Seneca Falls Inheritance

Study Guide
Fall 2004

Seneca Falls Inheritance is a mystery novel set in western New York state in 1848. The protagonist is a woman librarian, Glynis Tryon. It is a work of fiction but it is also a work of historical fiction. The novelist Miriam Grace Monfredo researched the topic so that she would be providing a historically accurate setting. Pages 284-289 of the novel provide some historical notes which should be read along with the novel.

Here are some essay questions based on the book. You will be given a choice of two of them to write one in-class essay for twenty minutes.

1. The novel is set during the age of reform in ante-bellum America. What aspects of the age of reform appear in the novel?

2. The novel is set during the transportation revolution in America. It was an era of canal building followed by an era of railroad building. What roles do railroads and canals play in the world of Seneca Falls and Glynis Tryon?

3. Westward expansion of the American population is a major theme of United States history. What evidences of people moving west appear in Seneca Falls Inheritance?

4. What does Seneca Falls Inheritance tells us about the ways people made a living in agricultural country and in a small town during the 1840s?

5. The position of women in American society during the 1840s is very different from that of early 21st Century America. How is marriage portrayed in the novel? What types of employment did women have in the novel? What jobs were barred to women? What was the Married Women's Property Act in New York? How did it change things for married women?

6. During the course of the novel, the Seneca Falls Convention on Women's Rights occurred. What rights did the women ask for and which of their requests was the most controversial?

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