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Highlighting Women’s History at Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area

Event poster with text reading "Women Who Made History: Profiles from the Freedom's Way National Heritage Area" with collage of portrait photographs of 12 women
Cover of the 2020 e-book "Women Who Made History: Profiles from the Freedom's Way National Heritage Area"

Freedom's Way NHA

Black-and-white portrait photo of nineteenth-century woman in formal dress attire and hair in up-do, with neutral facial expression
Harriet Hanson Robinson (1825-1911)

Public Domain, via Lowell National Historical Park

Looking for ways to learn more about women’s history in National Heritage Areas? A great place to start is with Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, which spans 45 towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The NHA is named for its Revolutionary War roots, home to Concord and Lexington, incendiary sites of the earliest battles of Massachusetts ‘minutemen’ militia in 1775, and today is home to Minute Man National Historical Park. But the region is important for much more than military history. It is steeped in cultural heritage rich in revolutionary ideals across other fields, notably in the arts and literature, as well as the social and political issues of suffrage and the abolition of slavery. This makes it an incredible hotspot for uncovering untold stories of leading women in American history.

The region that Freedom’s Way encompasses was home to suffragists such as Harriet Hanson Robinson (1825-1911) and Hazel MacKaye (1880-1944); abolitionists such as Ellen Garrison (1823-1892), Julia Ann Robbins Barrett (1819-1900), and Margaret Fuller (1810-1850); and countless other women who made history in the arts, literature, and science.
Detail of greyscale engraving. At right, a seated woman with dark hair and placid expression gazing downward, with dark hair and formal corseted dress and shawl. At left, standing suited man with shoulder-length grey hair and beard gazing opposite way
Margaret Fuller (right). Detail from "Authors of the United States," engraved by Alexander Hay Ritchie after Thomas Hicks, 1865.

NPS Photo

During the planning and development phase of the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area it was determined that the national significance of the region that comprises the heritage area lies in its concepts of individual freedom and responsibility, community cooperation, direct democracy, idealism, and social betterment, perspectives that have inspired national and international movements in governance and education, abolitionism, social conservation, and the arts (NPS).

Fittingly, Freedom’s Way has produced an incredible body of work on women’s history and women’s rights, tracing the origins of the movement back to America’s earliest suffragists, activists, and feminist thinkers, as well as commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment in unparalleled richness this past year.

In their celebration of the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, Freedom’s Way published the e-book Women Who Made History: Profiles from the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area - Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, written by Freedom’s Way Executive Director Patrice Todisco and edited by Linda Bowie and Desiree Demski-Hamelin of Freedom’s Way.
Women's History Month graphic. Yellow profile silhouette with long hair blown gently as if by wind wearing Park Ranger hat. Names of famous women in American history and women's rights movements overlaid in block text on profile & purple background
Celebrating Women's History at the National Park Service

NPS

The book tells the stories of 72 women from within what is today Freedom’s Way, ranging from writers and artists to suffragists, abolitionists, social reformers and political leaders, to trailblazers in sports, science, and women’s education. The book is dedicated to Marjorie “Marge” Darby and Mildred “Millie” Chandler, the two founders of Freedom’s Way NHA who “dreamed of celebrating the unique stories of the women within the National Heritage Area.” It was released in August 2020.

“Commemorating the Centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment provided an unparalleled opportunity to explore the untold stories of women from within the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area,” says Todisco. “Most excitingly, the work provided new ways of thinking about and sharing history, inspiring communities to participate in the development of a collective narrative about women in the region.”
The book features several American suffragists and women’s rights activists from the Freedom’s Way region spanning Massachusetts and New Hampshire, whose tireless work from the nation’s earliest days and throughout the 19th century led to the passage of the 19th Amendment. In addition to Hanson Robinson and MacKaye, suffragists from Freedom’s Way featured in the Women Who Made History e-book include Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) (author of Little Women) and Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) (author of The History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Nations and founding member of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association).
Bronze memorial statue, with six people standing to its left and five to its right, all in winter garb. Bare trees in background with bright sky shining behind. Stone base of memorial is engraved with text: "Harriet E. Wilson, Author"
Harriet E. Wilson Memorial in Milford, New Hampshire.

Desiree Demski-Hamelin, Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area.

Reading Freedom’s Way’s Women Who Made History e-book is like meeting, one after the next, the most exciting group of women at an imaginary gathering of some of the most fascinating and revolutionary thinkers, creators, and leaders of American history. Prominent writers featured in the book include Harriet E. Wilson (1825-1900) (a memorial to whom can be found within Freedom’s Way), author of the first novel published by a Black woman in America, printed in 1859, and Margaret Fuller, (1810-1850) author of Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845), who championed abolition, women’s rights, and prison reform.
Black-and-white portrait photograph of seated woman in oval vignette-shaped matting and frame. She wears aa dark collared robe overcoat or dress over collared white shirt, slick center-parted hair, and a matter-of-fact expression.
Lucy Stone, circa 1850

Library of Congress, via Women’s Rights National Historical Park

The book also features female pioneers in science such as astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), who discovered how to measure the distance from earth to stars and other celestial bodies (and additionally identified more than 2,400 variable stars), whose work was largely underappreciated and attributed to male colleagues at Harvard. You may recognize other famous women of Freedom’s Way in the book: suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone (1818-1893); track-and-field legend Louise Mae Stokes Fraser (1913-1978); culinary expert and author of one of the most famous American cookbooks of all-time, Fannie Farmer (1857-1915); and none other than aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (1897-1939).

Freedom’s Way also presented the 100 Years, 100 Days, 100 Facts 19th Amendment Commemoration Countdown from May to August of 2020, and features innovative women in history in its Heritage Stories: Visionaries and Experimenters vodcast series. With such incredible online resources, it is easy to find joy, amazement, and appreciation in the stories of these Freedom’s Way women who made a difference in their community and the world. Make sure to check out these great stories from Freedom’s Way in celebration of Women’s History Month as well as throughout the year, as we remember their diverse lives and innovative contributions to our cultural heritage.

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Last updated: April 5, 2021