Seneca Falls: The Legend w/ Deva Woodly (Part Two)
Summary
In this second part of the Seneca Falls series, hosts Jody Averggan and guests Nicole Hahn, Kelly Carter Jackson, and Diva Woodley examine the aftermath of the 1848 convention and the subsequent fracturing of the women’s rights movement. They discuss how Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s exclusionary, white-only suffrage association diverged from Lucy Stone’s integrated approach, and how their ten-volume history cemented a simplified origin story that marginalized Black women. The episode also draws parallels to modern social movements, warning against "lost cause" narratives th…
Topics discussed
Introduction and recap of the Seneca Falls Convention
Contextualizing Seneca Falls within the broader women's rights movement
Why Seneca Falls is not the sole origin of the movement
The importance of sustained organizing and institutional building
Sponsor readings: Progressive Insurance and Quince
The split in the movement: Stanton, Anthony, and Lucy Stone
Racial exclusion and the formation of separate suffrage associations
Stanton's reactionary feminism and the 15th Amendment
The writing of the History of Woman's Suffrage and its biases
The danger of single-story narratives in social movements
The unraveling of Reconstruction and Lincoln's legacy
Sponsor readings: Kettering Foundation, Wise, and Odoo
Myth-making in social movements: Lessons from Stonewall
Lost cause narratives and the erasure of Black Lives Matter
The long timeline of the suffrage movement to 1920
Visiting the Seneca Falls National Historical Park
Media adaptations and the interconnectedness of 19th-century movements
Closing remarks and show credits
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