By Lauren Young
Staff Writer
In the Haudenosunee Room where tours at the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center usually start, a former volunteer points to the banner posted proudly on the wall.
“If you want to learn more about Matilda, you should start there,” said Dave Kellogg, former board member of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation who now just calls himself a “friend” of the organization.
The banner reads, “Never was justice more perfect, never was civilization higher,” a quote referring to a series of published articles by Gage on the Iroquois in The New York Evening Post and how “the power and importance of women were recognized by the allied tribes.”
Now, on Gage’s 192 birthday, this sentiment to recognize inequality and to give a voice to those who were forbidden to speak remains true, in the opinion of Gage’s supporters.
On March 24 last week, following the Gun Safety Rally/March organized by local high school students held in Syracuse earlier that morning, Gage Center Executive Director Sally Roesch Wagner, who was also walking down the streets with a Matilda Joslyn Gage banner and a few other volunteers, said she was “proud” to see the young generation of activists stand up for their beliefs.
“They tell it like it is, and it’s incredible,” she said as she described the sea of high school students that flooded the downtown streets, extending their young voices in a debate often reserved for adults. In the spirit of inspiring the younger generation to participate in their government and rights, a voter registration campaign, free and open to the public, was held at the gage Center.
While many today take for granted their right to vote, Gage was one of the many women nationwide who unsuccessfully tested the law by attempting to vote in 1871. When Susan B. Anthony successfully voted in the 1872 presidential election and was subsequently arrested, Gage supported her during her trial.
In 1880, Gage led 102 Fayetteville women to the polls when New York allowed women to vote in school districts where they paid their taxes.
To celebrate her birthday, the Gage foundation launched its first “Get a tote when you register to vote” voter registration campaign to encourage young voters to participate in the next November election. The first 100 participants were given the change to receive a free Gage tote bag with gifts when they filled out a voter registration card.
Those registering or registered were invited to get contact information for their representatives on a designated iPad. Although targeting young people, anyone was able to register.
Each room at the center is dedicated to each one of Gage’s passions, from women’s rights to treaty rights, as Gage wrote how she was “born with a hatred of oppression.”
Gage’s youngest daughter, Maud, married L. Frank Baum, the author of the “Wizard of Oz,” who was inspired to write his novel incorporated with social justice themes from Gage.
Not only was her daughter married to Baum in their parlor room, but this house is the only home of L. Frank Baum’s that is currently open to the public.
After settling in Fayetteville in 1845 with her husband and four children, Gage was drawn to the woman’s suffrage movement in the fight for complete liberation of women. Although she was unable to attend the first Woman’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls in 1848, Gage attended and addressed the third national convention in Syracuse in 1852.
Gage, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was a founding member of the National Woman Suffrage Association and served in various offices from 1869 to 1889. She helped organize the Virginia and New York state suffrage associations, was an officer in the New York association for twenty years and published “The National Citizen and Ballot Box,” the official newspaper of the NWSA from 1878 to 1881.
In 1869, Gage co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and contributed—along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—to write the multivolume History of Woman Suffrage.
“Matilda Gage really laid her life on the line,” said Kellogg about her risky sacrifices, from risking a prison sentence and fine for offering her home as a station on the Underground Railroad to public rejection after opposing the vote to turn the national government into a Christian-only nation.
Sponsored by Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, Chair of the New York State Women’s Suffrage Commission, the ceremony was complete with a “Happy Birthday” song, cake and refreshments. The reception was held at the Gage Center for Social Justice Dialogue at 210 East Genesee Street in Fayetteville from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information or to schedule a group tour, visit their website at matilidajoslyngage.org.
