INEZ | Let's Get that Mountain Renamed

The portrait of Inez made
in 1924 for the Pageant in
Meadowmount.

Alice Paul has had the Sewall-Belmont House named after her. It is now a National Park Service Monument and is renamed the Belmont-Paul house, recognizing Alma Vanderbilt Belmont's great contributions to the National Woman's Party and Alice Paul's leadership.

But the great inspiration for the final push for suffrage was Inez Milholland. 

Her portrait hung in splendor over the mantelpiece of the Belmont-Paul House until 2011, when the mantelpiece was removed.

A committee headed by Allegra Milholland and Alfred Boissevain (nephew of Inez's husband Eugen; my late mother was Eugen's niece) raised the funds to restore the portrait. I helped put together the committee.

Mt. Discovery is in the back of Meadowmount, where
Inez Milholland grew up and learned to ride, in
 Lewis, N.Y., the site of a suffrage pageant in 1924.
The Milholland home is now a music school.

August 6, 2016 will be the 130th birthday of Inez Milholland Boissevain. November 25 will be the 100th anniversary of her death.  

She collapsed in the middle of campaigning for women suffrage and died a few weeks later. In this centennial year, how can we best create a memorial for her?

The newspapers in 1916 said that Mt. Discovery (its peak 1,552 feet above sea level) would be renamed. It is part of the Meadowmount property in Lewis, Essex County, N.Y. that John E. Milholland purchased. It is supposed to be renamed Mt. Inez. But it hasn't happened. 

What would it take to make this happen? Governor Cuomo, can you do something to remember this great woman who fought for human rights? (Matilda Cuomo, wouldn't this be a good idea?)

INEZ | Milholland Chair, Essex County

At the Essex County Historical Society in Lewis, NY, a
group is studying the lives of Inez Milholland and
 other locals to understand their contributions to history.

In Essex County, NY a chair is dedicated to the memory of Inez Milholland at the end of 2013 (I just ran across the video).

Vida ("Tubby") and sis Inez Milholland
 in 1913. Vida carried on with suffrage
work after Inez's death in 1916.

The ceremony consisted of the reading of a speech by Inez Milholland that she gave when she was 25 and was a newly minted lawyer from NYU, where a Professor at the Law School occupies the Inez Milholland Chair. The 9-minute reading of the speech was recorded and may be seen here.

The video is easy to hear and follow, and Inez's words are well put together. But as a visual it has little to offer after one spends a minute looking at the layout of the office and the audience.

It might be better done as a dramatization.  Or with photos of Inez. Or something else. Anything would be better than a talking head.

This reminds me of a Duke who was asked to be the final judge in a competition for the best singer in his duchy. He was finally presented with two winners from the semi-finals and his job was to pick the best of the two. The first one sang for about 20 seconds and the Duke put his hand in the air and stood up.  "STOP...," he said.  "...Give the prize to the other one."