Women’s Studies Leader, Author to Speak on Early Women’s Rights Movement

One of the first women to earn a doctorate in women’s studies in the United States will share how Haudenosawnee (traditional Iroquois) women influenced women right’s activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, the executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, will present about the Iroquois Influence on Women’s Rights on Thursday, May 8 at 3:30 p.m. in SUNY Cobleskill’s lecture hall Warner 117.

Wagner will explain how influential Haudenosawnee women were among their people, from choosing political representatives to removing anyone from office who didn’t properly address the wishes and needs of the people. Native American women have held that role for generations and influenced the early women’s rights movement, as Stanton’s  and Gage’s  work was inspired by the Haudenosawnee gender balance and portrayed the superior social, political, religious and economic status of women in the Iroquois nations.

In addition to being on the forefront of women’s studies in the United States, Wagner is also a found of one of the first women’s studies programs at California State University, Sacramento. She was a women’s studies professor for 37 years and now serves as executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, and is the nation’s foremost authority on Matilda Joslyn Gage. Wagner has also composed several books about Gage, as well as “Sisters In Spirit: Haudenosawnee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists.” She has appeared in the Ken Burns documentary, “Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.”

This program is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program.