HeRSToRy 082 Sally Roesch Wagner

    Sally is a longtime feminist and women's studies professor, and since 2001, the founding director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. In the summer of 1984, after a performance as part of history events in Seneca Falls, she visited the peace camp in character and costume as Matilda Joslyn Gage, the 19th-century radical feminist (look her up!). Sally, as Matilda, committed civil disobedience at the Seneca Army Depot in honor of her newly born grandson.

CLIP 1: What would Matilda Joslyn Gage do? 

CLIP 2: This isn't real fear

INTERVIEW

Interview: Sally Roesch Wagner
Date: June 1, 2008
Location: Syracuse, NY
Present: Estelle Coleman, hershe Michele Kramer

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE & HER 20TH CENTURY DAUGHTERS
 Photographs by Nancy Clover

Encampment women gather in support of Matilda as she prepares to approach the Seneca Army Depot main gate, July 22, 1984.

Crossing Route 96.

Finding the gate open, Matilda walks through and greets the guard. "I would like to know if there are nuclear weapons stored here," she asks. The guard ushers her out.

She ushers herself back in.

"I would like an answer," she says.

He radios for back-up.

The two guards escort her back out...

...and shut and lock the gate. "That's enough of that," they say.

Not quite.

"I need some back-up!" yells the guard.

Sisters and daughters sing their support.

"For my grandson," Sally thinks...

...as Matilda is handcuffed...

...and led to the waiting police van.

Sally aka Matilda's official letter from the Department of Defense. "...predicated upon your misconduct, you are barred from this installation for an indefinite period of time."