05 Jul Greeting from the Birthplace of the American Women’s Rights Movement!

Greetings! My name is Jeanette and this is my second year working as a Latino Heritage Intern for the National Park Service. Last year, I participated in the program as a Park History intern for WASO in Washington D.C. This year I am excited to announce that I will be an intern for the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY. The Women’s Rights National Historical Park was established in 1980. Seneca Falls is known as the birthplace of Women’s Rights since it is the site of the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass and others signed the Declaration of Sentiments.  

  The Declaration of Sentiments (1848), modeled after the Declaration of Independence, is a document in which the organizers of the Convention put forward the idea that “All men and women are created equal.” It was written at the house of Thomas and Mary Ann M’Clintock in Waterloo, NY by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others, who also planned the convention in just ten days. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met just eight years prior at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in England, where male organizers forced women to only listen (and not participate) to the convention in a segregated area. My first week was spent getting to know more about the Park’s history as well as the staff. I was able to attend some of the tours given at the Wesleyan Chapel, where the Convention took place, Elizabeth Cady Stanton house, and a walking tour of Seneca Falls. In the coming weeks I hope to participate during Convention Days and create programming for children of color at the Park.