With local election season underway and a number of strong women candidates, including my fiancé running for City Council, we wanted to highlight leaders of the women’s suffrage movement for Women’s History Month.
The “Seneca Falls Apricot Hefeweizen” is inspired in part by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 for the social, civil and religious rights of women. Stanton was a very vocal proponent of the women’s rights movement, president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, lifelong abolitionist, and later co-founded the American Equal Rights Association with Susan B. Anthony.
As is true with much of American history, this isn’t the complete story. Many abolitionists, although against slavery, were not fighting for equal rights and the women’s suffrage movement was really meant for white women only. Sojourner Truth, a former slave, has a more compelling story; she was not only fighting for universal suffrage, she was also a champion of prison reform and property rights. Her speech, “Ain’t I A Woman”, helped launch the argument that the women’s movement and the abolitionists’ cause were of equal import.
The struggle for equality and inclusion continue to be issues our world faces and the individuals who stand up for justice and have their voices heard are luminaries we look to for guidance, courage, and strength in dark and challenging times.
Take a moment while enjoying a Seneca Falls Apricot Hefeweizen and reflect on the progress we’ve made, the struggles and sacrifices women, such as Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and countless others have endured along the way and the possibility of a more just and effulgent future.
