The National Women's Hall of Fame is also in Seneca Falls. It is hidden in plain sight in an old bank building right on the main street. Nothing large or eye-catching grabs ones attention and it is easy to walk right past the Hall of Fame without recognizing what is in this building. This situation is soon to change as the organization has purchased a large, old, long abandoned mill on the opposite side of the canal and is currently in the process of rehabbing the building to provide much greater space for exhibits.
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| CJS Architects Rendering of Rehabbed Knitting Mill Building |
Most of the exhibits are biographies of Women honored as leaders in a specific area, some exhibits are more expanded in items presented. In this display, a copy of the movie and a signed t-shirt commemorate the highly publicized tennis match between Hall of Fame member Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs. This public battle of the sexes was won by the female. Another example was a set of clothing worn by Amelia Earhart on one of her flights. The new, larger building will allow for more detailed displays.
A famous Floridian, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the Champion of the Everglades, was an early inductee. She has been in the news of recent, but not for her accomplishments. Unfortunately, at the high school in South Florida named in her honor, there was a mass shooting.
Another Floridian honoree is Zora Neal Hurston, who has also been in recent news reports. Her first book, Barracoon, the story of a man who was aboard the last slave ship to reach American shores, was written in 1927, but was not published until 2018. No publisher wanted to publish a book describing slavery for fear of retribution from the KKK and their sympathizers. Her most famous book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was choosen by a PBS show on reading as one of the top 50 books of all time. Unfortunately, Hurston was not recognized for her work during her lifetime, dying penniless in 1960.
To follow on the Florida theme, Mary McCloud Bethune is another Florida honoree. The school she began in Daytona Beach, now Bethune Cookman College, still serves a growing number of students and is a major economic force in the community.
Many women are recognized, from well-known to the obscure. A few are shared here through images and a link to the listing of all honorees is at the end of the post.
List of All Women who have been Honored
