National Women's Rights Convention
Encyclopedia
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights
movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts
, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both male and female leadership, and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates
and abolitionists
. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give suffrage to women
.
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In 1840, Lucretia Mott
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
traveled with their husbands to London
for the first World Anti-Slavery Convention, but the women were not allowed to participate. Mott and Stanton became friends, and together planned to organize their own convention to further the cause of women's rights. It wasn't until the summer of 1848 that Mott, Stanton, and three other women would be able to call together the hastily-organized Seneca Falls Convention
, attended by some 300 people over two days, including about 40 men. The resolution on the subject of votes for women caused dissension until Frederick Douglass
took the platform with a passionate speech in favor of having a suffrage statement within the proposed Declaration of Sentiments
. One hundred of the attendees subsequently signed the Declaration.
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 wouldn't be visiting the Upstate New York
area for much longer, a regional Woman's Rights Convention was held two weeks later in Rochester, New York
with Mott as featured speaker. In the next two years, "the infancy of the movement", local and state women's rights conventions were called in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
meeting in Boston
, an announcement was made for those interested to stay behind and help plan for a women's rights convention, one with a national focus. Two men and nine women took part in the discussion, including Wendell Phillips
, William Lloyd Garrison
, Harriot Kezia Hunt
, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
, Abby Kelley Foster
and Lucy Stone
. Worcester, Massachusetts was determined as the convention site, if enough signatures could be gathered to warrant further action. Stone was named secretary, and signed her name to begin a list of supporters. Davis and Stone sent preliminary letters out to like-minded citizens and received enough positive responses to publish in all the major newspapers an official call for national convention supported by 89 names, topped by Stone's. Making up the 89 were 36 from Massachusetts, 18 from Pennsylvania, 17 from New York, eleven from Rhode Island, six from Ohio and one from Maryland. The convention was to take place at Brinley Hall on October 23–24, 1850.
Davis and Stone intended to work together throughout the summer to arrange the details of the meeting, write letters, set an agenda, and determine who would speak. Stone wrote to invite her best friend Antoinette Brown, saying "We need all the women who are accustomed to speak in public – every stick of timber that is sound." She related that she had also invited Lucretia Mott, and avowed that only "iron necessity" could keep Stone herself from the convention. Stone, however, was called away to Illinois on serious family duty, attending to the illness and then the funeral of her brother followed shortly by the funeral of his stillborn son. Stone herself caught typhoid fever
and nearly died, finally making it back to Massachusetts in mid-October in a weakened state.
Prior to leaving for Illinois, Stone asked Davis to carry the full burden of planning the convention. Davis sent letters to prominent liberal
thinkers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who sent her regrets along with a letter of support and a speech to be read in her name. Stanton wished to stay at home because she would be in the late stages of pregnancy.
The meeting was called to order by Sarah H. Earle, wife of the editor of The Worcester Spy
. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis was chosen president; she then delivered the keynote address, calling for "the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming re-organization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions." A variety of speakers took the platform to address the crowd, including William Lloyd Garrison, Reverend William Henry Channing
, Wendell Phillips, Harriot Kezia Hunt, Ernestine Rose
, Antoinette Brown, Sojourner Truth
, Stephen Symonds Foster
and Abby Kelley Foster, Abby H. Price, Lucretia Mott and Frederick Douglass. Stone stayed in the background until the final meeting, when she was persuaded to take the stage. She encouraged the assemblage to lobby their state legislatures in favor of women's property rights, saying
Attendee Horace Greeley
was so moved by her oratory that he published a favorable account of the proceedings in his New York Tribune
. Later, Susan B. Anthony
identified Greeley's especially admiring description of Stone's speech as the catalyst for her own involvement in the women's cause. Other observers were not so kind. The New York Herald
made extensive fun of the meetings, calling the attendees "that motley gathering of fanatical radicals, of old grannies, male and female, of fugitive slaves and fugitive lunatics, called Woman's Rights Convention."
Stone paid to have the proceedings of the convention printed as booklets; she would repeat this practice after each of the next six annual conventions. The booklets were sold at her lectures and at subsequent conventions as Woman's Rights Tracts.
In England, a copy of the Tribune article inspired Harriet Taylor
to write The Enfranchisement of Women. Harriet Martineau
wrote a letter to Davis in August 1851 to thank her for sending a copy of the proceedings, and mentioned seeing in a radical English quarterly The Enfranchisement of Women authored by, she thought, John Stuart Mill
. Martineau wrote "I hope you are aware of the interest excited in this country by that Convention, the strongest proof of which is the appearance of an article on the subject in the The Westminster Review
...I am not without hope that this article will materially strengthen your hands, and I am sure it can not but cheer your hearts."
Wendell Phillips made a speech which was so persuasive that it would be sold as a tract until 1920:
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, journalist, author, and member of New York's literary circle, attended the 1850 convention, and in 1851 was asked to take the platform. Afterward, she defended the Convention and its leaders in articles she wrote for the New York Tribune.
Abby Kelley Foster gave testimony to the persecution she had suffered as a woman: "My life has been my speech. For fourteen years I have advocated this cause by my daily life. Bloody feet, sisters, have worn smooth the path by which you have come hither." Abby H. Price spoke about prostitution, as she had the year before, arguing that too many women fell to prostitution because they did not have the job opportunities or education that men had.
A letter was read from two imprisoned French feminists, Pauline Roland
and Jeanne Deroin
, saying "Your courageous declaration of Woman's Rights has resounded even to our prison, and has filled our souls with inexpressible joy."
