I am writing about my past and what has been important to me about voting rights over a lifetime!

by Marguerite Kearns

I wrote about one branch of my family in my book published by SUNY Press (State University of New York), An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE EARLY WAVES OF THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

My family tales are something that have been passed down, along with photos and other memorabilia. In my case, I took notes on what my mother and grandfather told me. If I hadn’t, so much would have been forgotten, marginalized, or invisible. Then I worked with my mother, Wilma Buckman Kearns Culp, for over a decade. We collected photos, recorded memories and research with professional standards in place. Without my mother’s involvement and enthusiastic participation, the book I pulled together, long after her death, would not exist. One library director who included it in his collection understood that publications that avoid reviewing memoir, family history, and local storytelling are missing out on important documentation.

Thinking and planning are important steps, and the rest comes later.

THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT WASN’T MONOLITHIC—IT WAS DIVERSE AND PEOPLE HAD VARIED VIEWS

I smile when I hear even educated folks suggesting that the early women’s rights movement was monolithic. According to this view, everyone spoke with identical lips moving. That view is ridiculous, limited, and condescending. It doesn’t recognize that there were hundreds of organizations, and at times, it was an uncomfortable and awkward coalition of those who agreed only on one point—that women should be full participants in the major decisions made in our fast-moving world. To say that they all were similar and should be dismissed is an opinion, although not a point of view that millions share today.

WE’RE NOT ONE ISSUE FOLKS

Marguerite Kearns, for example, publishes the news about a New Mexico farmers’ market. There are about 80 in her state. This wasn’t true decades ago when the local farmers’ market was founded. Here is one of her creations promoting the cooking school on this news channel.