AMY KIRBY POST
- Program
- Subject
- Location
- Lat/Long
- Grant Recipient
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National Votes for Women Trail
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People
- 103 Fifth Ave, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
- 43.127553, -77.61849
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National Collaborative for Women's History Sites
AMY KIRBY POST
Inscription
AMY KIRBY POSTSUFFRAGIST, ABOLITIONIST
AND LOCAL LEADER.
SIGNED DECLARATION OF
SENTIMENTS IN SENECA FALLS
IN 1848. BURIED NEAR HERE.
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2021
Amy Kirby Post (1802-1889) led a life of social reform as a suffragist, abolitionist, and community leader. An ardent abolitionist, Post aided people escaping slavery and her Rochester, New York home was a station on the Underground Railroad. She rose to prominence as a suffragist, having been involved with the women’s suffrage movement from its start. She attended the July 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. At the convention, Post signed her name to the Declaration of Sentiments, a document critical of women’s inferior political status. It outlined the rights that women were entitled to as citizens of the United States and asserted that women and men were equal, with both being entitled to inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also listed facts exemplifying women’s oppression, including the lack of women’s right to vote. In closing, the document states:
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, – in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.
Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.
Post continued to fight for women’s suffrage throughout her life. In 1889, Post died at her home at 86 years old. She is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.
