SENECA FALLS
By: Courtney Harris
THE START
The idea for this movement was stemmed from the1840 World AntiSlavery Convention held in London.
Female delegates were not permitted to share their input or thoughts
in debates.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were both delegates
present at the convention.
Both women were angered at unfair treatment between the sexes.
They left the hall to discuss other matters, which led to them to the
idea they needed a convention of their own.
LUCRETIA MOTT
Former teacher who had grown up in Boston.
She was making exactly half of the percentage that the male
Bostonian teachers were making.
This idea sparked her interest in women’s rights.
In 1811, she married a fellow teacher James Mott.
They moved to Philadelphia to become members of the traveling
group of Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers.
Spoke on issues such as temperance, peace, and abolition of slavery.
In1833, Lucretia Mott attended the first meeting of the American
Anti-Slavery Society.
Led her to founding a women’s auxiliary, called the Female AntiSlavery Society.
Mott was elected the president of this group.
caused a rift between her and the Society of Friends who found her
positon unholy.
Unfazed by this conflict, Lucretia Mott went on to be the key
organizer of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in the
year 1837
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the daughter of a lawyer and United
States Congressman.
She had taken an interest to studying her father’s law books and
developed a passion for the law and the morality behind it.
She had taken a keen interest into becoming a progressive leader.
movement.
In 1840, she was wedded to Henry Brewster Stanton.
In their vows, the phrase, “promise to obey” was omitted at Cady’s
request. She refused to obey a person to whom she was entering into
an equal relationship with.
In the plans for their European honeymoon, they included the
opportunity to be present at the Anti-Slavery Convention in London.
There in the spring of 1841, they encountered Lucretia Mott, a
feminist, Quaker minister, and abolitionist whose influence helped
solidify Elizabeth’s decision to be part of the women’s rights
BEFORE THE CONVENTION
Before the Seneca Falls Convention, there had been problems with
the issue of equality.
Legal reformers in New York challenged the state to make laws
prohibiting married women from owning property.
Stanton began to circulate a petition in 1848.
These petitions led to the passing of the New York married women’s
property bill.
MARRIED WOMAN’S PROPERTY BILL
This law entitled the women of New York to rights they were not given
before.
It gave married women to keep property they brought into marriage,
in their own name.
It also allowed them to keep all wages that they earned and keep
custody of their children in cases of separation or divorce.
This gave Elizabeth Cady Stanton more hope in her want for women’s
rights and in 1848, Stanton and Mott went forward with their earlier
made plans.
Stanton and Mott met and organized what was the long awaited
women’s rights convention, alongside other female activists.
The meeting was to be held at Seneca Falls, New York.
An announcement was made in the Seneca County Courier, which
stated that the convention would be to discuss social, civil, and
religious rights of women.
The first meeting would be exclusively for the invited women asked
to attend and the second day would be open to the public to hear a
speech given by Mott.
THE CONVENTION
This historic meeting took place at the Wesleyan Church chapel
located in Seneca Falls.
Even though it was stated that the church on the first day was to be
filled with invited women only, a massive crowd of both sexes tried to
enter the then locked chapel.
Once the doors had opened, the masses streamed in.
From around 100 to 300 people were in attendance. This number
included many men who also supported the notion women’s rights.
The majority in attendance at the convention were Caucasian but,
there were a small quantity of American Americans.
DAY ONE- DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
Day one of the convention was reserved for female speakers only.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the onlookers with a Declaration
of Sentiments and Resolutions.
It stated, “All men and women” were created equal under the law.
To endow them with inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness
Stanton and Mott both gave several speeches that helped outline the
women’s cause.
After much debate the Declaration and Resolutions was passed mostly
just as it was written.
The biggest issue in the resolutions was giving women the right to vote.
Many men and some women alike saw this as too much of a radical
decision.
Lucretia Mott was not opposed to having this tossed out, but Stanton
stayed determined and held strong ground with tremendous support from
prominent African-American abolitionist, Frederick Douglas.
After Douglas’s convincing argument of suffrage being the power to
choose representatives and make laws, which is a right that all others
were secured, the suffrage resolution was passed narrowly.
CONVENTION BACKLASH
Following two days of rigorous debate, 100 women and men signed the
Seneca Falls Declaration.
Many, later, removed their names due to being put under subjective
criticism.
The convention was put under fire, causing many to break out into
protest and hold onto an array of sarcasm.
This backlash inspired Frederick Douglas to put into words that a
discussion of animal rights would have caused less of a dispute than for
the discussion and principles of women’s rights.
A publisher of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, ridiculed
that the whole declaration to be nothing but a mockery.
Stanton and many of the other Seneca Falls attendees took this publicity
in stride and hailed Bennett’s move as a way to further their movement.
ON GOING PROGRESS
For the next several decades these women led exertion for women’s
rights.
This included the right to vote, which would be an ongoing struggle for
women.
Stanton later on co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association
in 1869.
In 1876, Lucretia Mott and the National Woman Suffrage Association
issued a Declaration and Protest of the Women of the United States. This
reintroduced the fight for women’s rights.
They sought impeachment of all political leaders who allowed women to
be taxed without allowing them to hold representation. It also went after
the fact women were not allowed on juries which denied them the right to
a fair trial with a jury of their peers.
Mott, lived a life full of continued activism in supporting the abolition of
slavery and woman’s rights, died in 1880.
In 1890, the National Woman Suffrage Association combined with
another organization to form the National American Woman Suffrage
Movement.
Stanton was elected the president. In 1892, she was succeeded by
Susan B. Anthony.
Each new term of Congress, Stanton presented a federal woman’s
suffrage amendment.
Stanton died in 1902 but each year her amendment was presented
until it was finally passed in the form of the Nineteenth Amendment
added to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
When the amendment passed only one signer from the 1848
Convention, Charlotte Woodward, was alive to cast her ballot.
The Seneca Falls Convention made slow but relentless progress.
The achievements made from this convention were astounding.
Some colleges began allowing women’s admission and enrollment as
students.
More states enacted the married women’s property acts presented
by Stanton.
The convention helped progress society and make changes that
would go on to help our future.
WORK CITED
Free, Laura. Seneca Falls Convention. n.d.
www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/encylopedia/entries/seneca-fallsconvention.html. (accessed November 25, 2014).
Kelly, Martin. Women's Suffrage . n.d.
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/womenssuffrage/a/senecafalls.html
. (accessed November 25, 2014).
Law, J Rank. Seneca Falls Convention . n.d.
http://law.jrank.org/pages/10144/Seneca-Falls-Convention.html.
(accessed November 25, 2014).
Ryder, Constance B. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. n.d.
http://historynet.com/elizabeth-cady-stanton.html. (accessed November
25, 2014).
Wayne, Tiffany. Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. n.d. http://educationportal.com/academy/lesson/seneca-falls-convention-of-1848-definitionsummary-significance.html#lesson (accessed November 25, 2014).
PICTURES CITED
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/anti-slavery-conventiongranger.jpg
http://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/images/friends-historicallibrary/mott570.jpg
http://www.transformativelives.org/slider/ecstanton_600px.jpg
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/aa/stanton/aa_stanton_women_2_e.jpg
http://interactive.wxxi.org/files/images/highlights/SenecaFalls.jpg
https://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/969/flashcards/974969/jpg/declaration_
of_sentements1338757148118.jpg
http://www.thenewagenda.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/index1.jpg
http://interactive.wxxi.org/files/images/highlights/womens_history_month.jpg