Ernestine Rose gave a speech about loss of identity in marriage that Davis later characterized as "unsurpassed". Rose said of woman that "At marriage she loses her entire identity, and her being is said to have become merged in her husband. Has nature thus merged it? Has she ceased to exist and feel pleasure and pain? When she violates the laws of her being, does her husband pay the penalty? When she breaks the moral law does he suffer the punishment? When he satisfies his wants, is it enough to satisfy her nature?...What an inconsistency that from the moment she enters the compact in which she assumes the high responsibility of wife and mother, she ceases legally to exist and becomes a purely submissive being. Blind submission in women is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue alike in women as in man."
was selected as the site. Because Syracuse was nearer to Seneca Falls (two days' travel by horse, several hours' journey by rail), more of the original signers of the Declaration of Sentiments were able to attend than the previous two conventions in Massachusetts. Lucretia Mott was named president; at one point she felt it necessary to silence a minister who offended the assembly by using biblical references to keep women subordinate to men. A letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read and its resolutions voted on. At sessions taking place September 8–10, 1852, Susan B. Anthony
and Matilda Joslyn Gage
made their first public speeches on women's rights. Ernestine Rose spoke denouncing duties without rights, saying "as a woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it." Antoinette Brown called for more women to become ministers, claiming that the Bible
did not forbid it. Ernestine Rose stood up in response, saying that the Bible should not be used as the authority for settling a dispute, especially as it contained much contradiction regarding women. Elizabeth Oakes Smith called for women to have their own journal so that they could become independent of the male-owned press, saying "We should have a literature of our own, a printing press and a publishing house, and tract writers and distributors, as well as lectures and conventions; and yet I say this to a race of beggars, for women have no pecuniary resources." Antoinette Brown lectured about how masculine law can never fully represent womankind. Lucy Stone wore a trousered dress often referred to as "bloomers", a more practical style she had picked up during the summer after meeting Amelia Bloomer
. She spoke to say "The woman who first departs from the routine in which society allows her to move must suffer. Let us bravely bear ridicule and persecution for the sake of the good that will result, and when the world sees that we can accomplish what we undertake, it will acknowledge our right." The Syracuse Weekly Chronicle was impressed less by her costume than by her electrifying address, printing "Well, whether we like it or not, little woman, God made you an ORATOR!"
Reverend Lydia Ann Jenkins of Geneva, New York
spoke at the convention and asked, "Is there any law to prevent women voting in this State? The Constitution says 'white male citizens' may vote, but does not say that white female citizens may not." The next year, Jenkins was chosen member of the committee tasked with framing the issue of suffrage before the New York Legislature
.
A motion was made to form a national organization for women, but after animated discussion, no consensus was reached. Elizabeth Smith Miller
suggested the women form organizations at the state level, but even this milder suggestion met with opposition. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis said "I hate organizations... they cramp me." Lucretia Mott concurred, saying "the seeds of dissolution be less likely to be sown." Angelina Grimké Weld
, Thomas M'Clintock
and Wendell Phillips agreed, with Phillips saying "you will develop divisions among yourselves." No national organization was to form until after the Civil War
.
, on October 6–8, 1853, William Lloyd Garrison spoke to say "...the Declaration of Independence as put forth at Seneca Falls....was measuring the people of this country by their own standard. It was taking their own words and applying their own principles to women, as they have been applied to men."
Earlier in the year, a regional Women's Rights Convention in New York City had been interrupted by unruly men in the audience, with most of the speakers being unheard over shouts and hisses. Organizers of the fourth national convention were concerned that a repetition of that mob scene not take place. In Cleveland, objections were raised regarding Bible interpretations, and orderly discussion proceeded.
Frances Dana Barker Gage
served as president for the 1,500 participants. Lucretia Mott, Amy Post
, and Martha Coffin Wright
served as officers; James Mott
served on the business committee, and Lucretia Mott called the meeting to order.
In a letter read aloud, William Henry Channing suggested that the convention issue its own Declaration of Women's Rights and petitions to state legislatures seeking woman suffrage, equal inheritance rights, equal guardianship laws, divorce for wives of alcoholics, tax exemptions for women until given the right to vote, and right to trial before a jury of female peers. Lucretia Mott moved the adoption of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, which was read to the convention, debated, then referred to a committee to draft a new declaration. Antoinette Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, Ernestine Rose and Lucy Stone worked to shape a new declaration, and the result was read at the end of the meeting, but was never adopted.
The Plain Dealer printed an extensive account of the convention, opining of Ernestine Rose that she "is the master-spirit of the Convention. She is described as a Polish lady
of great beauty, being known in this country as an earnest advocate of human liberty." After commenting on the bloomer costume worn by Lucy Stone, The Plain Dealer continued: "Miss Stone must be set down as a lady of no common abilities, and of uncommon energy in the pursuit of a cherished idea. She is a marked favorite in the Conventions."
At Sansom Street Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
over three days October 18–20, 1854, Ernestine Rose was chosen president in spite of her atheism
. Susan B. Anthony supported her, saying "every religion – or none – should have an equal right on the platform". Rose spoke out to the gathering, saying "Our claims are based on that great and immutable truth, the rights of all humanity. For is woman not included in that phrase, 'all men are created...equal'?....Tell us, ye men of the nation...whether woman is not included in that great Declaration of Independence
?" She continued "I will no more promise how we shall use our rights than man has promised before he obtained them, how he would use them."
