Seneca Falls Convention

thumb|Signers of the [[Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls in order: Lucretia Coffin Mott is on top of the list|389x389px]]

thumb|This mahogany tea table was used on July 16, 1848, to compose much of the first draft of the [[Declaration of Sentiments.|300x300px]]

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. Its organizers advertised it as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women's rights conventions, including the Rochester Women's Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, two weeks later. In 1850 the first in a series of annual National Women's Rights Conventions met in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Female Quakers local to the area organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was not a Quaker. They planned the event during a visit to the area by Philadelphia-based Lucretia Mott. Mott, a Quaker, was famous for her oratorical ability, which was rare for non-Quaker women during an era in which women were often not allowed to speak in public.

The meeting comprised six sessions including a lecture on law, a humorous presentation, and multiple discussions about the role of women in society. Stanton and the Quaker women presented two prepared documents, the Declaration of Sentiments and an accompanying list of resolutions, to be debated and modified before being put forward for signatures. A heated debate sprang up regarding women's right to vote, with many – including Mott – urging the removal of this concept, but Frederick Douglass, who was the convention's sole African American attendee, argued eloquently for its inclusion, and the suffrage resolution was retained. Exactly 100 of approximately 300 attendees signed the document, mostly women.

The convention was seen by some of its contemporaries, including featured speaker Mott, as one important step among many others in the continuing effort by women to gain for themselves a greater proportion of social, civil and moral rights,

while it was viewed by others as a revolutionary beginning to the struggle by women for complete equality with men. Stanton considered the Seneca Falls Convention to be the beginning of the women's rights movement, an opinion that was echoed in the History of Woman Suffrage, which Stanton co-wrote. By the time of the National Women's Rights Convention of 1851, the issue of women's right to vote had become a central tenet of the United States women's rights movement. These conventions became annual events until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

Background

Reform movement

In the decades leading up to 1848, a small number of women began to push against restrictions imposed upon them by society. A few men aided in this effort. In 1831, Reverend Charles Grandison Finney began allowing women to pray aloud in gatherings of men and women. The Second Great Awakening was challenging women's traditional roles in religion. Recalling the era in 1870, Paulina Wright Davis set Finney's decision as the beginning of the American women's reform movement.

A few women began to gain fame as writers and speakers on the subject of abolition. In the 1830s, Lydia Maria Child wrote to encourage women to write a will, and Frances Wright wrote books on women's rights and social reform. The Grimké sisters published their views against slavery in the late 1830s, and they began speaking to mixed gatherings of men and women for Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, as did Abby Kelley. Although these women lectured primarily on the evils of slavery, the fact that a woman was speaking in public was itself a noteworthy stand for the cause of women's rights. Ernestine Rose began lecturing in 1836 to groups of women on the subject of the "Science of Government" which included the enfranchisement of women.

thumb|[[James Mott|James and Lucretia Mott]]

In 1840, at the urging of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton traveled with their husbands and a dozen other American male and female abolitionists to London for the first World's Anti-Slavery Convention, with the expectation that the motion put forward by Phillips to include women's participation in the convention would be controversial. In London, the proposal was rebuffed after a full day of debate; the women were allowed to listen from the gallery but not allowed to speak or vote. Mott and Stanton became friends in London and on the return voyage and together planned to organize their own convention to further the cause of women's rights, separate from abolition concerns. In 1842 Thomas M'Clintock and his wife Mary Ann became founding members of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and helped write its constitution. When he moved to Rochester in 1847, Frederick Douglass joined Amy and Isaac Post and the M'Clintocks in this Rochester-based chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Sophia Ripley was one of the participants. In 1843, Fuller published The Great Lawsuit, asking women to claim themselves as self-dependent.

In the 1840s, women in America were reaching out for greater control of their lives. Husbands and fathers directed the lives of women, and many doors were closed to female participation.

In the fall of 1841, Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave her first public speech, on the subject of the Temperance movement, in front of 100 women in Seneca Falls. She wrote to her friend Elizabeth J. Neal that she moved both the audience and herself to tears, saying "I infused into my speech a Homeopathic dose of woman's rights, as I take good care to do in many private conversations."

