Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: feminism

From the artist’s statement: My art work is entirely carved in white pine and then painted with acrylics. Each piece is a unique original. I am untaught and untrained as a visual artist. I learned a number of useful skills by building my own house, and during my work in the trades as a signpainter and carpenter. I do pictures of subject matter that is important to me. My artwork documents the events and feelings of my life, with much of it fitting into one of four series: "Diner," "Farm," "Outdoor/vacation" and "Dreams." Since 1974 I have completed approximately 1500 carved and painted wood pictures. For fourteen of those years I supplemented my art income by working as a sign painter/ carpenter. Since 1990 I have worked as a psychotherapist, and thus you might notice a focus in my work on people – their faces, suffering, hopes, endurance and beauty.

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert’s master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children. In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, "I did not run away, I walked away by daylight. …" After experiencing a religious conversion, Isabella became an itinerant preacher and in 1843 changed her name to Sojourner Truth. During this period she became involved in the growing antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was involved in the woman’s rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and women’s rights speeches in American history: "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?"

Born into slavery in 1817 or 1818, Frederick Douglass became one of the most outspoken advocates of abolition and women’s rights in the 19th century. Believing that "Right is of no sex, truth is of no color," Douglass urged an immediate end to slavery and supported Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and other women’s rights activists in their crusade for woman suffrage. Douglass joined the abolitionist movement in 1841 and put his considerable oratorical skills to work as a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society. By 1847 he had moved to Rochester, New York, where he published the North Star, a weekly abolitionist newspaper. Douglass was also active with the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, and it was through this organization that he met Elizabeth M’Clintock. In July of 1848, M’Clintock invited Douglass to attend the First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. Douglass readily accepted, and his participation at the convention revealed his commitment to woman suffrage. He was the only African American to attend the convention.

In May 1851, there was a chance encounter on the streets of Seneca Falls which forever altered the struggle for women’s rights. Amelia Jenks Bloomer introduced Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The friendship that was forged between Stanton and Anthony gave direction and momentum to the seventy-two year struggle for women’s suffrage which culminated on August 26, 1920 in the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United states Constitution. Neither woman lived to see this happen. This montage of sculptures is the work of A.E. Ted Aub.

The Wesleyan Chapel was built in 1843. On July 19 and 20, 1848, the First Women’s Rights Convention was held here. Even though Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the only one of the five organizers to live in Seneca Falls, the Wesleyan Chapel was well known to them all. The church was a local haven for antislavery activity, political rallies, and free speech events. The original red brick Wesleyan Methodist Church was sold by the congregation in 1871 and extensively altered by subsequent owners. When the site was purchased by the National Park Service in 1985, very little original fabric remained. Since then the building has been restored to its original appearance.

Call me cynical, but when we visited Seneca Falls – the site of the world's first women’s rights convention in 1848 – I couldn’t help feeling that the economic base of the town had shifted from textiles to feminist tourism. It was only when I returned home that I found out that the old Seneca Knitting Mill, which dates to 1844, is to be the new home of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. The Knitting Mill was owned for over 40 years by the Souhan family. In 1995 the mill was sold to Ridgeview, that closed the mill in 1999 with the loss of some 250 jobs. The owners, who had invested millions of dollars in Seneca Falls, said they couldn’t make a profit on the subsidiary, which specialized in making heavy, woolen socks. In an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard, Tim Souhan said that in 1999 the economic conditions in Seneca Falls weren’t the greatest. "If there’s a growth industry here, it’s tourism," he added. The Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 and has some 247 inductees so far. Nine more American women, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, will be inducted later this year.