Susan B. Anthony spoke to urge attendees to petition their state legislatures for laws giving women equal rights. A committee was formed to publish tracts and to place articles in national newspapers. Once again, the convention could not agree on a motion to create a national organization, resolving instead to continue work at the local level with coordination provided by a committee chaired by Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis.
Henry Grew
took the speaker's platform to condemn women who demanded equal rights. He described examples from the Bible which assigned to women a subordinate role. Lucretia Mott flared up and debated him, saying that he was selectively using the Bible to put upon women a sense of order that originated in man's mind. She said "The pulpit has been prostituted, the Bible has been ill-used... Instead of taking the truths of the Bible in corroboration of the right, the practice has been to turn over its pages to find examples and authority for the wrong." Mott cited Bible passages that proved Grew wrong. William Lloyd Garrison stood up to halt the debate, saying that nearly everyone present agreed that all were equal in the eyes of God.
At Smith & Nixon's Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio
on October 17–18, 1855, Martha Coffin Wright presided over the standing room only
crowd. Wright, a younger sister of Lucretia Mott and a founding member of the first Seneca Falls Convention, contrasted the large hall packed with supporters to the much smaller gathering in 1848, called "in timidity and doubt of our own strength, our own capacity, our own powers."
Antoinette Brown, Ernestine Rose, Josephine Sophia White Griffing
and Frances Dana Barker Gage spoke to the crowd, listing for them the achievements and progress made thus far. Lucy Stone spoke for the right of each person to establish for themselves which sphere, domestic or public, they should be active in. A heckler interrupted the proceedings, calling female speakers "a few disappointed women." Stone responded with a retort that became widely quoted, saying that yes, she was indeed a "disappointed woman." "...In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of woman. It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer."
At the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City on November 25–26, 1856, Lucy Stone served as president, and recounted for the crowd the recent progress in women's property rights laws passing in nine states, as well as a limited ability for widows in Kentucky to vote for school board members. She noted with satisfaction that the new Republican Party
was interested in female participation during the 1856 elections. Lucretia Mott encouraged the assembly to use their new rights, saying, "Believe me, sisters, the time is come for you to avail yourselves of all the avenues that are opened to you."
A letter was read aloud from Antoinette Brown Blackwell: "Would it not be wholly appropriate, then, for this National Convention to demand the right of suffrage for her from the Legislature of each State in the Nation? We can not petition the General Government on this point. Allow me, therefore, respectfully to suggest the propriety of appointing a committee, which shall be instructed to prepare a memorial adapted to the circumstances of each legislative body; and demanding of each, in the name of this Convention, the elective franchise for woman." A motion was passed approving of the suggestion, and Wendell Phillips recommended that women in each state be contacted and encouraged to take the memorial petition to their respective legislative bodies.
For the eighth and subsequent national conventions, the meetings were changed from various dates in autumn to a more consistent mid-May schedule. 1857 was skipped – the next meeting was held in 1858. At Mozart Hall in New York City on May 13–14, 1858, Susan B. Anthony held the post of president. William Lloyd Garrison spoke, saying "Those who have inaugurated this movement are worthy to be ranked with the army of martyrs…in the days of old. Blessings on them! They should triumph, and every opposition be removed, that peace and love, justice and liberty, might prevail throughout the world." Garrison proposed not only that women should serve as elected officials, but that the number of female legislators should equal that of male.
Frederick Douglass took the stage to speak after repeated calls from the audience. Lucy Stone, Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell (now married to Samuel Charles Blackwell), Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson
and Lucretia Mott were among those that spoke. Stephen Pearl Andrews
startled the assemblage by advocating free love
and unconventional approaches to marriage. He hinted at birth control
by insisting that women should have the right to put a limit on "the cares and sufferings of maternity." Eliza Farnham
presented her view that women were superior to men, a concept that was hotly debated. The convention, marred by interruption and rowdyism, "adjourned amid great confusion."
read out the resolutions including one intended to be sent to every state legislature, urging that body to "secure to women all those rights and privileges and immunities which in equity belong to every citizen of a republic."
Another unruly crowd made it difficult to hear the speeches of Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Caroline Dall, Lucretia Mott and Ernestine Rose. Wendell Phillips stood to speak and "held that mocking crowd in the hollow of his hand."
in New York City on May 10–11, 1860, the tenth national convention of 600–800 attendees was presided over by Martha Coffin Wright. A recent legislative victory in New York was praised, one which gave women joint custody of their children and sole use of their personal property and wages.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Antoinette Brown Blackwell moved to add a resolution calling for legislation on marriage reform; they wanted laws that would give women the right to separate from or divorce a husband who had demonstrated drunkenness, insanity, desertion or cruelty. Wendell Phillips argued against the resolution, fracturing the executive committee on the matter. Susan B. Anthony also supported the measure, but it was defeated by vote after a heated debate.
Horace Greeley wrote in the Tribune that there were "One Thousand Persons Present, seven-eighths of them Women, and a fair Proportion Young and Good-looking." Greeley, a foe of marriage reform, continued against Stanton's proposed resolution with a jab at "easy Divorce", writing that the word 'Woman' should be replaced in the convention's title with "Wives Discontented."
ended the annual National Women's Rights Convention and focused women's activism on the issue of emancipation
for slaves. The New York state legislature repealed in 1862 much of the gain women had made in 1860. Susan B. Anthony was "sick at heart" but could not convince women activists to hold another convention focusing solely on women's rights.
