Ellen Feldman
“Suffragists Knew”
This series, “Suffragists Knew,” is a visual manifesto of how to create a movement, as pertinent now as it was 100 years ago. The image titles remind us that women’s power has always been uniquely hard-fought and hard-won: Suffragists Knew: Build Coalitions! Dare to Act! Combat Misinformation! Channel Your Rage! Get Stuff Done! Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Matilda Joslyn Gage: none of these leading suffragists lived to see the passage of the 19th amendment. Their fight took decades—from 1848 to 1920. Obstacles were many and deep, and among their fiercest adversaries were other women—the “Antis.” We certainly face similar challenges today.
Consider these images as calls to act. No action is too small…or too ambitious. While full equality—legal, social, economic—remains stubbornly beyond our grasp and may yet take decades to achieve (read: the unratified ERA, introduced in 1923), it is our collective work that will get us there. Susan B. Anthony had her own manifesto: “Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.” We can follow her lead—and continue the struggle with purpose, courage, and persistence.
Ellen Feldman is a fine art photographer and book artist, Photography Editor of The Women’s Review of Books (Wellesley College), and an activist since the ’60s. Her latest book, We Who March: Photographs and Reflections on the Women’s March, January 21, 2017, includes contributions by thirty photographers around the U.S. and comments by twenty marchers. Feldman co-curated (with Marky Kauffmann) “Moved to Act,” an exhibit of photographs from the 2017 Woman’s March, Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, and Standing Rock. The 20+ photographers, mostly women, captured dramatic moments in key struggles of our time. The exhibit was launched at the Davis Orton Gallery (Hudson, NY), and will move to other venues in the coming months. Feldman’s street photography and long-term personal projects have been widely exhibited in solo and juried group shows in the Boston area and beyond. Feldman holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University.
instagram: @ellenfeldmanphotographer
