From Carol Anderson: Since the end of the conference, Sally and Matt took off for western New York, and brought back even more news, contacts, and ideas. We have all been working to get things organized. In order to wrap up the Kalamazoo end of the conference, some of you had asked about copies of audio tapes of the sessions. Unfortunately, none of the tapes that we had arranged to make turned out, so there is nothing available on tape. However, Jennifer Rycenga and I are editing a volume of the papers that were presented, so we'll keep you posted on the press and forthcoming information.

      From Sally Roesch Wagner: Hats off to Carol Anderson, who brought us all together in Kalamazoo to make history with the first Matilda Joslyn Gage conference. "Transforming, exciting, energizing" were some of the reactions. And it was just the beginning, as we laid plans to meet again in three years at San Jose State.

      While I've been planting seeds about a Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation for years, and the Gage exhibit for which I was the curator this summer in Seneca Falls was sponsored by the (not yet existent) Gage Foundation, we decided at the conference to make the Foundation a reality. So we're ready to work, with immediate tasks for everyone. Please take a look at the last page of this letter for our workgroups, and let me know what you would like to work on.

Specifically:

1. Take a look at the following task forces/work groups that we brainstormed at the conference and after and see what you'd like to work on. Then email or mail your response and I'll coordinate getting people in each task force in touch with each other.

2. Sara Boynton did her senior thesis (under Carol and working with Sally) on a paper looking at thirty years of feminist organizations to glean ideas on how we might organize the Gage foundation. Within the month we'll have part of the paper posted on the Gage website (and sent out in the newsletter) and would like to generate a discussion on how decisions will be made in the foundation. Watch for it.

3. Continuing the best part of the friendship between Gage and Stanton, the Stanton foundation has generously agreed to continue to serve as our funding agency (as they did for the Gage exhibit) until the Gage Foundation is formally incorporated as a 501(c)3. Donations can be sent to: The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation PO Box 603 Seneca Falls, NY 13148. Please write "Matilda Joslyn Gage Exhibit" in memo space of check.

         p.s. from Carol: All of the donations made to Kalamazoo College will be turned over to the Stanton Foundation, from whom you should receive an acknowledgement of your donation and an indication of its tax deductible status. Stay tuned.

4. Mary Ann Krupsak (former Lt. Gov. of New York and President of Celebrate '98) will not only draw up our incorporation papers, but will lend her efforts to helping us get the Gage house. This is a "top priority" for her, she told me.

5. We have strong support of folks in the Fayetteville/Syracuse area, including Betty Bone Scheiss (one of the first women priests ordained in the Episcopal church) and Barbara Rivette, the town historian.

      We can do so much more on the website, but I will need your help. Some of the thing we can do include:

• Publicity: Please pass around the Gage Page URL http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/gage/mjg.html and add it to your web page.
• Membership and contributions form
• Counter: Set up a website counter so we can keep track of visitors (webeditor's note: With the timelt assistance of Liela Brammer, this task has been completed. Thanks Liela.)
• URLs: Share posting of websites
• Bookstore: Publicizing books that include Gage. Send me a one or two paragraph write up.
• New features, especially works by or about Gage
• Proof-reading: Volunteers for proof-reading are needed
• Women's History Month (March) feature. Short (one paragraph to one page) bios for 30 influential "Women in Gage's Life"

      Thanks so much for the nice words and the help. Keep up the great work in making Gage visible. Contact me at: sunshine@pinn.net

      On Friday, October 30, the great-great-great grandson of Matilda Joslyn Gage set history right when he presented a copy of the Modern Reader's Edition (edited by Sally Roesch Wagner, 1998) to the Fayetteville-Manlius High School Library. "The presentation is significant," wrote Town of Manlius and Fayetteville historian Barbara S. Rivette, "because when the book was first printed in 1893, the Fayetteville School Board banned it from the library because of its forthright language." Mac made the following presentation speech:

      "I offer this Modern Reader's Edition of Woman, Church and State to the Fayetteville School Library in the spirit of liberty passed down to me by my great-great-great Grandmother, Matilda Joslyn Gage. I return this book to the library so that Fayetteville and the nation may remember a woman so visionary that her thought was censored by the religious right wing of her day.

      Gage realized the Church to be the architect of women's oppression. And the Church immediately sought to suppress this book and the woman that rocked their very foundation. She identified this foundation as the belief in the inferiority of woman and therefore the moral justification of her suppression. When she presented a copy of this book to the school library over one hundred years ago a prominent member of the local Roman Catholic church, who also sat on the school board, sent it to Anthony Comstock, chief enforcer of the obscenity laws bearing his name. Comstock threatened to arrest the school board members if they placed the book in the school library. The Church took up the cause and the papers reported that Catholics and Protestants alike were calling for the censorship of Woman, Church and State. The school board returned the copy of my grandmother's book.

      As I am the sixth generation of Gage's legacy, and strive to realize her vision of freedom for all, I cannot forget the legacy of hate also passed down by the Christian fanatics, the very same hate-mongers who murdered 9 million women during the inquisition, burned the witches at Salem, and now preach the same polarizing rhetoric that inspired the assassins of Matthew Sheppard and Dr. Slepian.

      My grandmother challenges the moral power of politicians and preachers who have maintained the war on women's rights. And I challenge the people of Fayetteville and this nation to read this book, to think for themselves and to question to the core their morality."

Gage Foundation Task Forces/Work Groups
TAKE A LOOK AT THE LIST AND SEE WHAT INTERESTS YOU.

Newsletter
Fundraising
Research
Education
2001 Conference
Mentor Program
Volume for publication
Purchasing Gage's house in Fayetteville
Incorporation & 501(c)3 status
Grants
Public relations
Descendants
Web site (please see Pat's remarks above)
Issues
Religion
Body Sovereignty

EMAIL ME AT SWAGNER711@AOL.COM

Or write:

Sally Roesch Wagner
PO Box 2135
Aberdeen, SD 57402