What was the Seneca Falls Convention?
Originally known as the Women’s Rights Convention, the Seneca Falls Convention fought for the social, civil, and religious rights of women. The meeting took place on July 19 and 20, 1848 at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, new York.
Despite little publicity, 300 people, mostly local residents, showed up. On the first day, only women were allowed to attend (the second day was open to men).
Elizabeth Cady Stantonone of the organizers of the meeting, began with a speech about the goals and purpose of the convention:
“We are gathered to protest a form of government which exists without the consent of the governed – to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are obliged to support, to have laws also shameful. such as giving a man the power to punish and imprison his wife, to take the salary she earns, the property she inherits and, in the event of separation, the children of his love.
The congress proceeded to discuss the 11 resolutions on Women’s rights. All were adopted unanimously, except for the ninth resolution, which demanded the right to vote for women. Stanton and African-American abolitionist Frederic Douglass made impassioned speeches in its defense before it was finally (and barely) passed.
Who organized the Seneca Falls Convention
The five women who organized the Seneca Falls Convention were also active in the abolitionist movementwho called for an end to slavery and racial discrimination. They included:
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a prominent women’s rights advocate who was a key organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention. Stanton first became involved in women’s rights after discussions with her father, a law professor, and his students. She studied at the Troy Female Seminary and worked on women’s property rights reform in the early 1840s.
- Lucretia Motta Quaker preacher from Philadelphia, was known for her activism against slavery, women’s rights and religious reform.
- Mary M’Clintockthe daughter of the anti-slavery Quaker, temperance and women’s rights activists. In 1833, M’Clintock and Mott organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. At the Seneca Falls Convention, M’Clintock was appointed secretary.
- Martha Coffin Wright, the sister of Lucretia Mott. In addition to having always defended women’s rights, she was an abolitionist who ran a station on the Underground Railroad from his home in Auburn, New York.
- Jane Huntanother Quaker activist, was a member of M’Clintock’s extended family by marriage.
Stanton and Mott first met in London in 1840, where they were attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention with their husbands. When the convention excluded female delegates solely because of their gender, the two men decided to organize a convention on women’s rights.
Did you know? Susan B. Anthony did not attend the Seneca Falls conference. She met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851 and spent the next fifty years fighting for women’s rights alongside her, including co-founding the American Equal Rights Association.
In the United States, women’s rights reformers had already begun fighting for women’s rights to speak out on moral and political issues beginning in the 1830s. Around the same time, in New York, where Stanton lived, legal reformers discussed equality and challenged state laws prohibiting married women from owning property. In 1848, equal rights for women was a controversial issue.
In July 1848, Stanton, frustrated at having to stay home to raise children, convinced Mott, Wright, and M’Clintock to help organize the Seneca Falls Convention and write its main manifesto, the Declaration of Sentiments.
Together, the five women wrote a notice announcing “a convention to discuss the condition and social, civil and religious rights of women” around Hunt’s. tea table.
LEARN MORE: Early women’s rights activists wanted more than the right to vote
Declaration of feelings
The Declaration of Sentiments was the Seneca Falls Convention’s manifesto that outlined women’s grievances and demands. Written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it summarizes the importance of the Seneca Falls Convention: for women to fight for their constitutionally guaranteed right to equality as American citizens.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal,” the document states. Inspired by the Declaration of IndependenceThe Declaration of Sentiments affirmed the equality of women in politics, family, education, employment, religion and morality.
The declaration began with 19 “abuses and usurpations” intended to destroy “a woman’s confidence in her own powers, to diminish her self-esteem and to incite her to lead a dependent and abject life.”
Because women did not have the right to vote – a right granted to “the most ignorant and degraded men” – they were forced to submit to laws to which they did not agree. Women were denied education and assigned an inferior role in the Church.
Additionally, women were required to obey their husbands and could not own property, including the wages they earned (which technically belonged to their husbands). And they received unequal rights in the event of divorce.
In light of these abuses, the statement calls on women to “get rid of such government.”
The resolutions
Next came a list of 11 resolutions demanding that women be considered equal to men. The resolutions called on Americans to consider any laws placing women in an inferior position to men as having “neither force nor authority.” They decided that women would have equal rights within the Church and equal access to jobs.
The ninth resolution was the most controversial, as it called on women “to secure their sacred right to the franchise,” or the right to vote.
Although its passage led many supporters of women’s rights to withdraw their support, the Ninth Resolution became a cornerstone of the women’s suffrage movement.
Reactions to the Seneca Falls Convention
In New York and across the United States, newspapers covered the convention, both for and against its goals.
Horace Greelythe influential editor-in-chief of The New York Tribune, echoed the opinions of many people at the time. Although he was skeptical about granting women the right to vote, he argued that if Americans truly believed in the right Constitutionwomen must have equal rights:
“When a sincere republican is asked seriously to say what adequate reason he can give for refusing the demand of women for equal participation with men in political rights, he must answer: None. However imprudent and erroneous this request may be, it is only the assertion of a natural right, and this must be conceded.
The fight for women’s rights
Two weeks later, on August 2, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention met again at the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, to reaffirm the goals of the movement to a wider audience.
Over the next several years, convention leaders continued to campaign for women’s rights at state and national events. Reformers frequently referred to the Declaration of Sentiments when campaigning for women’s rights.
Between 1848 and 1862, participants in the Seneca Falls Convention used the Declaration of Sentiments to “employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the state and national legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press on our behalf.
After 72 years of organized struggle, American women finally won the same rights as men at the ballot box when, in 1920, women gained the right to vote with the passage of the law. Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In November 1920, more than 8 million American women voted in the presidential election. These voters included many black women, although many others were prevented from voting due to discriminatory laws, intimidation, and other disenfranchisement tactics. Native American women (and men) did not gain the right to vote until four years later, when the Indian Citizen Act made Native Americans U.S. citizens. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act protected the right to vote of all American citizens, men and women.
LEARN MORE: 7 Things You May Not Know About the Women’s Suffrage Movement
SOURCES
Declaration of feelings and resolutions. Rutgers University.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. National Park Service.
Jane Hunt. National Park Service.
Lucretia Mott. National Park Service.
Mary M’Clintock. National Park Service.
Martha C. Wright. National Park Service.
Report of the Women’s Rights Convention. National Park Service.
Second day of the Seneca Falls Convention, July 20, 1848. Library of Congress.
Seneca Falls Congress. The Encyclopedia of New York State.
The Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Conference, 1848. Fordham University.
The Seneca Falls Convention. Library of Congress.
The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Ground for Women’s Suffrage. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.