On my travels home for spring break, I had the privilege of making the acquaintance of
the woman sitting next to me on the train. In striking up a conversation about her train read,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Address to the Legislature of New York 1854”, she revealed that she is not only the head of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust, but Stanton’s great-great-granddaughter.
Related on her mother’s side, the grandmother of her grandmother is none other than the trailblazer and women’s rights icon. Coline Jenkins, a native of Greenwich, Connecticut, was kind enough to share with me both her wisdom and her humor on our shared train ride, as well as answer some of my questions about her work so that I might share them with Fairfield University students.
Coline’ great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was born in Johnstown, near Albany, New York in Nov. 1815. Though the Cady family could not have imagined the greatness and infamy Elizabeth would one day reach, they nurtured her in an environment filled with education and law. In Coline’ own words, she grew up in a “soup of law.” Ingrained in her from the very beginning, her judge father and relatives brought her up in a home where she was quickly able to “connect women with their legal rights,” as she described.
As she grew and watched the new nation of the United States continue to shake the reins of their former autocratic King George III, she watched as women continued to be oppressed by the autocratic rule of men in America. Stanton was adamant about attaining equal rights, and, specifically, the right to vote. Despite what was, at the time, seen as “asking for too much,” she demanded elective franchise. In the same way the new United States government was formed on the basis that one citizen should not be ruled by a government in which the citizen had no say, so too did women deserve a voice.
Stanton’s lifelong commitment to stating this hypocrisy plainly and boldly, oftentimes on public platforms, catapulted an era of feminism that bore the suffragists who eventually got the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ratified. Furthermore, in this path of amending the Constitution, future generations of feminists continue the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, the 38th Amendment.
Coline, who began this trust in the late 1990s to honor her great-great grandmother’s
work in not only their family but American history, sees the value of living history. This cause fell into her lap when she was approached with a collection of historical items and ephemera
created, used and owned by suffragists and women’s freedom fighters. In buying the collection, Coline saw the opportunity to give these objects that were once so integral to change a new life, both in educating and inspiring new generations.
One of the major achievements Coline has had through her trust is her work with Monumental Women, a nonprofit that works to “write all women back into the historical record” and pushes US organizations and municipalities to not only recognize but celebrate, the achievements of people of color. Her first mission with this organization was to erect a statue of inspirational women in New York’s Central Park- which previously depicted no women in all its 167 years, aside from the fictional Mother Goose and Alice in Wonderland among the male heroes.
On the importance of this effort and this location, Coline states that “Statues are an inspiration. We look at statues and think that we could be whatever they are, and do what they did for democracy.”
After a huge campaign of donations, research, design and education, the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument was unveiled on Aug. 26, 2020, on the 100th anniversary of the Amendment that granted women the right to vote. Depicting Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony strategizing at a table (modeled after Stanton’s own writing desk, which now resides in Coline’ home), Coline states that “In a way that they’re bringing themselves to the table. The way that they combine their abilities is interesting, and makes them each better as a group, and just individuals”.
The statue made history as the first depiction of historical females in Central Park, and they’re not stopping there. Coline speaks with pride about the woman whose legacy she was able to celebrate, both inside and outside of her own family. She also emphasizes that the mission is deeper than just getting a statue erected, but the fact that we are beginning to recognize a history that includes women, and all people, and truly celebrating them.
“Women have real names, real paper trails, real accomplishments, and they should be celebrated”. Sharing artifacts and statues is just one method of mainstreaming American history. When it comes to explaining the need for initiatives like this, a statue is more than just the landmark itself, but the recognition and pride behind it. Coline keeps it simple, saying, “Their stories matter.”
Speaking of these three women, to whom her own history is so intimately tied, she says, “They’re not just entities unto themselves, they come out of a cultural tradition, a societal tradition. It gives strength to know what came before. I know that I stand a lot higher in society, law, religion, government, and economics because I am standing on the shoulders of those who came before me and made it better for generations to come.”
Coline spoke with me at length about the importance of not just learning and acknowledging, but making history. If we cannot see the work of those before us, then we cannot understand how and why they did what they did. Knowing how they enabled the lives we lead today, we can in turn create a better world to leave behind.
We spoke about all the simple things that we, as women, can do today, thanks to the women before us. She reminded me of the fact that simply being in college, able to write my thoughts and experiences here today, is in part thanks to the women of all races, cultures and ages before me who pushed women into all spaces – legal, educational, scientific, literary and political. When we lift up others, we in turn lift up ourselves. Coline makes this point, “It’s important that everybody figures out how you can be the shoulders for generations to come. And that applies to women and men. It’s not just for women, it’s for equality”.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton has the final words, “‘All men and women’ are created equal. They are endowed with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and happiness.”
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