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Trail highlights women’s rights pioneers

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NEW YORK TIMES
A statue in the Susan B. Anthony Park in Rochester, N.Y., depicts Frederick Doug-lass visiting the women’s suffrage leader. Anthony’s home in Rochester and other sites in nearby Seneca Falls and Waterloo related to the women’s reform movement are the focus of tourism initiatives in March.

NEW YORK » It’s the wineries of New York’s Finger Lakes that usually get the most attention from tourists, but a trail of restored homes, parks and museums may have visitors picking up a bit of women’s history with their cabernet franc.

At the heart of the trail — and the early women’s reform movement — is Seneca Falls, N.Y., and the 19th-century home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who organized the first women’s rights convention at the Wesleyan Chapel there in 1848. The chapel, Stanton’s house and other notable landmarks there and in nearby Waterloo now make up a Women’s Rights National Historical Park, which offers self-guided and ranger-led tours through the area.

In March, Women’s History Month, the park’s programming is abundant with lectures, films and other events focused on how both 19th-century and modern-day activists have worked to achieve equality.

In Rochester, N.Y., the trail leads to the former home of Susan B. Anthony, which served as a base for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which she was a president. A series of expansions and restorations has resulted in an ever-growing museum and research center.

In Auburn the Harriet Tubman Home is a stop that would surely have been approved by the foremothers, considering that most were also active abolitionists. This month the Seward House Historic Museum down the street, home of Tubman’s friends and allies William and Frances Seward, will host a series of special programs.

The National Park Service plans to introduce an official "Votes for Women History Trail" in early 2015.

Rachel Lee Harris, New York Times

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