In 1863, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, recently moved to New York City, joined with Susan B. Anthony to send a call out, via the woman's central committee chaired by Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, to all the "Loyal Women of the Nation" to meet again in convention in May. Forming the Woman's National Loyal League were Stanton, Anthony, Martha Coffin Wright, Amy Post, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Ernestine Rose, Angelina Grimké Weld, and Lucy Stone, among others. They organized the First Woman's National Loyal League Convention at the Church of the Puritans in New York City on May 14, 1863, and worked to gain 400,000 signatures by 1864 to petition the United States Congress
to pass the Thirteenth Amendment
abolishing slavery.
, Frances D. Gage, Elizabeth Brown Blackwell, Theodore Tilton
, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Stephen Symonds Foster and Abbey Kelley Foster, Margaret Winchester and Parker Pillsbury
, and was presided over by Stanton.
A stirring speech against racial discrimination was given by African-American activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
, in which she said "You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man's hand against me."
A few weeks later, on May 31, 1866, the first meeting of the American Equal Rights Association
was held in Boston.
, Parker Pillsbury, John Willis Menard
and Doctor Sarah H. Hathaway. Doctor Mary Edwards Walker
and a "Mrs. Harman" were seen in "male attire" actively passing back and forth between the audience and the stage.
Stanton spoke heatedly with a prepared speech against those who had established "an aristocracy of sex on this continent." "If serfdom, peasantry, and slavery have shattered kingdoms, deluged continents with blood, scattered republics like dust before the wind, and rent our own Union asunder, what kind of a government, think you, American statesmen, you can build, with the mothers of the race crouching at your feet...?" Other speeches were off-the-cuff, and little record is known of them.
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both male and female leadership, and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
and abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give suffrage to women
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
.
Background
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
traveled with their husbands to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
for the first World Anti-Slavery Convention, but the women were not allowed to participate. Mott and Stanton became friends, and together planned to organize their own convention to further the cause of women's rights. It wasn't until the summer of 1848 that Mott, Stanton, and three other women would be able to call together the hastily-organized Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
, attended by some 300 people over two days, including about 40 men. The resolution on the subject of votes for women caused dissension until Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
took the platform with a passionate speech in favor of having a suffrage statement within the proposed Declaration of Sentiments
Declaration of Sentiments
The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, 100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York, now known as the Seneca Falls Convention...
. One hundred of the attendees subsequently signed the Declaration.
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 wouldn't be visiting the Upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
area for much longer, a regional Woman's Rights Convention was held two weeks later in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
with Mott as featured speaker. In the next two years, "the infancy of the movement", local and state women's rights conventions were called in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
Planning
In May 1850, at the conclusion of the annual Anti-Slavery SocietyAmerican Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass was a key leader of this society and often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was another freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had...
meeting in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, an announcement was made for those interested to stay behind and help plan for a women's rights convention, one with a national focus. Two men and nine women took part in the discussion, including Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...
, William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
, Harriot Kezia Hunt
Harriot Kezia Hunt
Harriot Kezia Hunt was an early female physician.Hunt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1805, the daughter of Jacob Hunt and Kezia Wentworth Hunt. She and her sister, Sarah Hunt, studied medicine under Elizabeth Mott and Richard Dixon Mott...
, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis was an American abolitionist, suffragist, and educator.Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, New York, to Captain Ebenezer Kellogg and Polly Saxton. The family moved to the frontier near Niagara Falls in 1817...
, Abby Kelley Foster
Abby Kelley
Abby Kelley Foster was an American abolitionist and radical social reformer active from the 1830s to 1870s. She became a fundraiser, lecturer and committee organizer for the influential American Anti-Slavery Society, where she worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison and other radicals...
and Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
. Worcester, Massachusetts was determined as the convention site, if enough signatures could be gathered to warrant further action. Stone was named secretary, and signed her name to begin a list of supporters. Davis and Stone sent preliminary letters out to like-minded citizens and received enough positive responses to publish in all the major newspapers an official call for national convention supported by 89 names, topped by Stone's. Making up the 89 were 36 from Massachusetts, 18 from Pennsylvania, 17 from New York, eleven from Rhode Island, six from Ohio and one from Maryland. The convention was to take place at Brinley Hall on October 23–24, 1850.
Davis and Stone intended to work together throughout the summer to arrange the details of the meeting, write letters, set an agenda, and determine who would speak. Stone wrote to invite her best friend Antoinette Brown, saying "We need all the women who are accustomed to speak in public – every stick of timber that is sound." She related that she had also invited Lucretia Mott, and avowed that only "iron necessity" could keep Stone herself from the convention. Stone, however, was called away to Illinois on serious family duty, attending to the illness and then the funeral of her brother followed shortly by the funeral of his stillborn son. Stone herself caught typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
and nearly died, finally making it back to Massachusetts in mid-October in a weakened state.
Prior to leaving for Illinois, Stone asked Davis to carry the full burden of planning the convention. Davis sent letters to prominent liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
thinkers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who sent her regrets along with a letter of support and a speech to be read in her name. Stanton wished to stay at home because she would be in the late stages of pregnancy.
1850 in Worcester
At the convention, some 900 showed up for the first session, men forming the majority, with several newspapers reporting over a thousand attendees by the afternoon of the first day, and more turned away outside. Delegates came from eleven states, including one delegate from California – a state only a few weeks old.The meeting was called to order by Sarah H. Earle, wife of the editor of The Worcester Spy
Worcester Spy
The Worcester Spy, originally known as the Massachusetts Spy, was a newspaper founded in 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts by Isaiah Thomas, dedicated to supporting the Revolutionary cause against the British...
. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis was chosen president; she then delivered the keynote address, calling for "the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming re-organization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions." A variety of speakers took the platform to address the crowd, including William Lloyd Garrison, Reverend William Henry Channing
William Henry Channing
William Henry Channing was an American Unitarian clergyman, writer and philosopher.-Biography:William Henry Channing was born in Boston, Massachusetts...
, Wendell Phillips, Harriot Kezia Hunt, Ernestine Rose
Ernestine Rose
Ernestine Louise Rose was an atheist feminist, Individualist Feminist, and abolitionist. She was one of the major intellectual forces behind the women's rights movement in nineteenth-century America....
, Antoinette Brown, Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she...
, Stephen Symonds Foster
Stephen Symonds Foster
Stephen Symonds Foster was a radical American abolitionist known for his dramatic and aggressive style of public speaking, and for his stance against those in the church who failed to fight slavery. His marriage to Abby Kelley Foster brought his energetic activism to bear on women's rights...
and Abby Kelley Foster, Abby H. Price, Lucretia Mott and Frederick Douglass. Stone stayed in the background until the final meeting, when she was persuaded to take the stage. She encouraged the assemblage to lobby their state legislatures in favor of women's property rights, saying
Attendee Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
was so moved by her oratory that he published a favorable account of the proceedings in his New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
. Later, Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
identified Greeley's especially admiring description of Stone's speech as the catalyst for her own involvement in the women's cause. Other observers were not so kind. The New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
made extensive fun of the meetings, calling the attendees "that motley gathering of fanatical radicals, of old grannies, male and female, of fugitive slaves and fugitive lunatics, called Woman's Rights Convention."
Stone paid to have the proceedings of the convention printed as booklets; she would repeat this practice after each of the next six annual conventions. The booklets were sold at her lectures and at subsequent conventions as Woman's Rights Tracts.
In England, a copy of the Tribune article inspired Harriet Taylor
Harriet Taylor Mill
Harriet Taylor Mill was a philosopher and women's rights advocate. Her second husband was John Stuart Mill, one of the pre-eminent thinkers of the 19th century...
to write The Enfranchisement of Women. Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau was an English social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist....
wrote a letter to Davis in August 1851 to thank her for sending a copy of the proceedings, and mentioned seeing in a radical English quarterly The Enfranchisement of Women authored by, she thought, John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
. Martineau wrote "I hope you are aware of the interest excited in this country by that Convention, the strongest proof of which is the appearance of an article on the subject in the The Westminster Review
Westminster Review
The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828....
...I am not without hope that this article will materially strengthen your hands, and I am sure it can not but cheer your hearts."
1851 in Worcester
A second national convention was held October 15–16, 1851, again in Brinley Hall, with Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis presiding. Harriet Kezia Hunt and Antoinette Brown gave speeches, while a letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read. Lucretia Mott served as an officer of the meeting.Elizabeth Oakes Smith, journalist, author, and member of New York's literary circle, attended the 1850 convention, and in 1851 was asked to take the platform. Afterward, she defended the Convention and its leaders in articles she wrote for the New York Tribune.
Abby Kelley Foster gave testimony to the persecution she had suffered as a woman: "My life has been my speech. For fourteen years I have advocated this cause by my daily life. Bloody feet, sisters, have worn smooth the path by which you have come hither." Abby H. Price spoke about prostitution, as she had the year before, arguing that too many women fell to prostitution because they did not have the job opportunities or education that men had.
A letter was read from two imprisoned French feminists, Pauline Roland
Pauline Roland
Pauline Roland was a French feminist and socialist.Upon her mother's insistence, Roland received a good education and was introduced to the ideas of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, the founder of French socialism, by one of her teachers. She became an enthusiastic supporter of his...
and Jeanne Deroin
Jeanne Deroin
Jeanne Deroin was a French socialist feminist.Born in Paris, Deroin became a seamstress. In 1831, she joined the followers of utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon...
, saying "Your courageous declaration of Woman's Rights has resounded even to our prison, and has filled our souls with inexpressible joy."
Ernestine Rose gave a speech about loss of identity in marriage that Davis later characterized as "unsurpassed". Rose said of woman that "At marriage she loses her entire identity, and her being is said to have become merged in her husband. Has nature thus merged it? Has she ceased to exist and feel pleasure and pain? When she violates the laws of her being, does her husband pay the penalty? When she breaks the moral law does he suffer the punishment? When he satisfies his wants, is it enough to satisfy her nature?...What an inconsistency that from the moment she enters the compact in which she assumes the high responsibility of wife and mother, she ceases legally to exist and becomes a purely submissive being. Blind submission in women is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue alike in women as in man."
1852 in Syracuse
For the third convention, the city hall in Syracuse, New YorkSyracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
was selected as the site. Because Syracuse was nearer to Seneca Falls (two days' travel by horse, several hours' journey by rail), more of the original signers of the Declaration of Sentiments were able to attend than the previous two conventions in Massachusetts. Lucretia Mott was named president; at one point she felt it necessary to silence a minister who offended the assembly by using biblical references to keep women subordinate to men. A letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read and its resolutions voted on. At sessions taking place September 8–10, 1852, Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
and Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...
made their first public speeches on women's rights. Ernestine Rose spoke denouncing duties without rights, saying "as a woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it." Antoinette Brown called for more women to become ministers, claiming that the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
did not forbid it. Ernestine Rose stood up in response, saying that the Bible should not be used as the authority for settling a dispute, especially as it contained much contradiction regarding women. Elizabeth Oakes Smith called for women to have their own journal so that they could become independent of the male-owned press, saying "We should have a literature of our own, a printing press and a publishing house, and tract writers and distributors, as well as lectures and conventions; and yet I say this to a race of beggars, for women have no pecuniary resources." Antoinette Brown lectured about how masculine law can never fully represent womankind. Lucy Stone wore a trousered dress often referred to as "bloomers", a more practical style she had picked up during the summer after meeting Amelia Bloomer
Amelia Bloomer
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy.-Early life:Bloomer came from a family of modest means and...