Lucretia Mott met with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Boston in 1842, and discussed again the possibility of a woman's rights convention. They talked once more in 1847, prior to Stanton moving from Boston to Seneca Falls.

In March 1848, Garrison, the Motts, Abby Kelley Foster, Stephen Symonds Foster and others hosted an Anti-Sabbath meeting in Boston, to work toward the elimination of laws that apply only to Sunday, and to gain for the laborer more time away from toil than just one day of rest per week. Lucretia Mott and two other women were active within the executive committee, and Mott spoke to the assemblage. Lucretia Mott raised questions about the validity of blindly following religious and social tradition.

Political gains

On April 7, 1848, in response to a citizen's petition, the New York State Assembly passed the Married Woman's Property Act, giving women the right to retain the property they brought into a marriage, as well as property they acquired during the marriage. Creditors could not seize a wife's property to pay a husband's debts. which relied on its readers' familiarity with the United States Declaration of Independence to demand "That all are created free and equal ...", The General Assembly in Pennsylvania passed a similar married woman's property law a few weeks after New York, one which Lucretia Mott and others had championed. These progressive state laws were seen by American women as a sign of new hope for women's rights.

On June 2, 1848, in Rochester, New York, Gerrit Smith was nominated as the Liberty Party's presidential candidate. At the National Liberty Convention, held June 14–15 in Buffalo, New York, Smith gave a major address, including in his speech a demand for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, females as well as males being entitled to vote."

The M'Clintocks came to Waterloo from a Quaker community in Philadelphia. They rented property from Richard P. Hunt, a wealthy Quaker and businessman.

Announcement

thumb|[[Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848 with two of her three sons]]

After Quaker worship on Sunday July 9, 1848, Lucretia Coffin Mott joined Mary Ann M'Clintock, Martha Coffin Wright (Mott's witty sister, several months pregnant), Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Jane Hunt for tea at the Hunt home in Waterloo. The two eldest M'Clintock daughters, Elizabeth and Mary Ann Jr. may have accompanied their mother. Jane Hunt had given birth two weeks earlier, and was tending the baby at home. Over tea, Stanton, the only non-Quaker present, vented a lifetime's worth of pent-up frustration, her "long-accumulating discontent" about women's subservient place in society. The five women decided to hold a women's rights convention in the immediate future, while the Motts were still in the area, Other papers such as Douglass's North Star picked up the notice, printing it on July 14. The meeting place was to be the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Seneca Falls. Built by a congregation of abolitionists and financed in part by Richard Hunt, Taken together, the resolutions demanded that women should have equality in the family, education, jobs, religion, and morals. Stanton changed a few words of the Declaration of Independence to make it appropriate for a statement by women, replacing "The history of the present King of Great Britain" with "The history of mankind" as the basis for "usurpations on the part of man toward woman." A list of grievances was composed to form the second part of the Declaration.

Between July 16 and July 19, at home on her own writing desk, Stanton edited the grievances and resolutions. Henry Brewster Stanton, a lawyer, politician and Stanton's husband, helped substantiate the document by locating "extracts from laws bearing unjustly against woman's property interests." Stanton then copied the Declaration and resolutions into final draft form for presentation at the meeting. When he saw the addition of woman suffrage, Henry Stanton warned his wife "you will turn the proceedings into a farce." He, like most men of his day, was not in favor of women gaining voting rights. Because he intended to run for elective office, he left Seneca Falls to avoid being connected with a convention promoting such an unpopular cause. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked her sister Harriet Cady Eaton to accompany her; Eaton brought her young son Daniel.

On July 16, Lucretia Mott sent a note to Stanton apologizing in advance for James Mott not being able to attend the first day, as he was feeling "quite unwell". Lucretia Mott wrote to say she would bring her sister, Martha Wright, and that the two women would participate in both days of the convention.

First day

On July 19, 1848, the morning of the first day of convention, the organizing committee arrived at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel shortly before ten o'clock on a hot, sunny day to find a crowd gathered outside and the church doors locked—an overlooked detail. The first session adjourned at 2:30 p.m.

