Past Event: A City Made by Women: A Symposium

At this explosive moment, when gender norms are being widely questioned and overturned, we invite you to reflect on the tremendous achievements of feminist activism in New York City. First, hear a keynote from Teen Vogue’s executive editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay about how the young women and men of “Generation Z” are redefining social activism today. Then, join a conversation with leading writers and scholars illuminating the essential but little-known stories of New York City’s feminist trailblazers and their struggles and triumphs over the last century.

Afterwards, drop into our free Feminist Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon to create and refine Wikipedia pages inspired by our current exhibition, Beyond Suffrage: A Century of New York Women in Politics -- we’ll supply the coffee. The cost of Museum admission is also included with your ticket. Come refuel your intellectual (and activist) engine! 

Keynote Speaker: 
Samhita Mukhopadhyay, executive editor of Teen Vogue and co-editor of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump’s America

Speakers: 
Susan Goodier, Lecturer in American History, SUNY Oneonta
Farah Jasmine Griffin, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies, Columbia University
Premilla Nadasen, Professor of History, Barnard College
Julie Scelfo (moderator), author and journalist 

Timeline: 
1:00 pm – "A City Made By Women” symposium begins (ticketed event) 
2:50 pm – "A City Made By Women” symposium concludes
3:00 pm – Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon (free) begins with a training session for new Wikipedia editors
5:30 pm – Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon concludes
6:00 pm – Museum closes

This program accompanies our exhibition, Beyond Suffrage: A Century of New York Women in Politics (on view through August 5, 2018). To view more programs in this series, click here.

About the Speakers:
Samhita Mukhopadhyay is an American writer and the executive editor of Teen Vogue. She writes about feminism, culture, race, politics, and dating. She is the author of Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life (2011), a feminist intervention to mainstream dating books, and the co-editor with Kate Harding of the anthology, Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America (2017).

Susan Goodier is the author of Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State (Three Hills, 2017). She is a scholar who focuses on U.S. women's activism from the period of the Civil War through the First World War. Goodier teaches women's history courses at SUNY Oneonta and serves as book review editor for the New York History journal.

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the author of Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (Civitas Books, 2013). She is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Her major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, history, and politics.

Premilla Nadasen is the author of Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement (Beacon Press, 2015). She is a professor of history at Barnard College where she teaches, researches, and writes about race, gender, social policy, and organizing. Nadasen is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.

Julie Scelfo (moderator) is the author of The Women Who Made New York (Seal Press, 2016). She is a former staff writer and current contributor to The New York Times, where her stories about society and human behavior reframe popular ideas and ask us to rethink our basic assumptions. Previously, Scelfo was a correspondent at Newsweek.