. She spoke to say "The woman who first departs from the routine in which society allows her to move must suffer. Let us bravely bear ridicule and persecution for the sake of the good that will result, and when the world sees that we can accomplish what we undertake, it will acknowledge our right." The Syracuse Weekly Chronicle was impressed less by her costume than by her electrifying address, printing "Well, whether we like it or not, little woman, God made you an ORATOR!"
Reverend Lydia Ann Jenkins of Geneva, New York
Geneva, New York
Geneva is a city in Ontario and Seneca counties in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 13,617 at the 2000 census. Some claim it is named after the city and canton of Geneva in Switzerland. Others believe the name came from confusion over the letters in the word "Seneca" written in cursive...
spoke at the convention and asked, "Is there any law to prevent women voting in this State? The Constitution says 'white male citizens' may vote, but does not say that white female citizens may not." The next year, Jenkins was chosen member of the committee tasked with framing the issue of suffrage before the New York Legislature
New York Legislature
The New York State Legislature is the term often used to refer to the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York. The New York Constitution does not designate an official term for the two houses together...
.
A motion was made to form a national organization for women, but after animated discussion, no consensus was reached. Elizabeth Smith Miller
Elizabeth Smith Miller
Elizabeth Smith Miller , known as 'Libby' was an advocate and financial supporter of the women’s rights movement and the daughter of antislavery philanthropist Gerrit Smith and spouse, the abolitionist Ann Carroll Fitzhugh. Elizabeth Miller was born September 20, 1822. In 1843, Elizabeth married...
suggested the women form organizations at the state level, but even this milder suggestion met with opposition. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis said "I hate organizations... they cramp me." Lucretia Mott concurred, saying "the seeds of dissolution be less likely to be sown." Angelina Grimké Weld
Angelina Grimké
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American political activist, abolitionist and supporter of the women's suffrage movement.- Family background :...
, Thomas M'Clintock
Thomas M'Clintock
Anti-slavery activist and devoted Hicksite Quaker Thomas M’Clintock was born in Brandywine Hundred, Delaware in 1792. The names of Thomas’s parents were Thomas and Mary Allen M’Clintock...
and Wendell Phillips agreed, with Phillips saying "you will develop divisions among yourselves." No national organization was to form until after the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
1853 in Cleveland
At Melodean Hall in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, on October 6–8, 1853, William Lloyd Garrison spoke to say "...the Declaration of Independence as put forth at Seneca Falls....was measuring the people of this country by their own standard. It was taking their own words and applying their own principles to women, as they have been applied to men."
Frances Dana Barker Gage
Frances Dana Barker Gage
Frances Dana Barker Gage was a leading American reformer, feminist and abolitionist. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with other leaders of the early women's rights movement in the United States...
served as president for the 1,500 participants. Lucretia Mott, Amy Post
Amy and Isaac Post
Amy and Isaac Post, were radical Hicksite Quakers from Rochester, New York, involved in the struggles for abolitionism and women's rights. Among the first believers in Spiritualism, they helped to associate the young religious movement with the political ideas of the mid-nineteenth-century reform...
, and Martha Coffin Wright
Martha Coffin Wright
Martha Coffin Wright was an American feminist, abolitionist, and signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments.-Early life:...
served as officers; James Mott
James Mott
James Mott was a Quaker leader, teacher, and merchant as well as an activist for anti-slavery and women's rights. He was born in Cowneck in North Hempstead on Long Island, to a Quaker family...
served on the business committee, and Lucretia Mott called the meeting to order.
In a letter read aloud, William Henry Channing suggested that the convention issue its own Declaration of Women's Rights and petitions to state legislatures seeking woman suffrage, equal inheritance rights, equal guardianship laws, divorce for wives of alcoholics, tax exemptions for women until given the right to vote, and right to trial before a jury of female peers. Lucretia Mott moved the adoption of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, which was read to the convention, debated, then referred to a committee to draft a new declaration. Antoinette Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, Ernestine Rose and Lucy Stone worked to shape a new declaration, and the result was read at the end of the meeting, but was never adopted.
The Plain Dealer printed an extensive account of the convention, opining of Ernestine Rose that she "is the master-spirit of the Convention. She is described as a Polish lady
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
of great beauty, being known in this country as an earnest advocate of human liberty." After commenting on the bloomer costume worn by Lucy Stone, The Plain Dealer continued: "Miss Stone must be set down as a lady of no common abilities, and of uncommon energy in the pursuit of a cherished idea. She is a marked favorite in the Conventions."
1854 in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
over three days October 18–20, 1854, Ernestine Rose was chosen president in spite of her atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
. Susan B. Anthony supported her, saying "every religion – or none – should have an equal right on the platform". Rose spoke out to the gathering, saying "Our claims are based on that great and immutable truth, the rights of all humanity. For is woman not included in that phrase, 'all men are created...equal'?....Tell us, ye men of the nation...whether woman is not included in that great Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
?" She continued "I will no more promise how we shall use our rights than man has promised before he obtained them, how he would use them."
