Yesterday we attended a terrific program at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art. It opened with a screening of the documentary by Kay Sloan, “Suffragettes in the Silent Cinema,” with extremely rare footage of anti- and pro- suffrage silent films.Then Coline Jenkins, the great, great granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, spoke. She’s standing in the first picture holding a replica of a street sign that is near City Hall in New York City. Melissa Messina, curator of the excellent exhibit “Votes for Women” at the museum is seated in the corner of the picture. Coline set up the other picture for me to take.
It features Rachel Milano, a fashion designer for Donna Karan, communing with a bust of Susan B. Anthony. Rachel styled her hair for the program in the fashion of some young suffragists. Our conversations with young, middle-age, and beyond middle-age feminists before, during, and after the program were lively, stimulating and fun. Coline, Linda and I extended the fun by “hanging out” together, including a just-before-closing-time trip to the Rose Garden in the next door Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
It was early evening when Linda and I headed back to retrieve the car that we had parked on the upper West Side (We thought it would be easier to take the subway to Brooklyn, but it wasn’t because of the weekend construction on the subway. Oh, well.) Along the way, we stopped to eat and check out the craft fair at Lincoln Center where we ended up buying early birthday presents for each other–a handcrafted handbag for her & a handcrafted backpack with a super convenient side zipper into the main pouch for me.