Opinion/Guest column: Remember the Women's Rights Convention in Worcester

USA Today

09-02-2025

Opinion/Guest column: Remember the Women's Rights Convention in Worcester
I took AP United States history when I was a junior in high school. I was already in love with history by that time.
I still have "United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination" by John Newman and John Schmalbach next to my bed six years later. It became my Bible, something I returned to repeatedly throughout my academic career.
Despite my love for my precious textbook, through my research at Clark University in public history classes and my internship at Historic New England, I recognize the shortcomings presented in historical education. In 1850, just down Main Street in Worcester, women from all over the nation gathered for the first National Women's Rights Convention at Brinley Hall.
This convention is not mentioned in the 2018 edition of the textbook. How could an event held in Worcester, centered around securing social and political equality for women across the country, be forgotten in modern textbooks? Still today, we are fighting and attempting to secure rights that may be taken away in the coming years, beginning on Jan. 20 with the inauguration of President Trump.
The voices of the Women's Rights Convention have fallen short.
The United States has forgotten women for generations. Since the founding of this country, women and minorities have been pushed to the side and their stories forgotten. Here in Worcester, there are an infinite number of stories about brave women who lived, worked and thrived in Worcester.
One such story has become famous and is discussed in classrooms, in textbooks and children's books. Deborah Sampson was a 20-year-old woman when, on May 20, 1782, she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Continental Army. She used the name Robert Shurtiff and was marched to Worcester where, on May 23 of the same year, she was mustered by Capt. Eliphalet Thorp and taken to West Point to commence her training as a Revolutionary War soldier.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Sampson was the first woman to receive a pension for her service in the military. She was also the first known and documented woman to go on a nationwide lecture tour promoting herself and her story in order to gain a congressional pension for her service.
On July 21, 1802, Isaiah Thomas published in his Massachusetts Spy that Deborah Sampson, referred to as Mrs. Gannett, was arriving in Worcester to give her speech at the courthouse. On July 22, 1802, she delivered her speech to the people of Worcester in full military regalia.
It is unclear to scholars today if Sampson wrote the speech she delivered across New England and New York. Many speculate that Herman Mann, her memoir writer, also wrote the speech for her campaign. Despite the speculation, Sampson performed the speech in front of crowds, legitimizing her story, leading to a military pension being awarded to her in 1805.
The speech was commanding. Sampson attested to the horrors she witnessed in battle and promised her audiences that everything was true. Throughout, Sampson tread along the fragile line between femininity and masculinity. To appease the masses, she admitted that her actions were not appropriate for women. However, rather than admit that she was incorrect by her own fault, she brought into question the larger social issue. She calls 'it an error and presumption because I swerved from the accustomed flowery path of female delicacy to walk upon the heroic precipice of feminine perdition!'
Sampson demonstrated her understanding of the patriarchy that forced women into specific roles, and punished them for stepping out of line. She did not shy away from her femininity and apologized for breaking stereotypes, yet presented it in a way that did not take away her bravery. Sampson, like Abigail Adams, called for the rights of women to be equal to men.
In Sampson's diary, the only written source left by her person, she mentions her time in Worcester and that she did in fact take the stage. The diary is not filled with her interpretations, but rather just recounts her days and wishes to see her family. While it would have been fascinating to read her account of the crowd and her thoughts on her experiences, this diary is powerful. It provides historians with her own voice, a voice beyond Herman Mann's and those of other modern historical writers. While historians are right to question whether aspects of her story are true, one cannot discount the power of her story and her voice.
Fifty years after Sampson stood in front of the courthouse, Worcester hosted the first national Women's Rights Convention.
Abby Kelley Foster was an abolitionist and women's rights advocate who lived on Mower Street in Worcester, who not only housed runaway slaves but also refused to pay property taxes until women had the right to vote. She, like Sampson, died before the United States allowed white women the right to vote. They died before women had the right to divorce their husbands, they died before women could hold a credit card in their name, and they died before women had the right to control their own bodies.
Today, in 2025, women once again must fight for their rights. It is a never-ending battle. The voices of women in Worcester, more now then ever, must preserve their history. The Worcester Women's History Project, founded in 1994, and the Worcester Women's Oral History Project, founded in 2004, are active in the community preserving the history and voices of Worcester women, continuing to fight the battle for gender equity.
Kenzie Landsittel is a graduate student in Clark University's accelerated master's fifth-year history program. Her work with Deborah Sampson originated at her time as a curatorial intern for Historic New England.