Susan B. Anthony spoke to urge attendees to petition their state legislatures for laws giving women equal rights. A committee was formed to publish tracts and to place articles in national newspapers. Once again, the convention could not agree on a motion to create a national organization, resolving instead to continue work at the local level with coordination provided by a committee chaired by Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis.
Henry Grew
Henry Grew
Henry Grew was a Christian teacher and writer whose studies of the Bible led him to conclusions which were at odds with doctrines accepted by many of the mainstream churches of his time...
took the speaker's platform to condemn women who demanded equal rights. He described examples from the Bible which assigned to women a subordinate role. Lucretia Mott flared up and debated him, saying that he was selectively using the Bible to put upon women a sense of order that originated in man's mind. She said "The pulpit has been prostituted, the Bible has been ill-used... Instead of taking the truths of the Bible in corroboration of the right, the practice has been to turn over its pages to find examples and authority for the wrong." Mott cited Bible passages that proved Grew wrong. William Lloyd Garrison stood up to halt the debate, saying that nearly everyone present agreed that all were equal in the eyes of God.
1855 in Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
on October 17–18, 1855, Martha Coffin Wright presided over the standing room only
Standing room only
An event is described as standing room only when it is so well-attended that all of the chairs in the venue are occupied, leaving only flat spaces of pavement or flooring for other attendees to stand. Some venues issue standing-room-only tickets for a reduced cost since it can become very...
crowd. Wright, a younger sister of Lucretia Mott and a founding member of the first Seneca Falls Convention, contrasted the large hall packed with supporters to the much smaller gathering in 1848, called "in timidity and doubt of our own strength, our own capacity, our own powers."
Antoinette Brown, Ernestine Rose, Josephine Sophia White Griffing
Josephine Sophia White Griffing
Josephine Sophia White Griffing was an American reformer who campaigned against slavery and for women's rights. She was born in Hebron, Connecticut on December 18, 1814 but later settled in Litchfield, Ohio. There she worked for the Western Anti-Slavery Society and Ohio Woman's Rights Association...
and Frances Dana Barker Gage spoke to the crowd, listing for them the achievements and progress made thus far. Lucy Stone spoke for the right of each person to establish for themselves which sphere, domestic or public, they should be active in. A heckler interrupted the proceedings, calling female speakers "a few disappointed women." Stone responded with a retort that became widely quoted, saying that yes, she was indeed a "disappointed woman." "...In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of woman. It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer."
1856 in New York
History of the United States Republican Party
The United States Republican Party is the second oldest currently existing political party in the United States after its great rival, the Democratic Party. It emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas Nebraska Act which threatened to extend slavery into the territories, and to promote more vigorous...
was interested in female participation during the 1856 elections. Lucretia Mott encouraged the assembly to use their new rights, saying, "Believe me, sisters, the time is come for you to avail yourselves of all the avenues that are opened to you."
A letter was read aloud from Antoinette Brown Blackwell: "Would it not be wholly appropriate, then, for this National Convention to demand the right of suffrage for her from the Legislature of each State in the Nation? We can not petition the General Government on this point. Allow me, therefore, respectfully to suggest the propriety of appointing a committee, which shall be instructed to prepare a memorial adapted to the circumstances of each legislative body; and demanding of each, in the name of this Convention, the elective franchise for woman." A motion was passed approving of the suggestion, and Wendell Phillips recommended that women in each state be contacted and encouraged to take the memorial petition to their respective legislative bodies.
1858 in New York
Frederick Douglass took the stage to speak after repeated calls from the audience. Lucy Stone, Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell (now married to Samuel Charles Blackwell), Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...
and Lucretia Mott were among those that spoke. Stephen Pearl Andrews
Stephen Pearl Andrews
Stephen Pearl Andrews was an American individualist anarchist and author of several books on Individualist anarchism.-Early life and work:...
startled the assemblage by advocating free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
and unconventional approaches to marriage. He hinted at birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
by insisting that women should have the right to put a limit on "the cares and sufferings of maternity." Eliza Farnham
Eliza Farnham
Eliza Farnham was a 19th-century American novelist, feminist, abolitionist, and activist for prison reform. Her fame as a writer rests upon her work Life in Prairie Land , an account of life on the Illinois prairie near Pekin between 1836 and 1840. She strongly believed in the use of phrenology...
presented her view that women were superior to men, a concept that was hotly debated. The convention, marred by interruption and rowdyism, "adjourned amid great confusion."
1859 in New York
Held again at Mozart Hall in New York City on May 12, 1859, the ninth national convention opened with Lucretia Mott presiding. Caroline Wells Healey DallCaroline Healey Dall
Caroline Wells Healey Dall was an American feminist writer, transcendentalist and reformer. She was affiliated with the National Women's Rights Convention, the New England Women's Club, and the American Social Science Association...
read out the resolutions including one intended to be sent to every state legislature, urging that body to "secure to women all those rights and privileges and immunities which in equity belong to every citizen of a republic."
Another unruly crowd made it difficult to hear the speeches of Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Caroline Dall, Lucretia Mott and Ernestine Rose. Wendell Phillips stood to speak and "held that mocking crowd in the hollow of his hand."
1860 in New York
At the Cooper UnionCooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
in New York City on May 10–11, 1860, the tenth national convention of 600–800 attendees was presided over by Martha Coffin Wright. A recent legislative victory in New York was praised, one which gave women joint custody of their children and sole use of their personal property and wages.
