The National Votes for Women Trail (nvwt.org), a project of The National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites celebrated Women’s History Month with a virtual toast to two NVWT Trailblazers that they have just honored with with their Trailblazer Awards – Marsha Weinstein and Coline Jenkins.
Marsha Weinstein and Coline Jenkins, NVWT Trailblazer Award Winners
Jenkins is the great-great granddaughter of suffragist icon, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her 2009 testimony before the U.S. Senate contributed to the passage of federal legislation creating a national trail of historic sites, coordinated by Women’s Rights National Historical Park. The National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites took over the idea in 2016 when Congress never appropriated funds for the project.
Jenkins shared the idea of the NVWT with the William G. Pomeroy Foundation in Syracuse, New York, and suggested that perhaps they would like to partner with the NVWT and provide physical historical markers. They agreed and provided 210 historical roadside markers which created a physical trail in addition to the virtual trail, as well as an equal number of community dedications and celebrations around the country.
Jenkins has been responsible for inspiring both awareness and pride in women’s history by preserving the history of the women’s right movement, educating the public on the history, and promoting the advancement of women’s rights.
Ms Jenkins is the co-founder and president of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust, a collection of 3,000 objects of women’s suffrage memorabilia that has been lent to museum exhibits, book publishers, documentary film producers, presidential libraries, popular magazines, television programs, and Congressional testimony.
Jenkins is also the Vice President of Monumental Women, and “broke the bronze dome” over Central Park in New York City with the installation of the first statue of real women in honor of the centennial of the 19th Amendment of the US Constitution. She co-authored a book, 33 Things Every Girl Should Know about Women’s History, and produced the television documentary, An American Revolution: Women Take Their Place.
Weinstein served as the first chairperson of the NVWT, as well as President of the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites during the Trail’s formative years reaching their goal of documenting 2020 sites of importance to women’s suffrage by 2020. There are currently over 2400 sites on the searchable map.
Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, she eventually moved to Louisville, where she would become a force for positive change for women.
Weinstein has run for state office, worked in state government, represented Kentucky to the world in China and served as the former Executive Director of the Kentucky Commission on Women, and founded her own nonprofit organization — Louisville Girls Leadership — to help girls become empowered leaders.
In addition to still serving on the NVWT Committee, Weinstein is also a co-founder of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust, a Monumental Women Board Member, and serves as the chairman of the Happy Birthday Park project in Louisville, Kentucky.