The year of 1848 was marked as the year of revolutions. In 1848, the Married Women's Property Act was passed in New York, which brought women into the reform. The Seneca Falls convention was the greatest manifestation of the “year of revolutions” for women. The Seneca Falls Convention launched the Women’s Suffrage movement. It all started when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott conveyed their plan from eight years prior, which was to plan a woman’s rights convention.The five women involved in conducting the convention were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary Ann McClintock, and Martha Coffin Wright. The ladies drafted an announcement for a “Women’s Rights Convention” that fought for the social, civil, and religious rights of women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton played a big part in the Women’s Rights movement. “She most clearly represented in one individual what the movement was all about”.1 When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was growing up, it was clear to her that her brother, Eleazar Cady, was far more important than her. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was eleven, she tried to comfort her dad, but “his only response was to sigh heavily and say, ‘Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy!”2. After that, she was determined to become all her brother was and replace him. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that boys were “learned and courageous”, and in order to become everything that her brother was, she had to become courageous and learned. To be courageous, she learned how to manage a horse, and for the learned part, she studied Greek. Dr. Hosack, who played a big part in Elizabeth’s life, helped her learn Greek. Elizabeth Cady Stanton mastered Greek, and at that time, she was the only girl in a class of boys studying Latin and math, as well as Greek, while attending the Johnstown Academy 3. She graduated from Johnstown Academy at fifteen and went on to study at Troy Female Seminary which was the most advanced school for girls during this time. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s classmates, who were all boys, were going to Union College, but she was unable to because she was a girl. She wasn’t happy while she was attending Troy Female Seminary because she knew that it was second best. Elizabeth Cady Stanton didn’t like the atmosphere of her all-girl school because of the jealousy feuds and the competitiveness with girl’s appearances and clothes. She became a strong supporter of coeducation because of her experiences while she was at Troy Female Seminary.
Edward Bayard, her brother in law, replaced Dr. Hosack by encouraging Elizabeth Cady Stanton with intellectual exercises. He introduced her to new ideas of learning such as philosophy, poetry, history, political economy; he also taught her to examine everything. Elizabeth Cady Stanton claimed that she “loved to argue with the young men about the equality of women and confessed that she often applied herself to books…and games, not necessarily for their own sake, but “to make those young men recognize my equality”4. After Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Edward Bayard spent much of their time together, it was inevitable that they were going to fall in love, but they had to keep their relationship a secret because of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s sister.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton loved to visit her cousin, Gerrit Smith, who was an active reformer during this time. Gerrit Smith’s estate was the active meeting ground for scholars, writers, radical reformers, and many more people. In 1839, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was staying at Gerrit Smith’s estate, where she met Henry Stanton. Henry Stanton stayed at Gerrit Smith’s estate while he attended many slavery conventions in the area. “Stanton was one of the most eloquent speakers of the abolitionist movement, and one of its capable and courageous leaders”5. “He was a natural replacement for Edward Bayard”6. Henry Stanton asked Elizabeth Cady Stanton to marry him very quickly and she accepted. Everybody else was against their marriage, including her dad and Edward Bayard, so she broke off her engagement due to the arguments and all the pressure. She didn’t break off her ties with Henry Stanton, she still talked to him. In the spring of 1840, Henry Stanton wrote her a letter saying that he was going to London as a delegate of the World Anti-Slavery Convention, and he asked her to marry him again. She said yes, and they got married on May 10th, 1840. “She insisted that her marriage was going to be one between equals, and she would not submit to the indignity of that word.”7 During this era, it was automatically assumed that the husband was better educated than the wife. A husband would be able to “mould” the mind of his wife, but there was little that Henry Stanton could contribute to a mind like Elizabeth’s.”8
In 1840, she attended the World Anti-Slavery convention in London with her husband, and met Lucretia Mott, who also attended with her husband. When the convention excluded women delegates, simply because of their sex, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were determined to host a women’s rights convention. This is where the idea of the convention started, but it wasn’t until eight years later that they finally decided to go through with their plan.
The Stantons lived in Boston but they had to leave due to Henry Stanton’s health, so they moved to Seneca Falls in 1847. She missed the intellectual activity that she had in Boston. When they moved to Seneca Falls, she started to live more like a housewife. Her house in Seneca Falls was harder to run, and she couldn’t find good servants. Her husband, Henry, was always away on business, so that left her home alone with the kids.
Eight years later they had a reunion, and during their reunion, Elizabeth Cady Stanton expressed to Lucretia Mott her concerns and frustrations about her housewife like life now. On July 13th, 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary M’Clintock, and Martha Coffin Wright drafted an announcement that called for a meeting that was posted the next day on July 14th, 1848 in the Seneca Falls Courier. This announcement invited women to attend “a convention to discuss the social, civil and religious conditions and rights of women” in the Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls on July 19th and 20th.9 This was the first time in history that women had done something big like this.
The Seneca Falls Convention was held from July 19th to July 20th, 1848, at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls. The convention fought for the social, civil and religious rights of women. The first day of the convention, three hundred people, including men, stood outside the chapel waiting for the convention to start. Men weren’t allowed to attend the first day, but about forty men showed up and were allowed to attend because they seemed interested in the convention. All three hundred people were gathered outside the chapel, which was supposed to be open, but it was locked. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s nephew had to climb inside the chapel, through a window, and opened the door from inside the building.
Although this was a women’s rights convention, Lucretia’ Mott’s husband, James Mott, attended as the chairman. They said that if the convention had to be conducted by a man, “Mr. Mott was an excellent choice. He gave the proceedings an air of respectability and authority that no woman could have commanded in that era”.10 James Mott and Thomas McClintock were the only two husbands out of the five organizers that participated in the convention.
