Judith Wellman

Find this rarity (not held by most libraries) and then visit the Weeksville Heritage Center of Brooklyn, NY. Weeksville was a community established by Black landowners pre-and-post Civil War. It had hundreds of residents, two schools, churches, and civic organizations dedicated to culture and to voting rights. As the borough grew and European-Americans, immigrants primarily from Germany, moved into the neighborhood, and the expanding population of the borough made changes to the landscape. show more Vast sand hills and ponds were leveled and drained to create more flat land for homes, and the updated grid system of streets buried the cottages, which were forgotten from 1910 until 1969, when a low-altitude flight discovered Hunterfly Road, containing the few remaining homes. Funds were raised for the Weeksville Heritage Center, which contains the homes (under renovation), artifacts, and exhibits. This book is a primary source for the history of Weeksville.

Quote: "1st: We must possess the soil. 2. We must have all political rights. 3. We must possess all educational facilities without restriction. 4. We must then be where the accursed prejudices of a dominant race are not preponderatley over law and justice." - Junius C. Morel show less

Although the subtitle refers to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Road to Seneca Falls is both a history of the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, which started the 19th century/early 20th century woman's rights movement, and a history of the reform movements occurring in the “burned-over” district of New York State during the early/mid 19th century. These other movements including anti-slavery, various religious controversies and splits in religious bodies, New York State’s show more efforts in legal reform concerning women including the Married Woman’s Property Act, and, to a lesser degree, temperance led to fertile ground for the woman's rights convention. Since Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not involved in some of these other reform movements, she was not discussed in a large portion of the book.

Ms. Wellman provides a good general history of the reform movements and the people involved in them. She is good at discussing the changes in society during the nineteenth century, and the conflicts resulting from these changes, both socially and politically.

The author is particularly skillful at discussing the preparation for and the Seneca Falls convention itself and the follow-up woman’s rights convention in Rochester, NY, two weeks later. She analyzes in detail the background of the people who signed the Declaration of Sentiments at both conventions – an important feature of this book.

I enjoyed the book, but felt it needed some additional editing. Several important facts concerning Elizabeth Cady Stanton are unnecessarily repeated, and Ms. Wellman tended to refer to both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband Henry B. Stanton merely as Stanton; sometimes one needed to look carefully at the context to determine which person was being discussed. Also, a separate bibliography would have been useful since full citations are difficult to find in the detailed endnotes. show less

Fantastic book on women suffrage, thoroughly enjoyed this book and have read several others that were similar. It is amazing how far women have come and it was all started in small towns like this one. Suggest this book to any and all History buffs out there.

I haven't read this whole book, but am citing it in an entry for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Motherhood essay I am writing. The few bits of this book I have read have been really good. It focuses on the years building up to the Seneca Falls convention (as it says in the title) and gives a deeper view into how the feminist movement was born in the USA. I hope to figure out a way to incorporate this into my future (not-yet-scheduled) PhD on feminist organizations.