Bicentennial Events

February 25, 2010 -  Mayor Michael Bonfanti and the City of Peabody Proclaim March 2010 Women’s History Month in Peabody,  Proclamation.
Bicentennial Website Launched

March 1 – April 31, 2010
The Ordinary “Extraordinary” Women of Peabody, Peabody Institute Library, 54 Main Street
In Peabody, the names of Martha Osborne Barrett, Helen Sullivan Donahue, Helen Hagar Clark, Sarah Frances Kittredge, Mary Ophelia Townsend Stevens, Ellen Perkins Proctor, Mary J. Buxton, Bessie Buxton, Mary Floyd and Sarah N. Bancroft are no longer remembered. But these are just a few of the women whose work and lives helped change, not just our town, but also our country.    The exhibit, The Ordinary Extraordinary Women of Peabody, explores the everyday world of the ordinary women of Peabody from a century past, who often lived extraordinary lives.

March 2, 2010 – “Meet Lucy Stone” Living History Performance, Peabody Institute Library, 54 Main Street, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
From tree stump to concert hall, Lucy Stone's powerful oratory, and her courageous example, were instrumental in turning northern sentiment toward the cause of immediate abolition. The passionate struggle she embodied for equal rights for women continues today.    During this presentation, you will meet the public and private Lucy Stone. You will enter her world as she yearns for an education deemed unacceptable for girls, rejecting the idea of marriage and overcoming every obstacle to become the shining star of the anti-slavery and woman's rights movements. You'll also be privy to her indecision when wooed and pursued by Henry Blackwell, and live through the painful choice she faced between two life-long commitments when the 15th Amendment caused a split among supporters of women's rights.

March 4, 2010 – "On the Long Path to Women's Rights: Mary Upton Ferrin,  1810-1881" Exhibit Opening George Peabody House  Museum, 205 Washington St., 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Resurrecting the first exhibit on Mary Upton Ferrin displayed at the George Peabody House in 1991 as part of the city’s 75^th anniversary. 

March 14, 2010 - Illustrated Lecture on the Salem Women's Heritage Trail by Bonnie Hurd Smith, Historian.  Peabody Historical Fire Museum, 38 Rear Felton St.  , 2:00 p.m. $3, Peabody Historical Society members are free.

April 7, 2010 – Mary Upton Ferrin 2010 Community Service Awards, Peabody Chamber of Commerce
Mary Upton Ferrin Award Winners website updated by Grade 7 students in the Panthers cluster

April 26, 2010 – Mary Upton Ferrin 200^th Birthday “Pound” Party, Peabody Institute Library, 82 Main St.,  7:00 p.m. - In the spirit of M.U. Ferrin, admission to the party is a “pound” of an item to donate to the Haven from Hunger food pantry and/or  HAWC, (Helping Abuse Working for Change).  “Pound” parties were traditional events sponsored by the local Ladies Benevolent Society, which was founded in 1814.  Ferrin and Eliza Sutton, the philanthropist who donated the Sutton Library (where the party will be held), were involved in establishing the Charitable Tenement Association in 1867.  Ferrin advocated for property and voting rights for women and  highlighted the plight of abused women.  Historian S.M. “Sudi” Smoller will speak on Ferrin’s social sphere and the numerous popular reform movements that flourished in the mid-nineteenth century:  dress reform, water cure, phrenology, spiritualism, marriage reform, temperance and abolitionism. 

May 16, 2010 - Third Annual FERRIN Group  High Tea to raise funds for the Mary Upton Ferrin Scholarship, Peabody City Hall.
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Mary Upton Ferrin Award Winners

City of Peabody
FERRIN Group
George Peabody House Museum
Peabody Access Telecommunications
Peabody Chamber of Commerce
Peabody Historical Society
Peabody Institute Library
Peabody Public Schools

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1810 - 2010
Celebrating the Bicentennial of Peabody's Pioneering Suffragist
 Mary Upton Ferrin 

"The first change in the tyrannous laws of Massachusetts was really due to the work of this one woman, MARY UPTON FERRIN  (1810-1881), who for six years, after her own quaint method, poured the hot shot of her earnest conviction of woman's wrongs into the Legislature.  In circulating petitions, she traveled six hundred miles, two-thirds of this distance on foot.  Much money was expended besides her time and travel, and her name should be remembered as that of one of the brave pioneers in this work."
- History of Woman Suffrage, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, et al