An interview with the sole survivor, Charlotte Woodward Peirce, then 90 years old, follows in the piece, along with the portrait below. In spite of her advanced age, Woodward played her part in the final political push to win franchise nationally. Sought out by suffragists to recall her Seneca Falls experiences more than seven decades earlier, she gave a handful of interviews that provide invaluable historical details about the Convention. It should be noted, however, that Charlotte Woodward enjoyed the distinction of being the last surviving signer many years before it was actually true.
Given this error and because no one ever kept tabs on the signers, there exists the marginal possibility that others could still have been alive by November But to remember Signer 37 for her longevity is somewhat unfair. During her 26, day wait, Charlotte Woodward was unwavering in her dedication to the cause of suffrage. After , she did not sit idly by, hoping for the world to change. My home was in a tiny county hamlet not a dozen miles from Seneca Falls, and my days were full of labor.
That would have been impossible, disgraceful. A few days later, Charlotte and a half dozen of her friends and family dropped what they were doing and traveled by wagon to Seneca Falls.
Their trip began as a solitary journey but evolved into something of a groundswell. As we reached different crossroads we saw wagons coming from every part of the county, and long before we reached Seneca Falls we were a procession.
When it came time for speeches, Lucretia Mott 1 was the only woman present who had any experience with public oratory, having spoken at Quaker meetings. Yet, Charlotte claims that only Stanton and Frederick Douglass 73 supported the provision of the Declaration that demanded voting rights for women.
Charlotte signed her name to the document but speculates that many hesitated because of the stigma it could attract. Perhaps they thought they were being called upon to sign something like a death warrant, and so they were—a death warrant of the past.
Afterward, Charlotte abandoned stitching gloves and sought a career at the newspaper established by Amelia Bloomer in Seneca Falls, The Lily. An interview with Charlotte reveals that, prior to her stint at The Lily , she sought work in area newsrooms but was met with resistance. The men thought it beneath their dignity to work with a woman. Katzenstein claims that Charlotte, one of 14 children, was compelled by economic necessity to leave home at age 15 and earn her living as a schoolmarm.
This distance suggests, to me, a location in Cayuga County on the western outskirts of Auburn. The journey from Seneca Falls to Waterloo, of about three-and-a-half miles, would not have been a very formidable, time-consuming wagon ride.
Dorr, a New Yorker born in Omaha, Nebraska, and Katzenstein, a Philadelphian born in Warrenton, North Carolina, might both be operating at the disadvantage of being unfamiliar with the geographical region that Woodward recalled to them. That Woodward was recounting these details, possibly fuzzy, nearly three-quarters of a century after the fact might have prompted her to produce different renditions for each auditor.
She resides in the household of Hannah and Moses Chapman, a well-to-do farming couple in their 50s. Four other teenagers and young adults, who do not share the Chapman surname, also appear in the household, possibly taken on as laborers or boarders.
Newlin was forced to return to Philadelphia after being afflicted with typhoid fever in Cortland. Back home, he studied dentistry by taking up an apprenticeship and enrolling at the Pennsylvania Dental College. Upon his graduation in , he began his own dental practice, but quickly transitioned into the field of education.
Steven Peitzman observes of Newlin that "for a remarkable span of over forty years" he "toiled faithfully as a WMC corporator" Was prof. Dean Pa. Dental Surgery: sec. They have a one-year-old, Gertrude, born May 16, Two adults and an Irish-born teenager reside with them, serving in the capacity of domestics. During the s, Charlotte began to pursue the philanthropic activities that would come to occupy much of her adult life.
The titular festival is a fundraiser in support of The Anti-Slavery Standard. Peirce, North Seventh street. Her political affiliations in the midst of the schism were almost preordained, but she could clearly see that the break between factions was not absolute and not eternal.
An letter composed by Charlotte Woodward and addressed to Lucretia Mott touts an overarching solidarity that should surmount temporary ideological differences. Our aim is the same, what matter if we do not all choose to the same means to accomplish it? Mott did recycle the paper, flipping it upside-down and drafting a note intended for her daughter, Martha Mott Lord, in the remaining space. In February , the Peirces lost a young child, named Walter.
New England abolitionist Lucy Stone organized the first national convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Like Cady Stanton, Stone saw the connection between black emancipation and female emancipation. Quaker reformer Susan B.
She had heard about the Seneca Falls Convention, of course; her parents and sister had attended the Rochester meeting. Initially, however, she deemed its goals of secondary importance to temperance and anti-slavery. All that changed in when she met Cady Stanton, with whom she formed a life-long political partnership.
After the war, feminist leaders split over the exclusion of women from legislation enfranchising black men. Their protest alienated the more cautious wing of the movement and produced two competing suffrage organizations. Lucretia Mott, now an elderly widow, sought in vain to reconcile the two camps. Both organizations sought political equality for women, but the more radical NWSA actively promoted issues beyond suffrage. Anthony countenanced—and occasionally practiced—civil disobedience; in she was arrested for illegally casting a ballot in the presidential election.
Many states had enacted laws granting married women property rights, equal guardianship over children, and the legal standing to make contracts and bring suit. Nearly one-third of college students were female, and 19 states allowed women to vote in local school board elections. In two western territories—Wyoming and Utah—women voted on an equal basis with men.
But full suffrage nationwide remained stubbornly out of reach. Old age did not mellow either one of them, especially Cady Stanton. Cady Stanton had long advocated reform of organized religion. Even Anthony thought she had gone too far this time, and could do little to prevent conservative suffragists from venting their wrath.
Anthony as the elder stateswoman of the movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in at the age of 83, and Susan B. Anthony in at By then a new generation of suffrage leaders emerged—younger, better educated, and less restricted to the domestic sphere. They demanded a federal suffrage amendment as a necessary first step to achieving equal rights. Victory on the voting rights issue came in the wake of World War I. Following state ratification a year later, it enfranchised American women nationwide in the form of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
It had been more than 72 years since that daring call for female voting rights was issued at the Seneca Falls Convention. On November 2, , year-old Charlotte Woodward Pierce went to the polls in Philadelphia, the only signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration who lived long enough to cast her ballot in a presidential election.
This article was written by Constance B. Rynder and originally published in the April issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!
Dan Bullock died at age 15 in and efforts to recognize the young African-American Marine continue and are highlighted in this Military Times documentary. Charlotte Woodward traveled farther than almost anyone else who came to the Seneca Falls convention. According to the index of the census, published by the Mormons, only one Charlotte Woodward lived in New York State in Chapman Charlotte Woodward eventually married Newlin?
Pierce and moved to Bristol [Rhode Island? She joined the American Woman Suffrage Association rather than the National Woman Suffrage Association, which Stanton and Anthony had organized, but, she wrote to Mott in , "our aim is the same, what matter if we do not all choose the same means to accomplish it? She knew Susan B. Anthony and called her "a great and noble woman. Her conciliatory attitude toward all branches of the suffrage movement lasted until her death.
In , when she was 92 years old, she sent a trowel to the National Woman's Party, to be used in laying a cornerstone for the NWP's headquarters in Washington, D. The inscription read, "In memory of the Seneca Falls Convention in presented by its sole survivor, Mrs. Charlotte L. Pierce, in thanksgiving for progress made by women and in honor of the National Woman's Party, which will carry on the struggle so bravely begun.
The National Woman's Party, she said, "seems to be a woman's party.
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