Historical Society of the Nyacks Newsletter Volume 13 Issue 1 Spring-Summer 2018 Caroline Lexow Babcock, Suffragist by Katharine Morton Fulmor Jr., granddaughter of Mrs. Babcock New York State Fair, 1912. Caroline Lexow Babcock is fourth from left. Photo courtesy of the author. Caroline Lexow Babcock was my maternal grand- Judiciary Committee and guided legislation to create the mother. She would tell me and my cousins stories of our Greater City of New York through committee hearings, ancestors that made them seem alive and stories of her which consolidated over three cities and 40 municipali- work that were unlike any other grandmother’s. However, ties to create the city we know today. He also headed the she also engaged us in literary, historical, and political dis- Lexow Commission, which investigated corruption in cussions. I knew she was different because she didn’t cook the New York City police department, that contributed dinner. Instead, my cousins and I were given TV dinners. to bringing down Boss Tweed. Her mother was known Caroline was the oldest child of New York State for challenging all her friends with visions of women’s Senator Clarence Lexow and his wife, Katharine Morton suffrage. She acted as her husband’s hostess, then, as now, Ferris. While she was born in 1882 in Manhattan, the an important job for the wife of any politician. Grand- family soon moved to South Nyack, where her siblings mother always told me that she would watch and listen Morton and Catherine were born. Clarence was a lawyer to her mother hold her own in any political discussion at and in politics, Katharine worked as a social reformer and home. Suffrage was discussed. Her father did NOT sup- as a politician’s wife. port women’s suffrage. Her mother DID. Caroline began How did Caroline become the activist reformer that to question why her father could vote but not her mother. she was? She spent her teen years surrounded by the The stage was set. political questions of the day! Her father headed the state continued on next page Spring-Summer 2018, Historical Society of the Nyacks, P. O. Box 850, Nyack, NY 10960 www.nyackhistory.org 1 In 1900, at age 18, Caroline en- of the WPU. She always highlighted tered Barnard College, where she met the work of others. As Field Secre- many young women who would go on tary she would go town-to-town, to change the political role for women village-to-village, door-to-door, from bystander to participant. During counting votes and lobbying. She put those years, she was introduced to Eliz- up notices of when and where she was abeth Cady Stanton’s daughter, Harriot speaking by posting flyers and chalk- Stanton Blatch, by a mutual friend, and ing the sidewalks, the social media of she met Susan B. Anthony at a suffrag- the day. Then she moved on to do it ist meeting off campus at the Hotel all over again the next day in the next Majestic in New York City. location. Her letters home reflected My favorite story from her Barnard that seemingly endless work and trav- years is about discrimination and el. One letter reads that she is sending segregation. Students at Barnard were her laundry home by Wells Fargo. permitted to audit classes at Columbia Lest you think that strange, modern (then a men’s college), so my grand- day activists also dream of having mother audited Woodrow Wilson’s his- someone to do the laundry for them, tory class for several days before a sign or to be in one place long enough to appeared on the door stating Caroline Lexow Babcock, 1914. have it done. But most of the that no women were allowed. Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Rockland County. stories from those years were But she persisted in her studies about the exciting things she did. and in 1904 graduated magna cum laude with a Bache- I have a picture of Caroline speaking on a street corner in lor’s in Economics, as well as Phi Beta Kappa. It seems upstate New York. She looks very happy. only fair that Wilson was the President who signed the In 1915, while still working for women’s suffrage, 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Caroline married Philip W. Babcock. They lived in South Following graduation, Caroline continued her work Nyack and raised their three children there. Katharine, for suffrage and other women’s rights. In 1904, she my mother, was a life-long resident of Nyack until her founded and was President of the College Equal Suffrage death in 1990 and a choral music teacher for Nyack League of New York State. There she met and formed Public Schools. friendships with many of the leading names that would Six months before national suffrage passed in 1920, come to work for suffrage. In 1906, she was working suffragists were active! Maud