Pamela (Pam) Elam is a retired attorney and feminist activist who has worked for both women's and LGBT rights throughout her career. Elam was born in Kentucky, where she gained her undergraduate degree and JurisDoctorate before moving to New York to pursue her master's degree. Since, she has influenced New York governance through professional offices and activist organizations, and represented the LGBT community as an open lesbian since the late 1970s. Since retiring from government work, she has continued her activism through projects promoting women's visibility in New York City.
Elam received a BA in political science from the University of Kentucky in 1972, and earned her Juris Doctor in 1975 from the same institution. [1] After arriving in New York in 1978, she began studying at Sarah Lawrence College to gain a Masters in Women's History. [1]
Elam began speaking on women's issues and rights at the age of 13 at Kentucky's 1964 Speech Festival. [2] In the 1970s she founded several organizations for feminist issues in Kentucky, and campaigned for the legislative institution of the Equal Rights Amendment, rights for battered women, and the Displaced Homemakers Program in her state's General Assembly. [1] In 1977, she represented Kentucky at the National Women's Conference. After she came out as a lesbian at Sarah Lawrence College, Elam adopted another facet of feminist activism: advocating for LGBT rights. [1]
In New York City, Elam became an active civic participant, both professionally and informally, in New York state government. She has acted as a member of the Board of Directors of Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, New York Women Against Rape and the New York State Women's Political Caucus. [1] As a legislative aide to the New York City Council, Elam represented feminist causes and, throughout the 1980s, organized more than one hundred meetings for the Committee on Women.[ citation needed ] In 1988, she was also a facilitator of the first New York City presidential candidates' debate on women's issues. Elam worked in public relations roles, like consulting and campaigning for politicians Elizabeth Holtzman and Andrew Stein, before becoming Associate Commissioner for Intergovernmental Relations and External Affairs at the New York City Department of Employment from 1994-1998. [1] In 1997, she assumed the role of Deputy Commissioner for Intergovernmental Affairs for the New York City Human Resources Administration. She then went on to work in New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs as Coordinator before becoming Chief of Staff to New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane in 2004. [1] Following this role, Elam officially retired in 2008, although she continues to participate in LGBT and feminist activism today.[ citation needed ]
Elam was the winner of the National Organization for Women's 1988 Susan B. Anthony Award, [3] after she restarted the organizations New York City Lesbian Rights committee in 1986. [1] During the 1980s, Elam promoted both LGBT and women's rights in New York City by assisting in the foundation of organizations like Lesbians in Government and the NYC Lesbian Rights Committee, as well as the inaugural NYC conference on Lesbian Identity and Empowerment. She participated in the 1980 creation of the Congressional Union, an organization highly focused on civil disobedience for women's rights. While protesting with this organization, she was arrested for burning President Ronald Reagan in effigy at the White House for his failure to promote feminist ideals. Elam similarly assisted in the formation of Lesbians United, a group that unites a panoply of coordinated pro-lesbian organizations, and has organized multiple forums on issues of LGBT history participation in government, focusing on lesbian priorities and needs of involvement. [1]
Elam begun an ongoing campaign entitled "Where Are the Women," for which she serves as President. This campaign seeks to put statues of notable, historical women in Central Park, and was successful in placing the 2020 Women's Rights Pioneers Monument . The Statue Fund project is focused on honoring champions of women's suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In doing this, the campaign corrected the absence of non-fictional women's representation in Central Park, a significant New York City landmark. In an interview with Women You Should Know, Elam said,
There are numerous representations of the female form (like angels, nymphs and allegorical figures), but statues celebrating the vast and varied contributions of real women are nowhere to be found. [4]
The campaign officially obtained approval and an assigned location in Central Park to build the monument on November 6, 2016. [5] The Statue Fund also has gained a $500,000 grant from New York Life in 2016. [6]
Elam has been successful in memorializing Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton through the naming of a street corner in New York City in their honor. [7] This tribute is in close vicinity to where the two women crafted their newspaper, The Revolution .[ citation needed ] In 1998, she also assisted in facilitating a national celebration honoring of 150 years since Stanton and Lucretia Mott's Seneca Falls Convention. [1]
Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement split over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which would in effect extend voting rights to black men. One wing of the movement supported the amendment while the other, the wing that formed the NWSA, opposed it, insisting that voting rights be extended to all women and all African Americans at the same time.
The Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included Karla Jay, Martha Shelley, Rita Mae Brown, Lois Hart, Barbara Love, Ellen Shumsky, Artemis March, Cynthia Funk, Linda Rhodes, Arlene Kushner, Ellen Broidy, and Michela Griffo, and were mostly members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the National Organization for Women (NOW).
Women's suffrage, or the right to vote, was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Women's Loyal National League, also known as the Woman's National Loyal League and other variations of that name, was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, its president, and Susan B. Anthony, its secretary. In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S. The League disbanded in August 1864 after it became clear that the amendment would be approved.
The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote in the United States. Lucy Stone, its most prominent leader, began publishing a newspaper in 1870 called the Woman's Journal. It was designed as the voice of the AWSA, and it eventually became a voice of the women's movement as a whole.
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American newspaper editor, women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy. In her work with The Lily, she became the first woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women.
Atheist feminism is a branch of feminism that also advocates atheism. Atheist feminists hold that religion is a prominent source of female oppression and inequality, believing that the majority of the religions are sexist and oppressive towards women.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848, she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which the Declaration of Sentiments was written.
The American Equal Rights Association (AERA) was formed in 1866 in the United States. According to its constitution, its purpose was "to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex." Some of the more prominent reform activists of that time were members, including women and men, blacks and whites.
Ann Dexter Gordon is an American research professor in the department of history at Rutgers University and editor of the papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a survey of more than 14,000 papers relating to the pair of 19th century women's rights activists. She is also the editor of the multi-volume work, Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and has authored a number of other books about the history of the women's suffrage movement. She worked with popular historian Ken Burns on his 1999 book and appears in his documentary film about Stanton and Anthony. Since 2006, Gordon has repeatedly weighed in on the Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute stating that "Anthony spent no time on the politics of abortion. It was of no interest to her."
Susan B. Anthony was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement whose position on abortion has been the subject of a modern-day dispute. The dispute has primarily been between anti-abortion activists, who say that Anthony expressed opposition to abortion, and acknowledged authorities in her life and work who say that she did not.
Ivy Bottini was an American activist for women's and LGBT rights, and a visual artist.
History of Woman Suffrage is a book that was produced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Ida Husted Harper. Published in six volumes from 1881 to 1922, it is a history of the women's suffrage movement, primarily in the United States. Its more than 5700 pages are the major source for primary documentation about the women's suffrage movement from its beginnings through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which enfranchised women in the U.S. in 1920. Written from the viewpoint of the wing of the movement led by Stanton and Anthony, its coverage of rival groups and individuals is limited.
Alma Lutz (1890–1973) was an American feminist and activist for equal rights and woman suffrage. She was also the biographer of key women in the women's rights movement.
Portrait Monument is a 1920 marble sculpture by Adelaide Johnson, installed in the U.S. Capitol's rotunda, in Washington, D.C. The artwork was dedicated in 1921 and features portrait busts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott.
The Women's Rights Pioneers Monument is a sculpture by Meredith Bergmann. It was installed in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, on August 26, 2020. The sculpture is located at the northwest corner of Literary Walk along The Mall, the widest pedestrian path in Central Park. The sculpture commemorates and depicts Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), pioneers in the suffrage movement who advocated women's right to vote and who were pioneers of the larger movement for women's rights.
Pamela Elam