KEYNOTE

CAMPUS CENTER BALLROOM ~ 12:00 NOON

Lori D. Ginzberg, Penn State University
Two years before the landmark 1848 Seneca
Falls Convention, six ordinary women in Jefferson
County, New York, presented a petition
to the NY State Constitutional Convention that
accused the state government of departing from
“true democratic principles” by denying women
the right to vote. Piecing together information
from census records, deeds, wills, and newspapers,
Lori Ginzberg explores why, at a time when
the notion of women as full citizens was unthinkable
and too dangerous to discuss, six ordinary
women embraced it as common sense.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2005
STANDISH ROOM-SCIENCE LIBRARY ~ 7:15 PM

Kate H. Winter & Melanie Smith Golding
Marietta Holley was a 19th century Jefferson
County writer whose work once shaped the
entire women’s rights movement in the United
States. Hailed as “The female Mark Twain,”
Holley wrote in a distinctive colloquial voice
that has largely faded from modern literary use.
This fi lm asks “Why don’t we know her?” and
“Why should we know her?” Holley’s
life refl ects the challenges of 19th
century women’s lives and their
creative ways of coping with them.
Her works insist on the rights
of women to have independent
and healthy lives. The fi lm was
released in March and has already
garnered several awards. Following the
screening, Kate Winter and co-creator Melanie
Smith Golding, who also appears in the film,
will answer questions and talk about the process
of researching and creating an historical
documentary. This event is co-sponsored by the New York Writer's Institute.
To learn more about Marietta Holley and the making of the film, see
"Marietta Holley's Wit and Spunk Revisited"

STANDISH ROOM-SCIENCE LIBRARY ~ 4:45 PM

Discussion led by Sean Wilentz
Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
Jonathan Earle, University of Kansas
Reeve Huston, Duke University
Patricia West, Martin Van Buren National
Historic Site
This session is sponsored by the Organization
of American Historians, the National Park
Service, and the Center for Applied Historical
Research, University at Albany, SUNY. The
Organization of American Historians and the
National Park Service are cooperative partners
sponsoring consultations to improve the
historical scholarship at National Park Service
Sites nationwide. This Roundtable is part
of the current effort to evaluate interpretive
themes and research at Martin Van Buren
National Historic Site in Kinderhook, NY.