Maud Malone: Places Associated with Her Story

Seward Park Public Library, where Maud Malone worked as a librarian. Photo by Mcmillin24, CC BY SA 3.0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYPL_Seward_Park_Branch,_Manhattan.jpg

By Dan Meharg

For those interested in visiting some of the sites where Maud Malone helped to reinvigorate the suffrage movement, there are a number of National Park Sites and New York City locations where one can stand where Maud once stood.

Wesleyan Chapel at Women's Rights National Historical Park. NPS image.

On May 27, 1908 Maud Malone attended the dedication ceremony of a bronze plaque at Seneca Falls New York. The plaque placed on the Wesleyan Chapel, commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the 1848 women’s rights convention lead by local women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, spoke at the dedication about women’s suffrage and then inspired by her mother, boarded a trolley with Maud Malone. For the next ten days, traveling from town to town, Maud Malone taught Harriot Blatch everything she had learned about leading successful open-air suffrage meetings. The Women’s Rights National Historical Park preserves these important locations. Visitors can see the plaque, the chapel, where the trolleys once ran, and learn much more about the women who empowered the movement.

Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, New York, by Daderot. Public Domain.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vanderbilt_Mansion_-_IMG_7939.JPG

In 1909 Maud Malone allied herself and her suffrage organization, the Harlem Equal Rights League with wealthy suffrage supporter Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont. Maud, the women’s club insider, provided Alva Belmont with important introductions with women across the political spectrum, and Alva provided suffrage groups much needed financial support. The Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in Hyde Park NY was owned by a brother of Alva’s first husband. It provides a glimpse of the social circles Alva traveled in.

Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument. NPS Photo

The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington DC, recounts how Alva Belmont supported radical suffrage leaders such as Maud Malone, Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party. Alva purchased this home to serve as a headquarters for suffrage leaders in Washington DC. In 1917 Maud Malone traveled to Washington to help fellow Brooklynite Lucy Burns and the National Women’s Party carry out public protests.

Suffragists rally at Grant's Tomb, 1914. Bain News Service collection, Library of Congress.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2014695737/

During the 1912 election year, Maud Malone was heavily involved in interrupting presidential candidates to ask them to publically state their position on voting rights for women. Maud believed she had the same rights as men to ask a question during a public meeting, however most women in the suffrage movement spurned her and criticized her actions. Alva Belmont provided Maud with employment, support and encouragement. Unlike most suffrage groups, Alva continued to invite Maud to give public speeches at her parades and rallies. On May 2, 1914 Maud Malone participated in an automobile parade sponsored by Alva Belmont from Washington Square Park to Grant’s Tomb. There she gave an impassioned speech about the need for more aggressive methods to win the right to vote. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns also gave speeches that day and would soon put Maud Malone’s militant message into practice. The General Grant National Memorial in New York City, preserves the location of Maud’s 1914 speech.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1910. Collections of the Brooklyn Museum. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Academy_of_Music,_1910._(5832948715).jpg

Many of the places crucial to Maud Malone’s success as a suffragist still exist in New York City. Suffrage history explorers can see where she was violently ejected from meetings after questioning Woodrow Wilson in 1912 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and other politicians at the Cooper Union and Carnegie Hall, both in Manhattan.^[1] Madison Square Park, were Maud pioneered open-air meetings, and the first Broadway suffrage parade route from Union Square Park to 23rd street, still exist.^[2] The beautiful Seward Public Library were Maud worked her day job as a librarian and Union leader, as well as her third apartment home on 184 West 82nd Street still stand in Manhattan. Maud loved to walk, she spent her summers at Rockaway Park in Queens with her fellow Irish Americans, or with Socialists friends at a commune in Arden, Delaware.^[3] Both remain perfect places for a hike, and can be visited today.

Notes:

[1] The Brooklyn Academy of Music at 30 Lafayette Avenue, Broolyn, NY was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 2006. Cooper Union on Cooper Square, Manhattan, New york was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966 and designated a National Historic Landmark on July 4, 1961. It has been documented by the Historic American Building Survey; the documents are available via the Library of Congress. Carnegie Hall at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, New York City, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966 and designated a National Historic Landmark on December 29, 1962. It has been documented by the Historic American Building Survey; the documents are available via the Library of Congress.

[2] Union Square Park in Manhattan, New York was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 9, 1997.

[3] The Village of Arden was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 6, 1973. The Arden Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 30, 2003.