Convention Days 2025

Join us July 18-20, 2025 as we comemmorate the 177th anniversary of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention!

Ripples of Reform

Women's Rights National Historical Park invites visitors for Convention Days 2025, to be held in Seneca Falls, July 18-20. A cherished tradition in Seneca Falls, Convention Days commemorates the anniversary of the 1848 women’s rights convention, where 300 women and men united to assert that “all men and women are created equal.” The convention was the first of its kind in the United States and gave rise to the American women’s rights movement.

In commemoration of the Erie Canal Bicentennial, the theme of Convention Days 2025 is “Ripples of Reform,” which will focus on the movement of ideas and people through Central and Western New York State. Convention Days will include family programming, as well as presentations by historians, park staff, and living history performers. “The Erie Canal transformed the landscape of Central New York, accelerating the movement of goods, people, and ideas, and serving as a fertile ground for transformative movements such as Abolition and Women’s Rights,” says Superintendent Ahna Wilson. “We are excited to collaborate with our communities and partners to highlight some of those stories during Convention Days this summer.”

The nineteenth century saw a rise in progressive movements in New York State, including abolition and women’s rights. A sweeping network of activists populated the Finger Lakes region and allowed ideas of equality and social justice to flourish. Led by luminaries such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Harriet Tubman, these movements quickly spread.

Seneca Falls, which took its name from the waterfalls that dotted the Seneca River and connected with the Erie Canal, became a crucible of change in 1848 when the American Women’s Rights Movement was born. Convention Days 2025: Ripples of Reform will commemorate the ways in which the Erie Canal and its waterways played host to social movements that changed the course of American history.