Women's Rights National Historical Park

Women's Rights National Historical Park Review

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and a handful of other pioneers in the women's rights movement organized the first Women's Rights Convention in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls in 1848. Today, the park incorporates the site of the convention (the Wesleyan Chapel Declaration Park), a visitor center, and several off-site historic homes of key convention participants. Exhibits and an orientation film at the visitor center explore the development of the women's rights movement in the United States.

The gathering of 300 women and men at the Wesleyan Chapel in 1848 produced the Declaration of Sentiments, the bedrock document of the modern women's rights movement. It proclaimed—audaciously, at the time—"that all men and women are created equal." Today the document's words are etched on a 140-foot-long wall between the national park's visitor center and the adjacent Wesleyan Chapel Declaration Park (136 Fall St., 13148. 315/568-0024), which encompasses a steel structure housing remnants of the chapel. Tours are given daily at 10:30 and 1:30 and more frequently in summer.

The meticulously restored Elizabeth Cady Stanton House (32 Washington St., 13148. 315/568-0024. Free) is where one of American feminism's most important leaders shaped social reform as she raised seven children. Stanton's feminist colleague, Susan B. Anthony of Rochester, was a guest in the house. A tour helps you to understand Stanton's charisma and power. The house, a mile east of the Declaration Park and visitor center (across the canal), is open early March through mid-December, with tours daily at 11:15 and 2:15 and more frequently in summer.

The M'Clintock House (Memorial Day-Labor Day, Thursday-Sunday 1-4) and the Hunt House (not open to public) are in the village of Waterloo, 3 mi west of Seneca Falls. Inquire about tours at the park visitor center.