Visitor Center at Women’s Rights National Historical Park

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center is located at 136 Fall Street in Seneca Falls, New York. The building, constructed in 1916, was originally a car dealership before the village of Seneca Falls acquired it in 1927 and turned it into municipal offices. When the government moved to new offices in 1987, the Board of Trustees donated the building to the National Park Service. It was officially opened as the park’s Visitor Center in July 1993.

OPERATING HOURS

The Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center is open year-round, but days and times vary per season. See the National Park Service’s official Operating Hours and Seasons web page for the current schedule.

AMENITIES

• Ranger staffed information desk where you can ask questions and pick up a park brochure
• Book and souvenir store
• Park film
• Declaration Park
• Museum
• Restrooms

Souvenir and bookstore at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

PARK FILM

The 22-minute film Dreams of Equality plays on demand at the Visitor Center’s Guntzel Theater. The film presents a recreation of the 1848 First Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, depicted through the spoken correspondence of fictional siblings Lucy and Silas Griswold. The film is suitable for all ages.

Guntzel Theater is named after Corinne Guntzel, a founder and former president of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation. The organization was an active force in the political effort to establish and support the Women’s Rights National Historical Park.

Guntzel Theater inside the Visitor Center at Women’s Rights National Historical Park

DECLARATION PARK

The Visitor Center and the Wesleyan Chapel next door are connected by a spacious grassy amphitheater known as Declaration Park. The main feature is a 100-foot-long stone waterwall engraved with the Declaration of Sentiments and its signers.

Declaration Park featuring a stone waterwall beside the Visitor Center at Women’s Rights National Historical Park

MUSEUM

The main attraction at the Visitor Center is a museum that focuses on the history of the American Women’s Rights movement. One of the significant exhibits is The First Wave, located in the lobby area. Statues of twenty people, sculpted out of clay and cast in bronze, represent the first wave of women’s rights activists in the United States. Among them are Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Mary Ann and Thomas M’Clintock, Jane and Richard Hunt, Lucretia and James Mott, and Martha Coffin Wright, each of whom played a role in the women’s rights movement. The other eleven statues represent anonymous participants who attended the convention.

The First Wave Statue exhibit in the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

Also on display near the lobby is a set of banner quilts by New York artist Alice Gant, who has created many quilts featuring historical figures in the women’s rights movement. She invented her own technique called neo-reverse applique, which allows her to design more detailed banners.

Banner quilts on display at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

Along the wall beside the staircase leading to the rest of the exhibits in the museum is the Women’s Wall, a collection of photographs illustrating women in activism throughout history.

Photographs on the Women’s Wall leading upstairs at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

The majority of the museum exhibits are on display upstairs. They cover different aspects of the women’s rights movement throughout the years and the struggles women have endured because of their gender. Whether it was in the workforce or education, women have had to fight tooth and nail just to be afforded the same rights and opportunities as men.

Exhibit on women at work in the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

Exhibit on women’s education at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

One exhibit of note discusses the Rochester Women’s Rights Convention held on August 2, 1848, just two weeks after the First Women’s Rights Convention. The Rochester Convention expanded on the conversations that began in Seneca Falls, focusing on working women and women of color. Many of the same people were present at both conventions, including Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M’Clintock, and Frederick Douglass.

Exhibit on the Rochester Women’s Rights Convention at the Visitor Center, Women’s Rights National Historical Park

Not everything in the museum is solely related to the women’s rights movement. A communion set from the Wesleyan Chapel is on display that dates back to the mid-1850s. It is the only item that is known to be from services held at the chapel.

Wesleyan Chapel communion set on display at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

Plan to spend an hour (maybe even two if you want to read all the information) at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center. This will give you enough time to watch the park film, explore the museum, and take a walk through Declaration Park.

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