Feminist Pilgrimage to the Finger Lakes

September 2002

One could take all sorts of theme vacations in the Finger Lakes region of New York: hiking, biking, canals, wineries, waterfalls, the War of 1812.... We went in search of connections to our foremothers -- of course!

Happy reunion with our friend Peigi and her family (Steve and Galen)
Women's Rights National Historical Park, Seneca Falls, site of the first Woman's Rights Convention, 1848
Statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, at Seneca Falls Urban Cultural Museum
Susan B. Anthony House (a great museum!), Rochester

Having done our homework by reviewing Ken Burns' video, Not For Ourselves Alone, on Stanton and Anthony (here is the associated PBS site, a rich resource), we bought yellow roses in Seneca Falls, and took them with us to Rochester to place on Anthony's grave, in Mt. Hope Cemetery, a wonderful Victorian cemetery in Rochester. (Link to Friends of Mt. Hope Cemetery. If you are planning a visit, you can also call the cemetery itself and get a map showing the location of Anthony's grave. Frederick Douglass is also buried there.)

 She is buried in a family plot. We got chills when we saw that her parents' memorial in the center has four sides, each listing one principle important to the family:
  • Liberty
  • Equality
  • Justice
  • Humanity
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's bloomers, on the Seneca Falls statue depicting Amelia Bloomer introducing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Bloomer made famous (though she didn't invent) the attire that was a first step in freeing women from corsets and convention. Stanton gave up wearing bloomers because the taunts and harassment of boys and men on the street were tiresome at best; she thought the suffrage movement a better focus of her energy.
Oswego, home of Dr. Mary Walker, a physician who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War (but remembered more because she favored male attire). Dr. Mary Walker links:
Grave of Mary Jemison in Letchworth State Park. Mary Jemison grew up on a frontier farm a few miles from us and was abducted by Shawnee during the French and Indian War, given to Seneca sisters as a replacement for their brother who was killed by whites, and chose to stay with the Seneca for the rest of her life.

Here, on a personal website on the history of Letchworth Park, are links to primary and secondary sources on Mary Jemison.

Also

We highly recommend this trip!

Our guidebook was Susan B. Anthony Slept Here, A Guide to American Women's Landmarks, by Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas, Times Books, Random House, 1994.