Women and the Hudson

Aside: I've linked the Constitution Island's store website for purchasing bracelets and cufflinks from the "Great Chain Jewelry Collection," namely because I think it's a hilarious idea and because it's a little ironic, given the subject of this post.

While Dunwell's emphasis on the role of women in the development of 19th and 20th century Hudson may be due to her graduation from Kirkland College, New York has always been a thriving area for women's rights (the first women's right convention was held in Seneca Falls in 1848 - quite a long time ago considering women didn't receive the right to vote until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920; likewise, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both had personal ties to New York state). In Dunwell's Hudson River Highlands, Dunwell states that women were not afraid to use their wealthy husbands' influence to create change, especially in environmental matters. Specifically, the New Jersey Federation of Women's Clubs had direct impact on the formation of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Likewise, Mary Harriman, wife to railroad entrepenuer Edward Hanley Harriman, fulfilled her late husband's ambition by creating Bear Mountain State park and the subsequent Bear Mountain suspension bridge.

I found the story in Hudson River Highlands about the preservation of Constitution Island especially moving. Home to the Warner sisters, Susan, a bestselling novelist at the time, and Anna, who wrote the lyrics to "Jesus Loves Me," the sisters struggled to make ends meet. Both women were childless, and the Island was slated to house an amusement park or summer resort if purchased by the government, adequately destroying its historical value. Anna was determined to see the Island given to West Point following her death - only with the assistance of another women, Olivia Slocum Sage, a philanthropist also responsible for expanding several campus universities, was President Roosevelt convinced to use the island for military purposes. The situation ironically resembled Jim Guinan's agreement with the General. Also, Elihu Root, of Root Hall fame, was directly involved in putting the island to good use. Copies of Sage's correspondence with President Roosevelt can be found here: http://www.constitutionisland.org/ci-giftNation.asp

Overall, I found the historical importance of women very refreshing in both readings for this week; while these women may have not been the very first to reform the Hudson (Fanny Kemble helped in her own poetic and inadvertent way), they were some of the first to do so publicly and proudly.