist International proposed an International Women’s Day to help win suffrage and other rights for women, which was unanimously accepted by countries such as Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland. On March 8, 1917, Russian women protested the czar under a “Bread and Peace” strike and won the right to vote from the provisional government four days later, after the czar was abdicated. The UN subsequently began celebrating IWD on March 8 in 1975, and passed a resolution two years later to proclaim a Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace.

Yet every year on International Women’s Day, women are bound by gender across linguistic, geographical, cultural and political lines. This year’s celebration drew 465 events in 70 countries around the world, primarily related to the theme of women and education. Feminist groups commemorated the day in particular by holding rallies such as Egypt’s “Million Women March” to protest the exclusion of women’s voices. International Women’s Day will likely continue to have relevance throughout the world for a long time to come.

Rediscovering Women's History and Opening the Way to New Stories: Join Our Next Walking Tour on March 27!

Tourists enjoy warm weather and women's history

Women’s eNews is excited to host the next Women’s History Walk of downtown Manhattan just in time for Women’s History Month and the beginning of spring. “Opening the Way” will be led by Women’s eNews founder and editor-in-chief Rita Henley Jensen and Women’s eNews Women’s History Associate Angela Dallara on Sunday, March 27 beginning at 11 AM. The walk will begin at the Women’s eNews office, wind over toward City Hall Park and through Park Row, go down Nassau and Wall Streets, and come up Broadway again. It lasts about an hour and a half.

After the walk, visitors will gather back at the Women’s eNews office for a special documentary screening of PBS’s “Triangle Fire,” directed and produced by Jamila Wignot. The film marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which 146 people tragically died. All but 23 were women, and nearly half were teenagers. Many were also immigrants. On the Women’s History Walk, we visit a site associated with Frances Perkins, who witnessed the fire while drinking tea with a friend in Greenwich Village. Perkins later set up hearings in the Singer Building at 165 Broadway where she investigated fire hazards.

This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. Our last stop on the tour, St. Paul’s Chapel at Vesey St. and Broadway, pays tribute to the female first responders to the attacks. We speak in particular about Brenda Berkman, who was one of the first female firefighters in the FDNY and is still active in the women’s rights movement today.

Therefore, this year’s Women’s History Month is an especially good time to recall the sacrifices and contributions of both exceptional and everyday women in American society. Please join us! RSVP at events@womensenews.org. Tickets will be $20 per person for the walk and the documentary screening will be free, but spots are limited for both events, so plan in advance!

Shared Oppressions: Abolitionism and Women's Suffrage in the Nineteenth Century

On this day in 1865, the House of Representatives voted to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States following Senate’s approval of the amendment in April 1864. The 13th Amendment came to full fruition after years of activism by abolitionists, including many women who later set into motion the women’s rights movement and often sacrificed the cause of women’s suffrage in order to attain the African American male vote more quickly.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the wife of prominent abolitionist Harry Stanton, met the Quaker preacher and abolitionist Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in England in 1840, after they were ordered to sit separately from men. They held the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY eight years later. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and one of a small number of men in attendance there, persuaded the Seneca Falls audience to accept a controversial resolution demanding that women work to attain the right to vote.

In the later anthology History of Woman’s Suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton dedicates a section to examining the effect of women’s participation in abolitionism on their future mindsets. She writes:

“In the early Anti-Slavery conventions, the broad principles of human rights were so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and equality, so clearly taught, that the women who crowded to listen readily learned the lesson of freedom for themselves, and early began to take part in the debates and business affairs of all associations. Women not only felt every pulsation of man's heart for freedom, and by her enthusiasm inspired the glowing eloquence that maintained him through the struggle, but earnestly advocated with her own lips human freedom and equality.”

Other American women suffragists also contributed to the anti-slavery cause. Susan B. Anthony was the principal leader of the New York chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society and petitioned for the freedom of slaves during the Civil War era. Anna Dickinson was considered one of the greatest orators in America during her lifetime, and began her involvement in abolitionism as early as 13 years old, when she wrote for William Lloyd Garrison’s respected newspaper The Liberator.

Frederick Douglass

When the women’s rights movement split into two major associations after years of disagreement, Lucy Stone led the American Woman Suffrage Association, which prioritized the rights of black men before those of women. Ida B. Wells, a founder of the NAACP, worked for both women’s and civil rights by exposing in her newspaper the vast number of white men who raped black women, as well as dispelling the myth that black men raped white women. The praised leader of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, also worked often with her good friend Susan B. Anthony to secure women’s rights. Finally, the former slave Sojourner Truth worked all her life for both women’s rights and the rights of black men. “I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?” she said in her most famous speech.

