The Seneca Falls Convention. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention was the very first women's rights convention in the United States, kicking off a decades-long struggle for gender equality. Here, we'll tell the story of the Seneca Falls Convention and its lasting legacy. A story that started with a tea party. But we'll get into all that in just a minute.
First, we have to understand the traditional 19th century gender roles. Men... dominated the public sphere by working, voting, or participating in politics, while women stayed home to cook, clean, and raise children. There were restrictions in many states on women voting, owning property, and having control of their own income.
One woman who advocated for women's rights in the 19th century was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a homemaker in Seneca Falls, New York. Born into a progressive family, Stanton grew up highly educated and enjoyed an active social and political life before settling down with a family. But Stanton felt stifled as just a wife and mother to seven children, longing for a life outside the home. She soon found it in a local group of Quaker women who embraced equality, community, and activism. They invited her to a small social gathering, a tea party, which included a Quaker activist named Lucretia Mott.
Mott and Stanton had met years before at an anti-slavery convention in London, but they were denied entry due to their gender. It was during the Tea Party that Stanton lamented the injustice of a woman's unequal status in society. Her words resonated with the others, so the women decided to hold a gathering that would call attention to the social, civil, and religious rights of women.
The first of its kind in the United States. It became known as the Seneca Falls Convention, taking place on July 19th and 20th, 1848, with over 300 people in attendance. Like Stanton and Mott, many in attendance were also active in the anti-slavery movement, including Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist who was one of the few men and the only African American to attend. At the convention, they read the Declaration of Sentiments. A document drafted by Stanton and modeled after the Declaration of Independence, declaring, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.
The sentiments outlined the civil and political rights denied to American women, which included education, property ownership, child custody in the event of a divorce, and most importantly, the right to vote. On the second day of the convention, 12 resolutions were passed and signed by 68 women and 32 men. The Seneca Falls Convention was the first time that American women demanded a change, and it caused quite a stir around the country. Many newspapers mocked them with unflattering political cartoons, while columns ridiculed the convention as dull and uninteresting or insane and ludicrous.
One writer declared equal rights for women to be a monstrous injury to all mankind. The wave of negative press was too humiliating for some of the participants to handle, particularly those who had signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Several went as far as withdrawing their names from the document and joining the opposition. But public shaming didn't stop the movement. The impact and promise of the Seneca Falls Convention was undeniable.
Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton felt a renewed sense of purpose and threw themselves headlong into the fight for equal rights. A month later, a second, larger convention was held in Rochester, with the Declaration of Sentiments gaining 107 additional signatures. The Seneca Falls Convention would signal the birth of the women's rights movement. One particular resolution in the Declaration of Sentiments would evolve into a full-fledged crusade—the demand for women's suffrage.
Decades of political organizing, marches, and protests would ultimately result in the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment. Which guaranteed women the right to vote. Something that couldn't have happened without the Seneca Falls Convention.