Afternoon session

After a pause for refreshment in the 90° heat, Twenty-seven-year-old Elizabeth W. M'Clintock then delivered a speech, and the first day's business was called to a close.

Evening speech

In the evening, the meeting was opened to all persons, and Lucretia Mott addressed a large audience. She spoke of the progress of other reform movements and so framed for her listeners the social and moral context for the struggle for women's rights. She asked the men present to help women gain the equality they deserved. The question of men's signatures was solved by having two sections of signatures, one for women followed by one for men. One hundred of the 300 present signed the Declaration of Sentiments, including 68 women and 32 men. Amelia Bloomer was one of the participants who did not endorse the Declaration; she was focused at that time on the temperance movement. Ansel Bascom was the most conspicuous attendee who chose not to sign the Declaration. The National Reformer reported that those in the audience who evidently regarded the Declaration as "too bold and ultra", including the lawyers known to be opposed to the equal rights of women, "failed to call out any opposition, except in a neighboring <small>BAR-ROOM</small>."

Those who opposed this resolution argued that its presence would cause the other, more rational resolutions to lose support. Others argued that only the social, civil and religious rights of women should be addressed, not the political rights. stood and spoke eloquently in favor; he said that he could not accept the right to vote himself as a black man if women could not also claim that right. Douglass projected that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. "In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world." Douglass's powerful words rang true with many in attendance, and the resolution passed by a large majority. Lucretia Mott stood to offer another resolution: "Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce." This, the twelfth resolution, passed.

Mary Ann M'Clintock Jr. spoke briefly, calling upon woman to arouse from her lethargy and be true to herself and her God. Douglass again rose to speak in support of the cause of woman.

Soon, newspapers across the country picked up the story. Reactions varied widely. In Massachusetts, the Lowell Courier published its opinion that, with women's equality, "the lords must wash the dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings."

Further conventions

Signers of the Declaration of Sentiments hoped for "a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country" to follow their own meeting. Because of the fame and drawing power of Lucretia Mott, who would not be staying in the Upstate New York area for much longer, some of the participants at Seneca Falls organized the Rochester Women's Rights Convention two weeks later in Rochester, New York, with Lucretia Mott as its featured speaker. Unlike the Seneca Falls convention, the Rochester convention took the controversial step of electing a woman, Abigail Bush, as its presiding officer. In the next two years, "the infancy ... of the movement", other local and state women's rights conventions were called in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

Charlotte Woodward, alone among all 100 signers, was the only one still alive in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment passed. Woodward was not well enough to vote herself.

Remembrances

thumb|upright=1.3|U.S. [[commemorative stamp of 1948, Seneca Falls Convention titled 100 Years of Progress of Women: 1848–1948. From left to right, Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Lucretia Mott.]]

A stamp was issued in 1948 in remembrance of the Seneca Falls Convention, featuring Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Lucretia Mott as part of a Centennial Celebration in Seneca Falls.

The Women's Rights National Historical Park was established in 1980, and covers a total of 6.83 acres (27,600 m<sup>2</sup>) of land in Seneca Falls and nearby Waterloo, New York, USA.

The park consists of four major historical properties, including the Wesleyan Methodist Church, which was the site of the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home, and the M'Clintock House, which was where the Declaration of Sentiments, resolutions, and speeches were drawn up for the Seneca Falls Convention. The Wesleyan Methodist Church and the M'Clintock House were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

In 1998 First Lady Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention.

In 2015, #FindtheSentiments was launched by the White House under Barack Obama in an effort to find an original of the Declaration of Sentiments. The call to action was picked up by social media and several historical sites. To date, the Sentiments have not been found.

Historiography

In 1870, Paulina Wright Davis authored a history of the antebellum women's rights movement, The History of the National Woman's Rights Movement, and received approval of her account from many of the involved suffragists including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

In 1876, in the spirit of the nation's centennial celebrations, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony decided to write a more expansive history of the women's rights movement. They invited Lucy Stone to help, but Stone declined to be part of the project; she was of the opinion that Stanton and Anthony would not fairly portray the divisive split between NWSA and American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Stanton and Anthony wrote without her and, in 1881, they published the first volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, and placed themselves at each of its most important events, marginalizing Stone's contribution.

