Jane Doe
Abstract
The Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 was a pivotal point for women in the United States. Women had been voicing their concerns over their lack of rights as early as the 1700’s yet it was the Seneca Falls convention that created a public platform for the injustices against women to be expressed on a large scale for all to hear. The pioneers of this convention included Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Lucretia Motts, Martha Wright, Jane Hunt, and Mary Ann McClintock. These brave women fought long and hard for the opportunity to bring attention to the imbalanced attitudes against women’s rights as equal citizens. It was the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention that helped establish the Declaration of Sentiments, which was based off the Declaration of Independence, which allowed women to have a voice to gain autonomy. Many great advances were made as a result of the Seneca Falls convention; however, not all aspects of the Declaration of Sentiments has been fully realized as there is still an imbalance in women’s emancipation throughout the nation and the world.
Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 has come to be regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of women’s rights. A group of 300 people met for two days and two evenings in Seneca Falls, New York to formally discuss women’s rights in the United States for the first time (Wellman, 2006). Women had not been given the same legal right and social equality as men and were ready to demand autonomy on a public platform. Sixty-eight women were backed by thirty-two men in signing the declaration for the women’s rights movement that was based on the Declaration of Independence (Wellman, 2006). The movement was about much more than just women’s rights; the Declaration of Sentiments addressed the unfortunate disenfranchisement of half the population of the nation who deserved to have equality in the same areas as men in “politics, the family, education, jobs, religion, and morals” (Wellman, 2006). The Seneca Falls Women’s rights movement was a significant starting point to address women’s emancipation in the United States and although many of the intentions stated in the Declaration of Sentiments was fulfilled, there remained much room for improvement.
The conversation for women’s rights had begun sometime in the 1830’s leading to the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments movement for women’s rights (Wellman, 2006). It began with the inspiration of a several courageous women who no longer wanted to live unequally in a nation that stood for freedom and rights for all. It was the likes of individuals like Lucretia Motts, who was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement for an end to slavery who became a significant figure to take on a role in the women’s rights movement with similar principals to the abolitionist movement (Wellman, 2006). Women began to adopt the sentiment of the black population who were also working towards equal representation in America.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Motts were attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London when suddenly convention members decided to exclude all the American women from participating in the convention, which was the catalyst for their decision to form a women’s rights movement upon their return to the United States (Wellman, 2006). It was an eight year process before Stanton and Motts were able to fully realize their vision when the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights movement took place, but the attention it received on a national (possibly global) scale was a major step towards women’s emancipation (Wellman, 2006).
Despite the lack of recorded women’s history, which limited the significance of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, the movement remains valuable for the advent of the women’s rights movements that have come since then (Lerner, 2009). Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Lucretia Motts, Martha Wright, Jane Hunt, and Mary Ann McClintock were the five women who carried on the mission to see the Seneca Falls movement to fruition (Lerner, 2009). “All five women were veterans of reform and women’s organizations who had worked in antislavery fairs,” yet rumored to be inexperienced in their ability to establish such a movement (Lerner, 2009).
Seneca Falls was an ideal location to host such a movement considering it had been known for luring radical thinkers who for two decades had been working on reform and utopian movements, which provided a supportive environment for the first women’s rights movement (Lerner, 2009). The women and men who participated in the Seneca Falls event were all experienced reformers who had previous organizational experience (Lerner, 2009). “One of the significant aspects of the Seneca Falls convention is that it was grounded in several organizational networks that had already existed for some time and could mobilize the energies of seasoned reform activists,” including figures like Frederick Douglas (Lerner, 2009).
The Seneca Falls movement addressed two sets of needs that women fought for- women’s rights and women’s emancipation (Lerner, 2009). Women no longer were willing to be unequal in their civil rights, nor were they willing to continue tolerating oppressive restrictions imposed upon them as a result of their gender (Lerner, 2009). The fight for self-determination and autonomy were the crux of the motivation driving women to be acknowledged equally as citizens of the United States (Lerner, 2009). The fight for women’s legal rights has been successful in the United States, as well as other nations of the world; however women’s emancipation is still lacking (Lerner, 2009).
Unfortunately, the group of women who have gained the most from the women’s rights movement(s) have been middle-class white women, but not many of those who live impoverished, which are generally made up of minority women (Lerner, 2009). As stated by Lerner (2009), the hard work of successfully securing women’s legal rights are not guaranteed to remain so until the social and cultural transformation of women’s position in society is fully realized.
