Page 31 - The Hunt - Winter 2019/2020

Reflection
One hundred years later, looking back on the women’s suffrage movement through a 2020 lens.
BY LORA ENGELHART
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TESSA MARIE IMAGES
Pennsylvania Rep. Carolyn Comitta is proud to be a direct descendant of Abigail Adams. But when she speaks to audiences about women’s rights, she often shares her dismay that Abigail’s husband, John, didn’t always heed his forward- thinking spouse’s advice. When the United States’ second president was serving as a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, his wife had a few requests:
“In the new code of laws, which I suppose it will
be necessary for you to make, I desire you would Remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
Alas, the Founding Fathers didn’t heed her advice. And just as Abigail predicted, the women of America
fomented their own revolution. Without the benefit of social media, they came together to fight for the most fundamental right of a democracy—to cast
their vote. Celebrating its centennial in 2020, the women’s suffrage movement did nothing less than change the world, inspiring future generations to continue the fight for fair and equal treatment. Celebrated Philadelphia artist and playwright Gilletta Gigi McGraw points out that women and men of all races and socioeconomic levels fought for women’s suffrage. “Many blacks were pushing for the right for women to vote at the same time they were trying to make people adhere to the 14th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote,” she says.
Plans are underway across the country to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which made women’s right to vote in all elections part of the U.S. Constitution. In Seneca Falls, N.Y., Wesleyan Chapel—site of the first women’s rights convention— has received a much-needed facelift that includes
new space for exhibits and events. Farther south, Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association is working with the Northern Virginia Regional
Maria Bomersbach, president of Washington Memorial Heritage’s board of directors, at Valley Forge National Historical Park with the Justice Bell. The Liberty Bell replica was created in 1915 as a symbol of women’s suffrage efforts.