According to Lisa Tetrault, a professor of women's history, the Seneca Falls Convention was central to their rendition of the movement's history. Neither Stanton nor Anthony had been at the 1850 convention, which was associated with their rivals. Stanton, however, had played a key role at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, at which Stone had not been present. In the early 1870s, Stanton and Anthony began to present Seneca Falls as the beginning of the women's rights movement, an origin story that downplayed Stone's role. Pointing out that the women's rights movement could be said to have begun even earlier than Seneca Falls, Tetrault said the History of Woman Suffrage dealt with these earlier events relatively briefly in its first three chapters, the first of which is titled "Preceding Causes." In the volume, Stanton did not mention the Liberty Party's plank on woman suffrage pre-dating the Seneca Falls Convention by a month, and she did not describe the Worcester National Women's Rights Convention, organized by Stone and Davis in 1850, as the beginning of the women's rights movement. Rather, Stanton named the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention in London as the birth of the "movement for woman's suffrage, in both England and America". which she called "the greatest movement for human liberty recorded on the pages of history—a demand for freedom to one-half the entire race." though Anthony had no part in the Seneca Falls meeting. Subsequently, it was displayed prominently on the stage at each of the most important suffrage meetings until 1920,

Lucretia Mott reflected in August 1848 upon the two women's rights conventions in which she had participated that summer, and assessed them no greater than other projects and missions she was involved with. She wrote that the two gatherings were "greatly encouraging; and give hope that this long neglected subject will soon begin to receive the attention that its importance demands." According to author Jami Carlacio, Grimké's writings opened the public's eyes to ideas like women's rights, and for the first time they were willing to question conventional notions about the subordination of women.

References

Citations

Sources

:Secondary sources

Buhle, Mari Jo; Buhle, Paul. The concise history of woman suffrage. University of Illinois, 1978.
Dumenil, Lynn, Editor-in-Chief (2012). The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History. New York: Oxford University Press.
Faulkner, Carol. Lucretia Mott's Heresy: Abolition and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Hankins, Barry. The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004.
Isenberg, Nancy. Sex and citizenship in antebellum America, University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Kerr, Andrea Moore. Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Lerner, Gerda; Grimké, Sarah Moore. The feminist thought of Sarah Grimké, Oxford University Press, 1998.
Mani, Bonnie G. Women, Power, and Political Change. Lexington Books, 2007.
McMillen, Sally Gregory. Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Tetrault, Lisa. The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848–1898 (2014) online review
Wellman, Judith. The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Women's Rights Convention, University of Illinois Press, 2004.

:Primary sources

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Anthony, Susan B.; Gage, Matilda Joslyn. History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, covering 1848–1861. Copyright 1881.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, Harper & Brothers, 1922.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; edited by Ann D. Gordon; assistant editor Tamara Gaskell Miller. The selected papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Rutgers, 1997.

External links

National Park Service. Women's Rights. Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, July 19–20, 1848
Library of Congress. Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848
Text of the "Declaration of Sentiments", and the resolutions
Seneca Falls in 1848, National Park Service: Women's Rights

; Newspaper clippings reporting on the convention:

The Rights of Women, The North Star, Rochester, New York, July 28, 1848
Bolting Among The Ladies, Oneida Whig, Oneida, New York, August 1, 1848
Woman's Rights Convention, National Reformer, Auburn, New York, August 3, 1848
Woman's Rights, The Recorder, Syracuse, New York, August 3, 1848
Woman's Rights Convention, National Reformer, Auburn, New York, August 10, 1848
Women out of their Latitude, The Mechanics Advocate, Albany, New York, (August 12, 1848)
"Women out of their Latitude", National Reformer, Auburn, New York, August 31, 1848
Woman's Rights, National Reformer, Auburn, New York, September 14, 1848