The Yale Manor Legacy

In 1848, Seneca Falls became the site of something that would change the course of history and the fate of women around the world. Only a 20-minute drive North from Yale Manor, Seneca Falls is the town that spearheaded the women’s rights movement. It now hosts the National Women’s Rights Museum, displaying the records, artifacts, and compelling stories of the brazen women that chose to demand their place among the people of the world, rather than ask for it.

Fifty years later, James MacDonald, vice president of the London-based Royal Insurance Co., became impressed with a young woman, Alice Ethelwyn Crawford, adeptly managing their NYC office. Mr. MacDonald asked Ms. Crawford to handle all his financial investments from that point until his death in 1929. Together they arranged to invest in 365 acres of farmland near Ms. Crawford’s family home of Seneca Falls to raise apples on the shores of Seneca Lake. Alice expanded her role as an assistant to America’s “Copper King,” the Montana Senator W.A. Clark, to become an investment banker. Upon Mr. MacDonald’s death, Alice became the sole trustee of the estate and beneficiary until the 1940s. But her story doesn’t end here. It gets better. In 1951, Alice E. Crawford became the first woman elected to the board of a major bank—in New York City. This is the economic capital of the world, the hub of enterprise, and the greatest investment center in history.

A true pioneer of womankind and a skilled, intelligent, and sensible businesswoman, Alice Crawford carried on the legacy of the Seneca Falls Convention and everything those women worked towards. It wasn’t just suffrage. It was trust, faith, and influence that those women wanted, and the opportunity to hold positions like the one Alice gained in the 1950s, over a century later. What she did at Yale Manor proved her knowledge and tact with business and gave her the experience needed to lead an enterprise and sit at a table full of men, as an elderly woman, and control one of New York City’s biggest banks.

Alice E. Crawford is buried, fittingly, in Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the women’s rights movement. Learn more by visiting the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House.