The convention started out with Lucretia Mott’s speech, which explained the purpose of the convention. Lucretia Mott was good for the convention because she kept the session from wandering off the main issues and she was the only organizer who had experience public speaking. After this, although she was terrified, Elizabeth Cady Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments to the audience.
The Declaration of Sentiments talked about women’s grievances and demands, and it was the first thing on the agenda for the convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had troubles writing the Declaration of Sentiments, until she read the Declaration of Independence. She formatted the Declaration of Sentiments the same way that the Declaration of Independence was written. The ladies wanted to emphasize that the rights demanded in the Declaration of Independence should include women as well as men. The Declaration of Independence starts out with “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”11 Elizabeth Cady Stanton added in their Declaration the phrase “and women” after the word men, where it says “that all men are created equal”. The Declaration of Sentiments then continued with a list of injuries and usurpations. An example “Man has denied women to vote, compelled her to laws she had no voice in making; made her, if married, civilly dead in the eyes of law; taken from her all rights in property, even to wages she earns.”12 The final paragraphs of the Declaration of Sentiments “charged that man has endeavored ‘to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”13
Next on the agenda of the Seneca Falls Convention was a list of Resolutions, which was made solely by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Resolutions condemned and denounced laws that discriminated against women and demanded that women be treated as equals. The Resolutions “asked for the abolition of a double standard of morality, and that women be given the same right as men to speak and take part in all public and religious affairs.”14 While Elizabeth Cady Stanton was drafting the Resolutions, she turned to her husband because his legal knowledge helped in listing barriers confronting women. Henry Stanton was very compassionate, but when Elizabeth Cady Stanton showed him the ninth resolution, the right for women to vote, he was reluctant. He told Elizabeth Cady Stanton that this was preposterous and that if she continued with this “far fetched notion”15, he would rather leave town than be involved with the convention, and that is what he did. When Lucretia Mott read the resolutions, she too, was caught off gaurd when she read the ninth resolution. She told Elizabeth Cady Stanton that it would make them look ridiculous and that they had to go slowly with their demands, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton kept it.
The second day of the convention, men were allowed to attend, and about forty men did, including Frederick Douglass. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass met when Elizabeth was still living in Boston. Frederick Douglass was a firm believer in woman’s rights and he made a speech claiming that suffrage was an indispensable basis for winning freedom and equality.16 On the second day of the convention, the convention voted on the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. All of the resolutions were unanimously passed, except for the ninth resolution. Elizabeth Cady Stanton made a heartfelt speech that explained “the power of the vote women would be able to win their goals much more quickly.”17 Frederick Douglass stood by Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s side after all of the negativity of brought on by the ninth resolution. After further debate, a vote was taken, and one hundred men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton called the convention a “grand success.”18 The outcome of Seneca Falls gave women hope and courage to try for a more ambitious convention in a bigger city, in hopes of reaching a bigger audience. The Seneca Falls convention gave women the realization that they weren’t the only ones feeling this frustration of inequality. Even though some women were satisfied with their lives, they answered to the idea of a woman’s movement. During this time, there were many reform movements, but now women had one that they could relate to. The Seneca Falls convention had a marvelous attendance but other than that, it didn’t reach far, just by itself. The press took care of that “venomous reaction.”19 Majority of the publicity was unfriendly and negative. Most of the newspapers were extremely angered by the convention. They gave the convention the kind of publicity that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott never could have imagined. Newspaper editors called the convention “a petticoat rebellion arranged by love-starved spinsters.”20 Two popular newspaper editors, Horace Greeley, editor of Tribune, and James Gordon Bennett, editor of Herald, had two very different outlooks on the convention. Horace Greeley was still on the fence about how he felt about the convention but when he wrote his paper, he tried not to be objective. He said, “The great majority desire no such thing… they prefer to devote their time to the discharge of home duties” but he went on to say “however unwise and unmistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right such as must be conceded”21 After this, Greeley only published fair and accurate information of what women were doing. Horace Greeley let Elizabeth Cady Stanton share her letters and articles in his columns to help her spread word about the movement. James Gordon Bennett, on the other hand, was very critical of the convention and tried to stigmatize the women. He printed the entire Declaration of Sentiments, in hopes of it having a bad outcome, but this is exactly what Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted. She said, “Imagine the publicity given to our ideas by thus appearing in a widely circulated sheet like the Herald. It will start women thinking, and men too; and when men and women think about a new question, the first step in progress is taken.”22
After seeing all of this publicity, with most of it being negative, many signers of the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions were perturbed by the reaction that they withdrew their names. Some people even turned against the organizers of the convention. “It was difficult for anyone to take an unpopular or unconventional step that even Elizabeth Cady Stanton was affected by the outcry against the Seneca Falls Convention.”23 Even with all of the negativity, there was so much to talk about during the convention that two days wasn’t enough. The women decided to resume the sessions two weeks later in Rochester, New York. This meeting was held by a different group of ladies, and they demanded that the meeting be conducted by a woman. The chairwoman of this meeting was Abagail Bush. At first, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were against this and almost got up and left, but by the end of the first session, they loved the chairwoman’s competence and were supportive. From this point on, these convention’s were run by women.
The Seneca Falls Convention was the beginning to the women's rights movement. Many women had to fight for many years for equality and for the right to vote. After 72 years of fighting, women were finally given the right to vote. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Seneca Falls Convention died before women were given the right to vote, but they started a huge movement toward equality.