First Women's Rights Convention: Seneca Falls, New York
The First Women's Rights Convention, held on July 19-20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, marked a pivotal moment in the American women's rights movement. This gathering, largely attended by residents from western New York, was the first organized effort to advocate for women's rights in the United States, inspired by earlier calls for equality and suffrage that had emerged since colonial times. Notable figures such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were initially sidelined at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London due to their gender, played crucial roles in convening this event. The convention produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which boldly asserted that women deserved equal rights, including the right to vote, hold property, and control their wages.
The Declaration mirrored the style of the Declaration of Independence, emphasizing women's status as equals to men and calling for expanded educational and professional opportunities. Following the convention, subsequent meetings continued to promote women's rights, leading to early legislative victories such as property rights for married women. Despite facing significant societal opposition, the Seneca Falls Convention laid the groundwork for future advocacy and progress in the quest for gender equality in America, highlighting the ongoing struggle for women's rights that would persist for decades to come.
First Women's Rights Convention: Seneca Falls, New York
First Women's Rights Convention: Seneca Falls, New York
The American movement for women's rights had its formal start on July 19, 1848, when the first convention to discuss the rights of women was held at Seneca Falls, New York. It was attended largely by residents of western New York state.
This was the beginning of the organized women's movement, even though a few voices had been raised since colonial days. In 1647, Margaret Brent appeared before the Maryland assembly to demand the right to vote in an unprecedented and ultimately unsuccessful appeal. Thomas Paine, the writer best known for his advocacy of the American Revolution, was also a consistent champion of the vote for women. Other early proponents of equality for women included the Quakers, who historically favored granting women the right to vote.
Some delegates to the Continental Congress also favored enfranchising women, and the matter was debated while the United States Constitution was being drafted. So intense were the feelings for and against, however, that the congress was forced to sidestep the issue by leaving it to the individual states to formulate voting laws that might also give the franchise to women. Also sidestepped was the subject of slavery, on which the delegates were similarly unable to agree. In order to achieve ratification of the Constitution, it was considered necessary to keep the status of women and slaves unresolved.
Books such as A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by the British writer Mary Wollstonecraft, had an influence in intellectual circles on both sides of the Atlantic. So too did later works such as The Equality of the Sexes (1838) by the southern abolitionist Sarah Grimke, and Woman in the 19th Century (1845) by the literary critic and reformer Margaret Fuller. These were isolated works, however. In mid-19th century America, the traditional belief that women were inferior and that their only proper roles were childbearing and housekeeping still held sway. Rare were those who accepted women as adult human beings with fully developed individual attributes and innate rights equal to those of men.
The fact that women were regarded as second- or third-class beings became unmistakably clear to two American women active in the cause of abolition when they journeyed to London, England, in 1840 to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. One of them was Lucretia Coffin Mott of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A devoted reformer, she was like her husband James Mott an ardent Quaker. She had traveled extensively as a lecturer, speaking at Quaker meetings in various parts of the United States. The other woman was a youthful resident of Seneca Falls, namely Elizabeth Cady Stanton who had traveled with her husband Henry Brewster Stanton to attend the London meeting. Because they were women, however, Mott and Stanton were denied official accreditation and could not be seated in the convention. Their attempt to participate touched off a lengthy debate in which noted clergymen put forward the claim that equal status for women was contrary to God's will. Finally (unlike six less fortunate women who had also been excluded), Mott and Stanton were granted the privilege of being seated where they could hear the proceedings, but they were hidden from view by a curtain and denied the right to speak.
The rebuff was to have historic consequences, for it convinced Mott that an emphasis should now be placed on women's rights. The subject occupied much of her attention for the rest of her life. Stanton, who was to become a dynamic advocate of equality, was strongly influenced by Mott. The discussions that they held in London led directly to the Women's Rights Convention in 1848 at Seneca Falls.
The gathering, held in the chapel of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, approved Stanton's celebrated bill of rights for women. This was the famous Declaration of Sentiments, patterned after the Declaration of Independence, asserting that women are the equals of men and are entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. These rights included the right to hold property, to control their own wages, and to have a voice in the management of their children in addition to the right to vote. The Declaration of Sentiments also demanded wider educational and professional opportunities for women.
A similar convention was held in 1850 in Salem, Ohio, a Quaker center and an important link in the Underground Railroad. It was followed by the first national women's rights convention, which took place in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1850 under the leadership of Lucy Stone. Some 250 delegates were present at the Worcester gathering, representing nine states.
The organized effort to achieve equal rights for women begun at Seneca Falls led to some small early victories. For example, in 1852 Kentucky passed a law permitting widows with children of school age to vote for school district trustees. Other states enacted legislation permitting married women to own property in their own names. It would be many decades, however, before more significant progress was made.