The 13th Amendment was the first of several Reconstruction amendments immediately following the Civil War, but equal rights for the African American community de jure did not culminate until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To this day, the commonality among seemingly different oppressions continues, and as a result, feminists frequently combine their activism with efforts against racism, homophobia, classism, and ableism in order to address root causes of inequality. Contemporary writers such as bell hooks address the invisibility of black women within the history and discourse of both the civil rights and feminist movements. Different movements continue to learn organizing tactics from each other, and as such, it is likely that equality for all people will finally be achieved only when all minority groups recognize the intersection of their oppression.

NYC & Co.: Discovering Hidden History and Opportunities

Opening the Way is excited to announce its new partnership with NYC & Company, the city’s largest marketing, tourism and partnership organization. With an expected spike in tourism this year due to the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks and the ongoing development of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum, we hope that this collaboration will offer new opportunities to reach out to a greater number of constituents.

NYC & Co. offers the best of travel in New York City, including suggestions on entertainment, attractions, dining, transportation, and accommodations. It’s a useful resource for both tourists and locals alike to go beyond the major landmarks and explore the lesser known gems of the city. As New York regains its title as the number one tourist destination in America, sites like this one are integral to getting the best deals in cultural events and the arts. We anticipate that this pairing will allow us to network with other historical venues and open the door to bigger events.

Visitors explore the NYC & Co. Information Center. © NYC & Company

Have you taken the Women’s History Walk? Please rate and write us a review under Opening the Way’s new venue listing! If you have yet to take the walk, be on the lookout for future dates—Opening the Way tours are thus far being scheduled during two major parts of this year: Women’s History Month in March, and the recognition of 10-year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th. We encourage you to check out the other events NYC & Co. has to offer as well!

Ernestine Rose: An Advocate for the Rights of Married Women

Today marks the birthday of Ernestine Rose, a pioneer women’s rights advocate in the nineteenth century. Born to Jewish parents in Russian Poland in 1810, Ernestine led an unconventional life devoted to social and political reform. After her mother died when she was 16, Ernestine’s father—a rabbi—attempted to arrange his daughter’s marriage without her consent. Ernestine refused, got the marriage dissolved in civil court, and sued successfully for her mother’s inheritance. She left home in 1827 at the age of seventeen, and traveled on her own throughout several European cities, including Berlin, where Jewish entry was severely limited.

In 1832, Ernestine married a Christian man named William Ella Rose, and the two came to New York four years later. She was one of the first people in America to speak publicly about women’s rights, and the first to petition for women’s rights, beginning in 1840. Twelve years after she’d begun her activism, New York State passed the first married women’s property law in the country. Opening the Way pays tribute to the time she spent at the Broadway Tabernacle in 1853, where she spoke at the New York State Women’s Rights Convention on married women’s property rights.

Ernestine formed lifelong partnerships with other women’s rights activists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright Davis, and Susan B. Anthony, who often praised her efforts. Ernestine Rose was considered one of America’s first Jewish feminists, and was also a dedicated abolitionist. She died in England in 1892. 

Watch our new video footage with Gloria Jacobs, the executive director of the Feminist Press, speaking the words of Ernestine Rose at the New York meeting in 1853:

Sisters of the Suffragist Struggle: Lucretia Mott and Martha Coffin Wright

Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott and Martha Coffin Wright had a lot in common—they were two sisters raised with similar Quaker ideals, and were both prominent suffragists and abolitionists throughout their lives, devoted to equal rights for all people. Their birthdays are also close together in date, making this time a perfect opportunity to honor their contributions to women’s history.

Lucretia Mott was born on this day in 1793 in Massachusetts, and is largely considered to be one of the first American feminists. She was an eloquent Quaker preacher and reformer, and in 1840 was selected as a delegate to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London. While sitting in the segregated female section, she met and spoke to Elizabeth Cady Stanton about the need to hold a mass meeting for women’s rights.

Martha Coffin Wright

Martha Coffin Wright, the youngest of the family’s seven children, was born on Christmas Day in 1806. As a biography about her life suggests, her neighbors considered her to be “a very dangerous woman” due to her political stances. She presided over numerous anti-slavery meetings and was active in the Underground Railroad, establishing a close relationship with Harriet Tubman.

Mott and Wright were among a small group of women that collaborated with Stanton to organize the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848, where Mott and Stanton were the two primary writers of the Declaration of Sentiments. (Wright was pregnant at the time, as a statue in her image at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park now shows.) Mott and Wright both also previously attended the founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833. Mott later became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association.

Mott worked also to reconcile the strained relations between black male suffragists and women suffragists. She died in 1880. Wright died in 1875 at the age of 68, while still President of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA).