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The Big Springs Historical Society presents The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Influence on Women's Rights by Sally Roesch Wagner, Executive Director, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, Fayetteville Sunday, April 18, 2010, 2:00 p.m. Big Springs Museum, Pioneer St., Caledonia NY Free and open to the general public. This event is made possible through Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Speakers in the Humanities lectures are made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Legislature, and through funds from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. This presentation tells the history of the Iroquois Confederacy, whose practice of gender equality inspired the emerging women's rights movement in upstate New York over 100 years ago. Imagine that women had the right to choose all political representatives and to remove from office anyone who didn't address the wishes and needs of the people. Haudenosaunee (traditional Iroquois) women have had that responsibility - and more - since long before Christopher Columbus came to these shores. Native American women generally had a pre-contact status which would be the envy of United States women, even today. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, the two major theoreticians of the early women's rights movement, had direct knowledge of the Haudenosaunee, writing about the superior social, political, religious and economic status of women in the Iroquois nations. Their work for women's rights, Wagner argues, was inspired by the vision they received from the Haudenosaunee of gender balance and harmony. Since its launch in 1983, the Council’s Speakers in the Humanities program has linked distinguished scholars with a diverse audience through the presentation of lectures on a broad range of topics. All Speakers events are free and open to the general public. Each year, hundreds of cultural organizations and community groups take advantage of this program, which offers the very best in humanities scholarship to thousands of citizens in every corner of New York State. The New York Council for the Humanities is a not-for-profit, independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through statewide collaborations, and programs and services that encourage imaginative thinking and critical inquiry, the Council works to ensure that the humanities are present in the intellectual and cultural life of every New Yorker. Contact Information: Big Springs Historical Society PO Box 41, Pioneer Street Caledonia, NY 14423 (585) 538-9880 Other scheduled events (subject to change)
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