NPS - National Park Service

10/31/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/31/2024 12:31

Critical preservation maintenance work performed at the M’Clintock House with funding from the Great American Outdoors Act

News Release Date:
October 31, 2024

Contact:Janine Waller, 315-568-0024

Seneca Falls, NY - The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) Legacy Restoration Fund has recently financed and will begin exterior rehabilitation and restoration work at the historic M'Clintock House at Women's Rights National Historical Park.

Beginning on November 4, 2024, this project will correct deteriorated exterior elements to include repairs to the windows and trim, doors and trim, replacing missing or damaged wood clapboard siding, and to the exterior wood basement bulkhead. The accessible ramp decking and stringers will be inspected and replaced if necessary and the existing gutters will also be inspected, adjusted, and repaired to assure proper drainage. All previously painted exterior wood and metal surfaces will be refinished. Exterior wood rehabilitation work will reduce existing deterioration and improve the overall condition of this important historic resource. The preservation work will last approximately one month and will facilitate the Parks ability to maintain the resource in good condition, conserve and assure accurate treatment of the historic exterior structures, finishes, and trim, and will mitigate the conditions that are currently contributing to ongoing deterioration and loss of historic integrity.

The work will be performed by a GAOA funded Maintenance Action Team (MAT) composed of skilled craftspeople from the National Park Service Historic Architecture, Conservation and Engineering Center (HACE). HACE recruits, trains, and employs people in traditional historic restoration and preservation techniques and trades. Several geographically based MATs travel to national parks to train and work alongside park staff to complete small, but critical, maintenance rehabilitation and repair projects on historic structures. MATs enable the National Park Service to complete projects that require knowledge and competency in traditional trades in a consistent and cost-effective manner.

"Park staff are excited to host a Maintenance Action Team at Women's Rights," says Superintendent Ahna Wilson. "This work will preserve a site where women discussed abolition, women's rights, and how to plan for the first women's rights convention. Preservation of the building means the National Park Service will be able to continue telling these stories for generations to come."

On July 16, 1848, Mary Ann M'Clintock hosted a planning session for the First Women's Rights Convention. At this session she, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and perhaps several others drafted a document they called the Declaration of Sentiments. It was ratified on the second day of the First Woman's Rights Convention and signed by 100 men and women. Modeled on Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, this document proclaimed that "all men and women are created equal."