On December 15, 2017, the Center for Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society hosted a Salon Conversation titled “Women of the Village.” A hearty crowd filled the Museum’s fourth-floor Skylight Gallery on a snowy Friday evening for a tour of Hotbed in the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery, followed by a conversation between Scholarly…

Written by Ina Bort Our last post explored the biography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, the doyenne-turned-activist we believe commissioned this plate’s manufacture. Today we explore the first of two likely scenarios where this and similar plates may have been used: The suffrage conferences Alva organized at Marble House, her Newport estate, in 1909 and 1914….

This week the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote, turned 95. To commemorate the victory, we’re continuing the tradition of the tenacious suffragettes. Join us tonight at 7 pm for PoeticJustice: A Performance, where three generations of New York activist artists will take the stage to perform their social justice-inspired poetry. The…

This week’s guest blogger is N-YHS Bernard and Irene Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Lauren Santangelo. If you’re interested in learning more about New York women’s history, stay tuned! In early 2017, the New-York Historical Society will be unveiling the Center for the Study of Women’s History, including a permanent gallery space devoted exclusively to local herstory.  Five thousand Japanese lanterns…

To kick-off our celebration of Women’s Herstory Month, let’s travel back to the groovy days of 1970. Pervasive inequality pushed the Second-wave Feminist Movement forward into the next decade. Its Founding Mothers, including Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem established the National Organization for Women (NOW), a centralized force for change. NOW sponsored the Women’s Strike…

On October 23, 1915, over 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City to advocate for women’s suffrage. At that point, the fight had been ongoing for more than 65 years, with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 first passing a resolution in favor of women’s suffrage. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t find success for another…

On June 4, 1919, the US Congress approved the 19th Amendment, which granted suffrage to women. The Amendment was not ratified by the states until August 18, 1920, but the approval was a huge victory for women’s rights. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first drafted and introduced the amendment in 1878, but it took over forty years…