Horace Greeley wrote in the Tribune that there were "One Thousand Persons Present, seven-eighths of them Women, and a fair Proportion Young and Good-looking." Greeley, a foe of marriage reform, continued against Stanton's proposed resolution with a jab at "easy Divorce", writing that the word 'Woman' should be replaced in the convention's title with "Wives Discontented."
Civil War and beyond
The coming of the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
ended the annual National Women's Rights Convention and focused women's activism on the issue of emancipation
Emancipation
Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...
for slaves. The New York state legislature repealed in 1862 much of the gain women had made in 1860. Susan B. Anthony was "sick at heart" but could not convince women activists to hold another convention focusing solely on women's rights.
In 1863, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, recently moved to New York City, joined with Susan B. Anthony to send a call out, via the woman's central committee chaired by Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, to all the "Loyal Women of the Nation" to meet again in convention in May. Forming the Woman's National Loyal League were Stanton, Anthony, Martha Coffin Wright, Amy Post, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Ernestine Rose, Angelina Grimké Weld, and Lucy Stone, among others. They organized the First Woman's National Loyal League Convention at the Church of the Puritans in New York City on May 14, 1863, and worked to gain 400,000 signatures by 1864 to petition the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to pass the Thirteenth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
abolishing slavery.
1866 in New York
On May 10, 1866, the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention was held at Church of the Puritans, Union Square. Called by Stanton and Anthony and sponsored by the National Woman Suffrage Association, the meeting included Ernestine L. Rose, Wendell Phillips, Reverend John T. Sargent, Reverend Octavius Brooks FrothinghamOctavius Brooks Frothingham
Octavius Brooks Frothingham , was an American clergyman and author.-Biography:He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham , a prominent Unitarian preacher, and through his mother's family he was related to Phillips Brooks...
, Frances D. Gage, Elizabeth Brown Blackwell, Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton . On his twentieth birthday of October 2, 1855, he married Elizabeth Richards, known as "Libby Tilton"...
, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Stephen Symonds Foster and Abbey Kelley Foster, Margaret Winchester and Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury was an American minister and advocate for abolition and women's rights.Pillsbury was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts...
, and was presided over by Stanton.
A stirring speech against racial discrimination was given by African-American activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an African American abolitionist and poet. Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, she had a long and prolific career, publishing her first book of poetry at twenty and her first novel, the widely praised Iola Leroy, at age 67.-Life and works:Frances Ellen Watkins was...
, in which she said "You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man's hand against me."
A few weeks later, on May 31, 1866, the first meeting of the American Equal Rights Association
American Equal Rights Association
The American Equal Rights Association , also known as the Equal Rights Association, was an organization formed by women's rights and black rights activists in 1866 in the United States. Its goal was to join the cause of gender equality with that of racial equality...
was held in Boston.
1869 in Washington, D.C.
An event that was reported as "The twelfth regular National Convention of Women's Rights" was held on January 19, 1869. Prominent speakers included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Senator Samuel Clarke PomeroySamuel C. Pomeroy
Samuel Clarke Pomeroy was an American Republican Senator from Kansas in the mid-19th century, serving in the United States Senate during the American Civil War. Pomeroy served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives...
, Parker Pillsbury, John Willis Menard
John Willis Menard
John Willis Menard was the first African American elected to the United States Congress.Menard was born in Kaskaskia, Illinois, to parents of Louisiana Creole descent from New Orleans who were free people of color. He may have been related to Michel Branamour Menard, a French-Canadian fur trader...
and Doctor Sarah H. Hathaway. Doctor Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Edwards Walker was an American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war and surgeon. She is the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor....
and a "Mrs. Harman" were seen in "male attire" actively passing back and forth between the audience and the stage.
Stanton spoke heatedly with a prepared speech against those who had established "an aristocracy of sex on this continent." "If serfdom, peasantry, and slavery have shattered kingdoms, deluged continents with blood, scattered republics like dust before the wind, and rent our own Union asunder, what kind of a government, think you, American statesmen, you can build, with the mothers of the race crouching at your feet...?" Other speeches were off-the-cuff, and little record is known of them.
See also
- Equal Rights AmendmentEqual Rights AmendmentThe Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
(ERA) - Reproductive rightsReproductive rightsReproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:...
– issues regarding "reproductive freedom" - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against WomenConvention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against WomenThe Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women is an international convention adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly....
(CEDAW) - Vindication of the Rights of Women
- Women's right to know
- Committee on Women's Rights and Gender EqualityCommittee on Women's Rights and Gender EqualityThe Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality is a committee of the European Parliament.-Chair:-Members:*BASTOS, Regina *BAUER, Edit *BOZKURT, Emine *ČEŠKOVÁ, Andrea *CORNELISSEN, Marije *COSTA, Silvia *CYMAŃSKI, Tadeusz...
- Subjection of women
- League of Women VotersLeague of Women VotersThe League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
- In Defense of WomenIn Defense of WomenIn Defense of Women is H. L. Mencken's 1918 book on women and the relationship between the sexes. Some laud the book as progressive while others brand it as reactionary...
- Parental leaveParental leaveParental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...
- FeminismFeminismFeminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
- History of feminismHistory of feminismThe history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
- First-wave feminismFirst-wave feminismFirst-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It focused on de jure inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage .The term first-wave was coined retroactively in the 1970s...
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
External links
- National Park Service. Women's Rights. More Women's Rights Conventions, 1850–1863
- Gutenberg Project. History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, 1881, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage.
- Worcester Women's History Project. Historical Resources related to 1850 and 1851 conventions