Northeast Ohio: The Birthplace for Women’s Suffrage? For the March 29, 1976 edition of “The New Yorker” magazine, artist Saul Steinberg depicts the World as viewed from Manhattan. This magazine cover, turned into a popular poster, is dominated by the skyline of 9th and 10th Avenue, and an overly expansive Hudson River, especially when compared to “Jersey,” the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean. One of the few mentions of the Midwest is a small dot for Chicago, a vast improvement over the eastern seaboard and the City of Boston that, perhaps unsurprisingly, gets no mention at all. The rest of the World gets it; from the New York perspective nearly everything began and ended in the borders of New York State. Five years ago, my wife was elected to judicial office, the first woman in our rural Ohio County so elected to this particular seat. To pay homage to those who won women the Vote, and paved the trail for my wife’s election, we made a pilgrimage to New York State and the location of the First Women’s Suffrage Convention at Seneca Falls. We enjoyed the Museum and the surrounding area thoroughly, as a tour of Seneca Falls has several impressive historical locations. Within a tour that is easily experienced in a single day, one can visit the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the main organizer of the 1848 Convention. A short distance away from the Stanton home is the M’Clintock House where the Convention was planned, and the Declaration of Sentiments were drafted, a document largely credited to Lucretia Mott. The highlight of the tour was the Wesleyan Chapel. In need of repairs at the time of our visit, this Chapel was the location of the 1848 Convention at Seneca Falls where the Declaration of Sentiments was signed by over one hundred people. A reading of this document, conveniently written on a large wall in a park between the Wesleyan Chapel and an adjacent Visitor’s Center, provides a poignant end to your visit with a chance to reflect upon why our Nation’s ideals upon our founding were limited only to white males of privilege. The Visitor’s center, a perfect location to both begin and end your Suffrage Tour, offers several displays and films related to the Suffrage Movement and Park Rangers helpful with additional information about the Suffrage Sites and the surrounding area. The Visitor’s Center also contains the obligatory Museum shop from which to purchase mementos and share your experience with a very helpful staff eager to know your thoughts of how the events of 1848 had a direct impact on visitors who enjoy the right to participate and serve in our democracy. When my wife explained the purpose of our Journey, to honor those who made her legal career possible, one of the Park Rangers for the Women’s Rights National Historic Park took her picture, displaying evidence of our visit on the Park’s Facebook Page. The experience was educational and thought provoking. However, events immediately after this pilgrimage caused both my wife and I to question Steinberg’s belief in the over-importance of New York State to our Nation and its ideals of equal justice under law, particularly with respect to voting rights for women. Within a few days of our Visit to Seneca Falls, my Judicial spouse looked at the Facebook page of the Women’s Suffrage National Historic Park. To her surprise, she noted that there were several comments associated with this post and the picture taken of our journey to Seneca Falls. A chance photograph has turned into a debate! A gentleman from Boston replied to this picture by indicating that the National Park Service has it all wrong. We had wasted a trip to New York State, and needed to travel to the true origins of Women’s Suffrage in the Great State of Massachusetts. According to this Bostonian, the Seneca Falls meeting was more regional in nature, with the New York women unable to conduct business without the help of their husbands. The first “National” Women’s Suffrage Convention, it was alleged, occurred in October of 1850 in Worchester, Massachusetts. From this New England perspective, credit for the early expansion of Women’s rights belonged more to such luminaries like Lucy Stone and Abby Kelley Foster, and not Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott and the events that occurred at Seneca Falls. Before discussing a trip to Massachusetts and touring the alleged “real” place where the first Suffrage Convention occurred, our story became more complicated, with claims that the roots of Women’s Suffrage were near our hometown in Ohio. Contributing to our confusion was a letter that my wife received upon her election to the bench from the Family of Judge Florence E. Allen. Along with a letter that congratulated my wife upon her election as the first female Judge in our small Northeast Ohio Community was a photograph of Florence