About Us

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust is a non-profit organization established to preserve the history of the women’s rights movement, to educate the public on it’s significance, and to promote democracy.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Mission

By standing on the strong shoulders of women activists who come before us, treasuring their contributions and using their imagery and language , we shall continue to inspire people to action in promoting democracy, equality and justice.

Goals

  1. To preserve the history of the women’s rights movement in the United States and the world.
  2. To advance the understanding of how the women’s rights movement greatly expanded democracy.
  3. To educate the public, especially girls, about the significance of this history
  4. To recognize and value the integral contributions women continue to make throughout the nation and the world.

Keepers of the Flame

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust was established November 12, 1999, in the dynamic spirit of the women’s rights pioneer, whose name it honors. The founders included two descendants of Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Coline Jenkins, her great-great granddaughter, and the late Rhoda Barney Jenkins, her great granddaughter – and Marsha Weinstein, former Executive Director of the Kentucky Commission on Women.
Continuing the legacy Elizabeth Cady Stanton began, the Trust elected Coline Jenkins’ daughter and Elizabeth’s great-great-great granddaughter, Elizabeth Jenkins- Sahlin, and Marsha Weinstein’s daughter, Laura Weinstein, to the board of directors.
Rhoda Barney, born 1920, passed away August 25, 2007. Rhoda Barney Jenkins earned an architectural degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941. During World War II, she designed floating fry rocks and High Mowing School, a Waldorf school located in New Hampshire. As an architect licensed in both  Connecticut and New York, she designed churches and residences. As a historian, she inspired a generation of Women’s Studies’ scholars. And as a fourth generation feminist and member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she tirelessly campaigned for equal rights and supported the Women’s Rights National Historical Park.

Marsha Weinstein and Coline Jenkins. Founders of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust incorporation papers were signed at Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s gravesite in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York. Rhoda Barney Jenkins (seated), Coline Jenkins and Marsha Weinstein.

History

In August 1995, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of women winning the right to vote – the 19th Amendment of the U.S Constitution – the Kentucky Commission on Women, under the leadership of Executive Director Marsha Weinstein, sponsored a suffrage exhibit at the Kentucky State Fair. At this event, Chick and Ceil Harris of St. Louis, Missouri, owners of one of the top women’s suffrage collections in the USA, lent items from their personal collection to be on display.

Three years later, in 1998, Marsha Weinstein had the opportunity to meet Coline Jenkins, the great-great granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and shortly afterwards heard from Chick and Ceil Harris that they wanted to sell their collection.

Eager to secure this national treasure, Marsha and Coline first engaged experts to evaluate the collection, including Curator Emeritus Edith Mayo of the Smithsonian; Dr. Ellen Dubois, History Professor at UCLA; Christopher Hearn, President of American Political Item Collectors. Once satisfied knowing the historic value of the collection, Marsha and Coline formed a vehicle to own it – the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust. On November 12, 1999, Coline Jenkins, Rhoda Jenkins (Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s great granddaughter) and Marsha Weinstein met at the gravesite of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, located in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City. On this anniversary of Stanton’s birthday, with the sculpted adjoining hands of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony displayed on Stanton’s original writing desk, they signed the incorporation papers for the formation of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust.

The initial impacts behind the establishment of the Trust was the opportunity to save a national treasure of historic women’s suffrage and political items, the Harris suffrage collection. This collection is comprised of over 3,000 items from the earliest efforts to secure the voting rights of women through the struggle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The Trust continues to collect significant items, including items from the 2008 Presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice Presidential campaign of Sarah Palin. The three incorporators believe the collection is an important tool in understanding the efforts of our foremothers and their male allies in granting full equality for women.

Collection

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust

Click here to see items from the collection.

 

If you wish to purchase images from the collection, please contact the Trust:

Publishers & Authors: (203) 637-5872
General Public: (502) 819-2537
ElizabethCadyStantonTrust@gmail.com

"The collection consists of more than 3,000 items, including U.S and British women’s rights documents, letters, photographs, postcards, buttons, banners, clothing, and other political artifacts. The strength of the collection lies in its three dimensional materials."

Chris HearnPast President of the American Political Items Collectors, who appraised the collection.