By Betty M. Bayer on June 26, 2017, Finger Lakes Times
Confluence: a word concerned with things — places, people, ideas — flowing together may be the most apt word to describe the National Women’s Hall of Fame’s rehabilitation of the 1844 Seneca Knitting Mill as its future home.
Entire histories flow together over the 173 years between the Mill’s founding and today’s rehabilitation. Stories abound of Mill laborers; of people buying socks at the Mill; and of two founding trustees of the Mill — Charles L. Hoskins and Jacob Chamberlain — who, as abolitionists, established this woolen Mill and, in 1848, joined 30 other men to sign the Declaration of Sentiments for women’s rights. That confluence bodes well for the future home of one of the first national membership museums devoted to documenting women’s history and their transformation of the American landscape through enduring contributions across many fields.