JOHNSTOWN — Expect to spot more purple and yellow at the Johnstown city line.
Crews throughout the rest of April are slated to replace 11 welcome signs with displays paying homage to hometown suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The overhaul is expected to begin Wednesday.
“It’s all folding together because Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a big part of our history,” said Johnstown Mayor Amy Praught. “It’s a great thing to really promote.”
Four “high-quality” signs featuring an engraving of Stanton will be placed around the city’s high-traffic entrances and a lower-price batch will go up around the city’s byways, according to Praught.
Future locations include East Main Street Extension, state Highway 29 and North Comrie Avenue.
Two signs are currently in the city, the first of which was put up in November on state Highway 30A.
“We wanted to just test it to see how it looked, structurally how it held up in the winter and that kind of thing,” Praught said.
The signs, designed by city-based Barney's Sign Co, were purchased mostly with funds from the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Consortium. The city covered less than $2,000 of the cost.
A member of the consortium about a year ago reached out to Praught about possibly putting a plaque underneath the welcome posts in honor of Stanton.
The old signs were already on the docket to be replaced, so stakeholders ultimately decided to do a complete overhaul dedicated to Stanton.
“We're like, ‘Well, jeez, what if we put her on the sign and then oh, well, maybe they could help pick up the cost for it?’” Praught said. “The city couldn't obviously spend that kind of money on signs.”
Crews throughout the rest of April are slated to replace 11 Welcome to Historic Johnstown signs with displays paying homage to hometown suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, like this one seen on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
The purple colors symbolizes the Suffrage Movement, and the yellow, Stanton’s favorite flower, the sunflower.
The old signs are primarily blue. That batch will likely be put in storage, according to City Engineer Christopher Vose.
“We'll probably just keep them down in the garage and in case something ever happens, we can throw one up quickly,” Vose said.
Praught said upon request she’d be willing to give away a sign to the Johnstown High School Museum, which collects memorabilia across the area.
“It’s all wooden and warped and there's nothing really historical about it other than ‘Welcome to Johnstown, come back soon,’” Praught said.
WHO WAS ELIZABETH CADY STANTON?
Stanton was one of 11 children of former state Supreme Court Judge Daniel Cady. She attended Johnstown Academy and watched her father practice law at the then-Montgomery County Courthouse — Fulton County didn’t exist until 1838.
She ended up living across the Northeast, engaged in the progressive politics of the day. During the 1948 Seneca Falls Convention, Stanton wrote a manifesto in demand of equal rights for women. Starting in the 1850s, she began combining forces in social activism with Susan B. Anthony.
While long an anti-slavery advocate, Stanton went on to espouse racist rhetoric after the Civil War. She was an outspoken opponent of the 15th Amendment in 1968, arguing that women should have the right to vote before Black men.
Stanton grew distant from the Women’s Rights movement after she published the controversial Women’s Bible in 1895, by which she and other co-authors challenged ideas in religion that women should serve men. She died in New York City seven years later.
Today, the feminist figure stands as one of the most prominent figures from Johnstown’s past alongside colonial-era founder Sir William Johnson and early 1900s industrialist Rose Knox.
“I'll be honest with you. As far as I'm concerned, I think the Elizabeth Cady Consortium has brought the popularity of Elizabeth Cady Stanton forward, more so now than it was in the past,” Praught said.
The consortium was founded in 2006. The group, with the help of 150 donors, helped get a bronze statue of Stanton in Sir William Johnson Park three years ago.