Carol Fisher-Linn
March is a month aimed at correcting the underrepresentation of woman’s contributions in history books.
It wasn’t too long ago that women weren’t allowed to vote (1920). Or own property. Or do many things that some take for granted today. But that’s all changed, thanks to women everywhere, some who lived right here in the Southern Tier of New York. To be sure, one must dig hard to find mention of these female leaders.
I was married at age 22 in the ‘60’s. Old for a girl of my generation who married in their late teens. According to article in CNN here are 5 things a woman could not do in the ‘60’s. Pregnancy was a fireable offense. I could not open a bank account or establish a line of credit without a co-signature of my husband (or father if I was not married – which was unthinkable in those years – of course women married, kept house and had children, under their husband’s watchful eye.) Neither my sister nor I, who had stellar grades in our all-girl Catholic high school were even allowed to think of going to college, even though I could have gone under the GI Bill! Self-respecting girls become wives and mothers (Do I hear those restrictive echoes all over again again?) I went to college many years later, but back in my time, even if I had grades to attend a school like Princeton, my gender kept me out, unless I had real “pull.” Imagine if I were black, too.
Along came President John F. Kennedy who established the Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, appointing Eleanor Roosevelt as Chairwoman. In a televised 1962 discussion with Roosevelt, Kennedy stated, “We want to be sure that women are used as effectively as they can to provide a better life for our people, in addition to meeting their primary responsibility, which is in the home.” Even forward-thinking Kennedy had to bow to patriarchal culture and wrap up by saying that women’s primary responsibility was in the home!
Thankfully history is full of women who defied those expectations. Named one of America’s 12 greatest living women in a 1923 survey by the League of Women Voters, Anna Botsford Comstock (born in Otto, NY in 1854) was the first female professor at Cornell University and a conservationist before most people knew what the word meant. Comstock is widely recognized as the mother of nature education. Along with her husband, John, whom she met while she was a student at Cornell University, she formed the Comstock Publishing Company, which continues to operate today under the imprint of Cornell University Press.
In Little Valley, Mrs. Lyman Lee (of course, no first name because she was a wife and at that time, she had to submit to something called “Coverture.” This legal doctrine dictated that a married woman’s legal identity was subsumed by her husband.) Regardless, we’ll call her Jane (Like Jane Doe) prudently brought some apple seeds from her Connecticut home in 1821, which she planted near the then-cheese factory in Little Valley. Ultimately, those trees supplied the first orchards in all of Little Valley. But don’t look for any Mrs. Lee Appleseed stories in the history books!
In the late 1800’s, Chautauqua County became an important epicenter for women’s political equity thanks to women like Ophelia Griffith who ran a summer hotel at Lake Chautauqua in the 1870’s. It is truly safe to say that without the courage and determination of Miss Ophelia and other courageous women of Chautauqua County, we would not be celebrating over 100 years of women having the right to vote in New York State.
The stories of women leaders can be found if you are willing to dig. But look around you in your own communities and take a mental inventory of how many businesses in your midst are run by women. Retail stores, restaurants, newspapers, chambers of commerce, libraries, hair and nail salons, massage parlors, insurance, lawyers, commercial business owners, service industries, florists, gyms, health care professionals … the list covers about 80% of Ellicottville’s businesses while women owned businesses in general make up about 32.9% in NYS. Their recognition is well-deserved. Now, are my female readers ready to stand up for what they truly believe in? It’s an ongoing battle, isn’t it, considering what happened to Roe vs. Wade and the SAVE act some of our legislators are trying to pass. We fought 72-year for the vote. We won’t lose it this easily, will we?