Black women have lived in New York City since the Dutch arrived in the 17th century. But what we know about their lives and experiences comes in small snippets of information from historical records that considered their contributions secondary. When Black women do show up, we only get piecemeal clues about their lives, the institutions…
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Eliza Webster’s Seneca Village and 19th-Century Black Life in NYC
February 17, 2021
Black women have lived in New York City since the Dutch arrived in the 17th century. But what we know about their lives and experiences comes in small snippets of information from historical records that considered their contributions secondary. When Black women do show up, we only get piecemeal clues about their lives, the institutions…
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“Girls in Caps and Gowns”: The Deltas March for Suffrage
August 10, 2020
One of the central goals of the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition Women March is to emphasize the diverse and abounding character of women’s activism over the past 200 years. The Center for Women’s History’s curatorial team wanted to move visitors away from a preconceived notion of “the suffrage movement,” or a movement headed by a…
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White Supremacy and the Suffrage Movement
August 7, 2020
A drab broadside in the collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society has enjoyed pride of place in two exhibitions: Women March, on view when we reopen the Museum on Sept. 11, and the 2017–2018 show Hotbed. It might not look like much, but it’s actually a crucial document in…
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The Many “Official” Colors of the Suffrage Movement
August 5, 2020
“What are the suffrage colors?” I have been asked this question many times as the curatorial team’s unofficial suffrage historian at the Center for Women’s History. From exhibition design to what flowers to use at a suffrage-related event, people want a visual shorthand to represent the suffrage movement. However, because there were many suffrage organizations,…
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Why Suffrage? A Broader Look At Women’s Collective Action in the 19th Century
August 3, 2020
Contrary to popular belief, obtaining the vote was not always the primary goal of the women’s movement prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The New-York Historical Society’s exhibition, Women March, explores the efforts of a wide range of women to expand American democracy in the century before the suffrage victory, as…
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Commemorating an Incomplete Victory: The 19th Amendment at 100
July 30, 2020
Early in the morning on August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby unceremoniously certified the ratification of the 19 Amendment at his home, depriving suffragists the opportunity to celebrate this moment representing decades of activism. One hundred years later, in the midst of a public health crisis and political unrest, we once again are…
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