On Board the Women’s Hughes Campaign Train, 1916 Imagine, if you can, a cross-country–both ways– train trip with a bunch of elite women, stopping several times a day to campaign for the Republican presidential candidate. OK, you probably can’t imagine because it was 1916 and the Republicans were the “good guys” in favor of women’s […]
Talk about Elisabeth Freeman as a footnote in history!! Thomas Edison was perfecting the first “talkies”–film and sound recordings synced. Casting about for a popular topic he turned to Votes for Women, which was then most controversial. Freeman’s mission was to generate so much awareness of the cause that it became dinner time conversation in […]
Thanks to Feedspot.com, an aggregator site, for making this blog one of their top 25 American History blogs. 24 out 25, but still up there. It is always difficult to let people know about niche blogs like this one, so we appreciate it. If you like an article, we would be grateful if you share […]
I had a nice virtual presentation with the Historical Society of Woodstock about Elisabeth Freeman. I made this video as part of that presentation and here it is: Enjoy!!! Thanks to Stephen Schweitzer for videography.
The Historical Society of Woodstock is sponsoring a talk on Elisabeth Freeman’s career as an organizer for several social justice causes. On May 19th there will be a zoom presentation and video showing the Freeman scrapbook which details English and US Suffrage, women’s garment workers and other labor issues, the anti-lynching campaign, and resistance to […]
One of my favorite TV shows is Henry Louis Gates’ “Finding Your Roots” where a couple of celebrities get the benefit of genealogical tools and DNA tracking to discover who their ancestors are and where they came from. Needless to say, it’s transformative for his guests, particularly black and brown people, whose histories were quite […]
Following up on the Wishbone Ring, my cousin asks if there was other “suffrage jewelry.” I’m sure there were lots of cloisonne pins and of course buttons, which might count as jewelry in my wardrobe. But the most prized piece was that presented to English suffragettes who had done prison time for their beliefs. It’s […]
A side line of Elisabeth’s–and every freelance activist needs a second gig–was selling antiques. When she was on the road, she carried some watches to sell. One specialty was seriously old pocket watches (the size of a baseball), and also creating rings out of the ornate watch cocks from fancy watches. Elisabeth had a store* […]
I participated in a zoom presentation sponsored by the Historical Society of Woodstock. on Sat. Oct. 1oth called “Standing on Their Shoulders: 100 Years of Voting and Still Marching for Women’s Rights.” Elisabeth and Edna Kearns were the shoulders in this case and they both traveled about in horse drawn wagons to draw attention to […]
Hopefully you have seen the PBS American Experience two part series called The Vote. If not: Watch it! Stream it! Elisabeth was well represented in the series and I recall talking with the researchers a year ago or so. What a thrill it must be to put together a narrative like this! It’s a great […]
When Elisabeth Freeman showed her niece Ruthie (my mother) the scrapbook detailing her activism, she instructed her not to look at one section. “It was,” she said, “too terrible for a young girl.” * My mother ignored her warning but she was not wrong—there were gruesome images of the torture and lynching of a young […]
Due to an undiagnosed malady–a bellyache–I have been prescribed “rest” among other odious measures. Perhaps you can imagine what anathema this is for me: a sunny three day weekend and I’m not supposed to work in the garden? Really?! I am compromising by resting between small tasks, a tomato plant here, a weed or two […]
