The Seneca Falls Convention
"July 19, 1848, was a sunny summer day and the small crowd began to grow from early in the morning. Neighbors came from fifty miles around by horse and buggy, in farm wagons, and some on foot.... But when they reached the chapel to start the meeting they found the door locked against them. They had been promised the use of it but the minister had become convinced that he was inviting trouble. He wouldn't go back on his word and refuse them the hall but he hoped that when they found the door locked they would get the message. Elizabeth called to a young nephew, got him to climb through a window and open the door from the inside, and the crowd moved in."
~ Bill Severn in Free but Not Equal: How Women Won the Right to Vote
~ Bill Severn in Free but Not Equal: How Women Won the Right to Vote
“He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.” -Declaration of Rights and Sentiments |
The Convention was composed of speeches and debates about women's position in society. The highlight of the event was Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. This document listed premises concerning the state of women and improvements that were necessary. All but one of the resolutions were unanimously accepted by the attendees. The question of women's suffrage split the Convention in two, yet the Convention's eventual acceptance of suffrage is one of its enduring legacies.
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Kim Gandy Interview:
The Convention
"Kim Gandy, former president ... of the National Organization for Women, elected by the group's grassroots members in 2001 and again in 2005. She has served as a national officer of NOW since 1987 and in state, local, and regional leadership positions since 1973."
-National Organization for Women |
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The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments
"It was Elizabeth Stanton's idea to change the Declaration of Independence into their own Declaration of Sentiments. She found a copy of it in Mary's [a friend's] bookcase and began reading it aloud, substituting words that declared woman's independence from man in the same stirring language of rebellion that had inspired the nation to fight for its freedom from King George. Because the declaration of 1776 had listed eighteen grievances against the King they were determined that women should list as many against men."
-Bill Severn, Free but Not Equal: How Women Won the Right to Vote |
"The meeting, as I understand it, was called to discuss Woman's Rights. Well, I do not pretend to know exactly what woman's rights are; but I do know that I have groaned for forty years, yea, for fifty years, under a sense of woman's wrongs...I rejoice that so many women are here; it denotes that they are waking up to some sense of their situation."
~Mehitable Haskell, a woman at the Convention, speaking in 1851 |