E. Allen taking the oath of office as the first woman to serve in our third branch of government as a Judge in the nearby Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County in Cleveland, Ohio. As soon as Women secured the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August of 1920, Ms. Allen secured her name on the ballot for Judge that same November and won. Two years later, Judge Allen was elected to the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 1934, she was appointed to an Article III Federal Court, on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, all firsts for Women. Amazingly, while born in the State of Utah, Judge Allen received some of her early education in my wife’s home County of Ashtabula, about 60 miles east of the City of Cleveland. Judge Allen, when receiving her early education in Ashtabula County, Ohio, was led to believe that it was Northeast Ohio that could rightfully claim the birthplace or training of early Women’s Suffrage Pioneers, and, quite possibly, held the Nation’s first Women’s Suffrage Convention before either Massachusetts or New York State. Is this possible? Just as Ohio is the Birthplace of Aviation, the Electric Light Bulb, and Football, could the Buckeye State be the Birthplace for Women’s Suffrage? The year is 1945, twenty-five years after Votes for Women were secured with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Then in her 60’s, Judge Allen sought to recognize pioneering Women who played such a prominent role in her own life and others; leaders within the Ohio Women’s Suffrage Association and National American Women’s Suffrage Association, such as Harriet Taylor Upton and Elizabeth J. Hauser. The timing of Judge Allen’s project was important as these Ohio leaders were in failing health. Moreover, more recognized leaders within the Suffrage Movement, such as Carrie Chapman Catt of New York State and Maud Wood Park of Massachusetts, were not getting any younger. Curious about Ohio’s role in the Suffrage Fight, and wanting to honor those who made her path as the first woman elected to our Judicial Branch of Government, Judge Allen helped to create the “Committee for the Preservation of Ohio Women Suffrage Records.” Her first order of business was to contact those women who played leading roles both in the National Suffrage Movement, as well as her own career and path in life: Carrie Chapman Catt; Maud Wood Park; and Harriet Taylor Upton. Each one of these women would stake out the claim for their home state to claim the Birthplace of Women’s Suffrage: New York; Massachusetts; and Ohio. While born in Wisconsin, writing from her home in New Rochelle, New York, Carrie Chapman Catt was clear within her letter dated January 26, 1945 to Judge Allen as to which City and State deserved credit as the birthplace of Women’s Suffrage. From the woman who led the National American Women’s Suffrage Association after Susan B. Anthony and again in the critical period before the 19th Amendment’s passage, the correct answer was Seneca Falls, New York. Admittedly, Catt acknowledged that the Convention as Seneca Falls “was not properly organized,” a statement seemingly in agreement with our friends in Massachusetts. However, regardless of what anyone felt for the leaders, Ms. Catt noted that it was at the Seneca Falls Convention, two years before the one in Massachusetts, that set “down the principles and platform” that eventually led to the “enfranchisement of the women of the nation.” It is apparent, within this January 26th letter, that Judge Allen informed Ms. Catt that she was seeking alternate opinions on the subject and had also contacted Maud Wood Park. Ms. Catt expressed her belief that Judge Allen had made a mistake, and admitted to having a “little quarrel” with Mrs. Park who did “not agree with me [Ms. Catt] at all.” Ms. Catt believed that Mrs. Park was attempting to obtain large contributions for a Library envisioned on the campus of Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. Carrie Chapman Catt acknowledged that the Suffrage Convention held in the autumn of 1850 in Worchester, Massachusetts was important, especially as it occurred at “the beginning of the [suffrage] organization in Great Britain.” Again, however, Ms. Catt noted that the events at Seneca Falls, including the Declaration of Sentiments, occurred a full two years before the events in Massachusetts. In a line that is reminiscent of Steinberg’s iconic view of New York, Ms. Catt stated as follows to Maud Wood Park’s claim that Massachusetts was the Birthplace of Suffrage: New England never got over the feeling that it was the beginning, the middle and the end of history of the United States and that the rest of us, from the border of Massachusetts to the Pacific, are just a few scattered people who wandered off from the Motherland, never did anything very important.