Wood Park of the Women’s with Mrs. Blatch forming The Equal Suffrage League for Political Union and others formed the League of Wom- Self-Supporting Women, an organization that attempt- en Voters. Caroline helped organize the Women’s Peace ed to join professional, college women with blue-collar Union, which championed an amendment to outlaw war women, most of whom were labor organizers. Each group that was introduced to the United States Senate. Ulti- was very suspicious of the other and the effort failed. By mately it did not pass, but over the course of seven years, 1908, my grandmother had become Executive Secretary three hearings were held. The second of those hearings is of the National College Equal Suffrage League. of particular interest to the Nyacks as its speakers in- Mrs. Blatch returned from a trip to England with cluded not only Caroline, but also John Nevin Sayre of details on the demonstrating and marching activities Fellowship of Reconciliation and Esther Van Slyke, also of the suffrage movement there, which was founded of the Women’s Peace Union. by British social reformer Emmeline Pankhurst. A new After suffrage passed, Caroline continued her support organization, the Women’s Political Union (WPU), based for women by working for the Equal Rights Amendment on some of Pankhurst’s methods, was formed and used to with Alice Paul, an antiwar pacifist, and she supported organize women and enlist the support of men, especially Planned Parenthood’s goal of women controlling their blue-collar men. Caroline became the Field Secretary of own bodies. From 1936 to 1946 she worked in Wash- the WPU, and Mrs. Blatch the President. My grand- ington, D.C., as Executive Secretary of the National mother escorted Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughters when Women’s Party and also for the Women’s Peace Union they visited New York and other parts of America. during that time. In 1968, Caroline joined the National My grandmother never mentioned the hard work she Organization for Women (NOW) and encouraged me to did in New York state and across the country on behalf do so. She sent my cousin and me on my first march in 2 Spring-Summer 2018, Historical Society of the Nyacks, P. O. Box 850, Nyack, NY 10960 www.nyackhistory.org The Nyack Record Shop Project by Bill Batson, HSN trustee, artist, and writer The Nyack Record Shop project was inspired by 27 oral histories. We have about ten more scheduled as Carrie Mae Weems, the Edward Hopper Citation of this writing. Our interviews were conducted in the Award-winning artist who used collected oral histories in window of a local record shop, Kiam Records, as further a record shop in Beacon, New York, for her Beacon Proj- homage to Weems, who used a similar venue. Being in a ect photo series, which explored how rapid commercial store window on Main Street helped elevate the profile of and real estate development impacted the African Ameri- oral history collection. can Community. Here’s the significance of this modest start. Before At the invitation of the Edward Hopper House, I was the Nyack Record Shop Project, the Nyack Library had asked to create a community component to the Weems approximately 65 oral histories; of those, eight were by exhibit in Nyack. Working closely with my colleagues at African Americans. Now there are 92, with 33 from the the Historical Society of the African American community. Nyacks, we felt that Nyack According to the 2010 census, was an ideal locale to recreate Nyack is 23% African Ameri- Weems’s paradigm. We also can. So, we are now at 30%, a concluded that the national rare example of a social equity holiday for the Reverend Dr. number skewing in favor of the Martin Luther King Jr., on marginalized group. January 15, 2018, was a per- The oral histories that fect day to launch our project, we collected can be heard at since King’s assassin was intent https://soundcloud.com/ on silencing not just a man, nyackrecordshopproject. They but a people. The collection are also being transcribed and of oral histories seemed to us will soon be available at the to be an estimable form of Nyack Library. community service that rejects Bill Batson with Collette Fournier, a contributor Putting our life’s stories on and reverses the nefarious logic to the Nyack Record Shop project. the record, or encouraging or Photo by Kris Burns. behind King’s murder. supporting an elder to do so, is During and shortly after the week following the King an excellent way to honor Dr. King’s legacy. And in so do- holiday in January, volunteers representing a coalition ing, we are making Nyack the kind of village he lived and of arts, preservation, business, and civic groups collected died to establish, a beloved community.