The Civil War had created a pause for the fight on women’s rights, which began to be brought to the forefront once again in 1866 with the onset of the Eleventh National Woman’s Rights Convention (Tetrault, 2014). At this time, Lucretia Motts who was one of the founders of the initial organization to establish women’s rights at the Seneca Falls convention was seventy-three years old at this point and was ready to pass the torch to the newer generations (Tetrault, 2014). Motts urged the young women to familiarize themselves with the history of women’s rights over the years to better understand and appreciate what actions could be taken to keep the progress alive (Tetrault, 2014). The importance of revisiting the events of the past actions taken by women in their fight for equality were a key factor in coming to an agreement on a shared version of the history behind the movement that would help keep the vision alive for the newer generations.
The creation of a mythology of the original events of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention was the history that new generations would refer to in the ongoing struggle for women to establish legal right (Tetrault, 2014). The change in the original version of the story appeared to fulfill Mott’s purpose of creating a foundation for the history of the women’s rights movement to have begun long before the 1840 convention (Tetrault, 2014). Motts went so far as crediting Mary Wolstoncraft who wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, the first extended Enlightenment treatise on women’s rights” (Tetrault, 2014).
Numerous injustices against women were addressed in the Declaration of Sentiments that justified that it is not the right of a man or the government to dictate what is morally acceptable of the woman’s role in society. “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her” (Stanton et al., 1881). Rather than perpetuating this false belief of the woman’s position in life based on the restrictive rules set by men, it was time for women to remind the men and those in power that it is a woman’s God given inalienable right to be equal to man (Stanton et al., 1881). These were all ideas that were formulated and presented publicly during the Seneca Falls convention. Awareness and acceptance of the inequality was first presented during this time making the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights convention a significant part of women’s history that has been one of the only reported events of women’s history.
The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments addressed so many valuable points that required attention for the sake of equality between not just men and women, but all citizens who are born with inalienable rights that were not being honored. It is important to also acknowledge that it was an incredible turning point for women’s rights in America that deserves more attention from a historical standpoint than it has in earlier periods of American history. Evidence of lack of progress for women’s emancipation can easily be seen by the minimal women’s history that is presented for students throughout the United States as part of the educational process. Rather than incorporating the truth and details of the courageous battle that has been fought for women to stand on equal legal grounds as men continues to be undervalued by the large majority of those in power.
Looking at the timeline of the Legal History of Women in the United States shows the long hard battle that has been raging since the 1700’s, yet full autonomy of women’s positions in the nation remain imbalanced. Many aspects in how women are treated even in 2016 ample proof that the Seneca Falls Convention did not fully emancipate women. It has done a tremendous amount for women’s property rights, voting rights, and other legal issues that women used to be powerless over. Yet how can there still be debates about equal pay, equal opportunity, and a woman’s right to her own body if women’s emancipation truly has come to fruition? Unfortunately, there are still strides to make in the fight for full equality of women to be given the same advantages as men from more than just the legal perspective. For example, if there are still provisions in laws as recent as 2013 when the Pentagon finally overturned the ban against women in combat, there is evidently still a strong opinion on women’s rights and emancipation that is lacking in the nation and on a global scale.
The Seneca Falls Women’s Convention is definitely of prominent significance for women’s rights in this great nation of the United States of America. More than two hundred years later women can thank the pioneers that came prior that were willing to have the courage to gather groups that had the focus and purpose of carrying out movement’s like the one that the Seneca Falls convention is representative of. Surely it was an incredible event from a historic perspective for gender equality from a legal position. However, when asking oneself the question of how fully the intentions set by the Declaration of Sentiment were fulfilled, one would hesitate to confirm that all aspects of the declaration were honored. There are many areas from a societal perspective that women continue to be limited strictly based on gender. In conclusion, great strides have been made early in American history that set the tone for women to have a platform to speak out for their rights, yet there is still a cultural shift that is needed in order for full women’s emancipation to become a reality.
References
Lerner, G. (2009). “The Meaning of Seneca Falls.” Living with History/Making Social Change.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved from <http://www.jstor.org/
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Stanton, E.C. et al. (1881). Text of "The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments."
Tetrault, L. (2014). “Prologue: Getting Acquainted with History.” The Myth of Seneca Falls:
Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898.” University of North
Carolina Press.
Timeline of Legal History of Women in the United States. National Women’s History
Project. Retrieved from <http://www.nwhp.org/resources/womens-rights-
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Wellman, J. (2006). “The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women’s
Suffrage.” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Retrieved from
<http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/2007-06/age-exploration>.
