In 2017, Congress created the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission to plan events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, has invited the 14-member Commission to conduct one of its meetings in Seneca Falls, the Birthplace of the Women’s Rights Movement.
The 19th Amendment was ratified Aug. 18, 1920, prohibiting states and the federal government from denying women the right to vote.
Women’s suffrage was called for in the “Declaration of Sentiments,” approved by delegates to the first women’s rights convention conducted in the Wesleyan Chapel on Fall Street, Seneca Falls, July 19-20, 1848.
In a March 8 letter to Commission Chairwoman Kay Cole James, Gillibrand noted that the women’s suffrage movement has roots throughout upstate New York and encouraged the Commission to host one of its meetings at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park and to visit other sites in the state that mark New York’s legacy in the women’s suffrage movement.
“As we approach his monumental anniversary in United States history, meeting in Seneca Falls would be an important way for the Commission to honor those historical achievements and the heroic efforts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman and other champions of New York who played a pivotal role in the fight for women’s rights,” Gillibrand wrote to James.
Gillibrand said the 1848 convention, the Declaration of Sentiments and other resolutions passed by delegates set the framework for the national women’s suffrage movement that followed.
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