Meeting of November 12, 2020

Carol Simon Levin on “Reclaiming Our Voice: New Jersey’s Central Role in the Fight for Woman Suffrage”

This is the story of the role of New Jersey women in the long struggle for women’s suffrage.

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, women had the right to vote in only one state, New Jersey, a right they would lose in 1807, and not win back for more than five generations. New Jersey’s role in the struggle to regain that right is largely overlooked.

It is well-known that Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed “all men and women are created equal” at the Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY. Few know that she lived in Tenafly in 1869, when she and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and wrote the first three volumes of their History of Woman Suffrage.

Hear the stories of these and many other women with Jersey ties – including the Grimke sisters (who spoke out against slavery and for women’s rights from their home in Shrewsbury), Dr. Florence Spearing Randolph (chair of the NJ Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and executive board member on the NJ Woman Suffrage Association), Alice Low Turnbull Hopkins (who threw her considerable support behind Alice Paul’s Washington pickets), and Alice Paul, the dynamo who re-energized the movement for a federal amendment.

Carol Simon Levin is a retired librarian, author, storyteller and program presenter based in Bedminster. In 2016, she wrote a book, “Remembering The Ladies: From Patriots in Petticoats to Presidential Candidates,” about amazing American women, which was illustrated by 36 artists. It is an interactive book about lost stories of fascinating and forgotten women in American history. In addition to a coloring page, each entry includes a short biography, a fascinating fact and a quote by the woman. It includes recommendations for further reading for kids, teens, and adults, and suggestions for activities and activism and places to visit.

November 2020 Newsletter