Seneca Falls Convention

The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was the first women’s rights convention held in the Gender Equality in the United States of America of America. Left in charge of the organization, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott successful gathered over 300 people for lively debate and discussion advocating women’s rights.

About

The conference was held in July 1948 in a small town in New York State, Seneca Falls. It was the first conference held in the United States, which touched on the issues relating to women’s rights. Its creators Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott arranged for the convention in haste, catapulting off of the momentum of their ideas about women’s rights that had been brewing for some time. The centerpiece of the conference would focus on Stanton’s, “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”, drafted in the style of the “U.S. Declaration of Independence”. However, instead of the famous ‘all men are created equal’ phrase penned by Thomas Jefferson, Stanton chose to include women who should also have rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The impact of the convention was a link in a long chain which would, decades later, lead to Women’s suffrage in the United States.

The Program

Day One

• Stanton unveils her “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”, for the first time including women in the ideas and rights drafted in the “U.S. Declaration of Independence”. Stanton’s work contained twelve resolutions for women’s rights
• Convention participants approve the bulk majority of the resolutions contained in the “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” – A notable exception, women’s suffrage was considered by many as too controversial an issue at the time. However, the resolution was not discarded.

Day Two

• ”The Seneca Falls Declaration” is signed by 100 participants

Post Convention

• Directly after the convention, many of the participants who signed the declaration are affronted by critics.
• The declaration finds its way into the hands of James Gordon, publisher of the New York Herald, who largely considers its market potential in the fact that he takes the writing as a joke
• Stanton, Mott and friend Susan B. Anthony continue their advocacy of women’s rights
• Stanton crafts, in 1878, what would later become the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote by 1920

References

• http://law.jrank.org/pages/10144/Seneca-Falls-Convention.html
• http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/SenecaFalls.htm

See also

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Lucretia Mott
• Women’s Women's Suffrage