Description
Voices of Women continues Moonstone’s exploration of Hidden History in Philadelphia and America, looking at the struggle for freedom and equality. Three of the major aspects of this is the struggle against:
- chattel slavery (the Anti-Slavery Movement and Black Liberation)
- domestic slavery (Women’s Suffrage and Woman’s Liberation) and
- wage slavery (the Labor Movement)
These three movements find common ground and merge, come into conflict and separate time and again. Voices of Women looks at the mid nineteenth century: as Women’s Suffrage emerges from the Anti-Slavery movement (as women realized that they were, legally, no more than slaves to their husbands); and touches on some of the amazing women who have continued the struggle over the last 150. Women have been central to most of the social movements in America, they have been the great silent army, with an amazing number of smart and brave individuals leading the struggles. Our goal is to deepen the interest in women as the driving force leading social progress.
The Women’s Movement grew out of the Anti-Slavery Movement when Philadelphia Quaker Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were not allowed to participate in the World Anti-Slavery Convention (London, 1840). Regulated to the balcony, they began to discuss the need for a Women’s Convention to confront the lack of legal rights for women. The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 is considered the beginning of the modern American Women’s Movement, The Declaration of Sentiments, issued by that convention, the foundational document and Lucretia Mott, as mother.
Moonstone’s programs will center around:
- Lucretia Mott (born January 3, 1793; this is her 220th birthday) was a women’s rights activist, abolitionist, and religious reformer. Mott was strongly opposed to slavery and a supporter of William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society. She was dedicated to women’s rights, publishing her influential Discourse on Woman and is a founder of Swarthmore College.
- Margaret Fuller (born May 23, 1810; this is her 203rd birthday) was a great American heroine: Thoreau’s first editor, Emerson’s close friend, first female war correspondent, first full-time American female book reviewer, passionate advocate of personal liberty and author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, considered the first major feminist work in the United States and a major influence on many women activists.
- Harriet Ann Jacobs (born February 11, 1813; this is her 200th birthday) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs’ single work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, was one of the first autobiographical narratives about the struggle for freedom by female slaves and an account of the sexual harassment and abuse they endured.
Programing will include:
- Film & Dialogue Programs – We will do a number of programs at public libraries and high schools, universities and community organizations using film clips from “One Woman, One Vote,” “Lucretia Mott,” and “Iron Jawed Angles,” a film on Alice Paul . These will be used to stimulate a discussion on how the women’s suffrage movement emerged from the anti-slavery movement, the journey to the 19th amendment and the state of the women today. These include programs at the Kensington International Business High School, Joseph E. Coleman NW Regional Library, Girl’s High School, David Cohen Ogontz Branch Library, Constitution High School, Walnut Street West Branch Library.
- Programs on Lucretia Mott will feature a panel discussion with Christopher Densmore, Curator, Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College; Carol Faulkner, author of Lucretia Mott’s Heresy, the newest biography of Lucretia Mott; and Beverly Wilson Palmer, editor of Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott. They will do two programs, one at Swarthmore College and one at a center city location, probably the New Century Trust (pending. We will also have programs on Lucretia Mott at Cherry Street Meeting House and Friends Select School, both of which she helped found.
- Programs on Margaret Fuller will feature presentations by biographer Megan Marshall, author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Michael Barnett, who has taught the Transcendentalists for twelve years and has an ode to Margaret Fuller, at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.
Programs on Harriet Jacobs will feature presentations by Jean Fagan Yellin, author of Harriet Jacobs: A Life and Farah Griffin, Columbia University Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies discussing Jacobs importance in the anti-slavery and women’s movements.
Events
Saturday October 12, 2013
Historic Fair Hill Burial Ground: 2:00pm
Sunday October 13, 2013
Mother Bethel AME Church : 1pm
Monday October 14, 2013
New Century Trust : 7pm
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
National Museum of American Jewish History : 2:30pm
Joseph E. Colman NW Regional Library : 6pm
Sunday October 20, 2013
Brandywine Workshop: 2:00pm
Monday, October 21, 2013
David Cohen Oqontz Branch Library: 5:30pm
Thursday October 24, 2013
Breslin Learning Center: 5:30pm
Cheyney University, Marion Anderson Center: 7:00pm
Saturday October 26, 2013
National Constitution Center: 10:00am
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology: 2:00pm
Independence Seaport Museum: 4:30pm
Independence Seaport Museum: 5:00pm
Saturday October 27, 2013
William Way LGBT Community Center: 2:00pm
National Museum of American Jewish History: 2:30pm
Monday, October 28, 2013
Walnut Street West Branch Library: 5:30pm
Tuesday October 29, 2013
A Discussion with Nina Ball, Denise Brown, Sonia Sanchez, Amy Scholder
1199C Hospital Worker Union : 7:00pm
Thursday October 31, 2013
A Talk by Keith Clark
Art Sanctuary: 7:00pm
Friday, November 1, 2013
National Museum of American Jewish History: 2:30pm
Sunday November 3, 2013
With Megan Marshall
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia: 11:00am
Brandywine Workshop: 2:00pm
Saturday November 9, 2013
Alice Paul Institute: 2:00pm
National Museum of American Jewish History: 2:30pm
This program looks fantastic! I am a park ranger at Independence National Historical Park (INHP). I plan and present programs especially on women’s contributions to history at INHP. I am really excited to attend the programs on Lucretia Mott. I would love to learn more about her and add to my programs on her legacy. There are quite a few of us that plan to attend various programs in order to network with women’s history scholars and advocates in our community.
An incredible series of events!
In 2014 it just won’t be the same without you…
I am co-curator of Lest We Forget Slavery Museum in Phila.
I have also authored a recently released novel titled
Peculiar Relationships about the evolving relationships between black women and white women from slavery to current day. Click link for more information:
http://goindiebooks3.com/616265/
My engaging book readings are followed by lively, frank conversations about race and race relations at a time when discussions are solely needed. In addition to reading excerpts of my book where I weaved stories about some of the slavery artifacts housed in the LWF slavery museum I exhibit some the actual items further enhancing my readings. Please keep me in mind for future Moonstone programs.
I can be reached at 215-205-4324
Thank You Gwen Ragsdale