The convention at Seneca Falls New York was the initial convention for women’s rights. It took place in 1848 between July 19-20. The convention’s purpose was to speak about the civil, religious and social rights of women. By 1850 there was the initiation of a series of National Women’s Rights Conventions that met in Worcester, Massachusetts. These events would continue until the Civil War began in 1861.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and local Quaker women organized the event. They had planned the event to take place during the time that the female orator Lucretia Mott was going to be in the area giving a speech. There were six sessions in the meeting which included a humorous presentation, a number of discussions and a lecture on the law. The women prepared and presented two documents the Declaration of Sentiments and a list of resolutions to the Sentiments. These documents were debated and modified before they were put up to receive signatures from the members of the Convention.
The Convention was seen by some women as a step towards the continuing effort put forth by women to obtain equality when it came to civil, moral and social rights. To other women it was seen as the beginning of the Women’s Rights Movement. According to Judith Wellman in “The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women’s Suffrage” many people were not comfortable with the idea of women voting or having equal rights, but they could not argue against the logic of the Sentiments (Wellman, pg. 3)
The right for women to vote ended up being a serious debate as many of the women want it to be taken off the agenda. However, Frederick Douglass argued that it should be included and the women decided to allow it to remain in the document. According to the Timeline of Legal History of Women in the United States 300 people in attendance signed the Declaration of Sentiments. To advocate for an end to discrimination against all women from every part of society (Timeline of Legal History of Women in the United States)
The Declaration of Sentiments included the phrasing “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Wellman, pg.1). This showed that the women who wrote the document only wanted the rights that had been promised in the Declaration of Independence.
While the Declaration of Sentiments is most widely known for its assertion that women should have the right to vote. The Sentiments actually spoke on a wide variety of topics and declared that women should have equality in every aspect of their lives. This included family, education, jobs, morals, politics and religion. They want women to have the rights and privileges that were promised to them as citizens.
Despite the fact that most people associate Seneca Falls with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The women’s Rights Movement had been growing for a number of years as more and more women after the end of the Revolutionary War began to acknowledge and demand that they be given equality due to the fact that they were equal in intelligence and could perform the same tasks as men.
In the 1830’s reformers began to argue for women to be able to speak out political and moral issues, such as legal reform and the abolition of slavery. Stanton told in her autobiography of an account that led to her and Lucretia Mott deciding to organize a meeting in regards to Women’s Rights. In 1840 they had attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention that took place in London. At the convention Anti-Slavery organizations and societies that were led by women were denied the right to sit and to vote. It was because of this experience that Mott and Stanton decided to organize a meeting of women in the United States. This plan was put on hold for eight years as family responsibilities intervened. They were finally able to come together in 1848 when Mott was visiting her sister Martha. Martha lived in Waterloo, a town right outside of Seneca Falls. (Lerner pg.4) Stanton, Mott Martha, Jane Hunt their hostess, and Mary Ann McClintock drafted an announcement for the “Woman’s Rights Convention” that was to be held at Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20. They placed the ad in abolitionist and local newspapers. (Lerner pg. 4).
Contrary to how they have been portrayed by myth. The five women who organized the event at Seneca Falls were not inexperienced nor naïve. Mott and Stanton were both powerful speakers. Mott was also a Quaker minister, abolitionist and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society and she was the founder and longtime President of the Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia (Lerner pg.4). Stanton was a mother, who struggled with raising her three children while her husband was gone for work. Despite this she was able to campaign for the right of women to own property in New York and had spoken in front of the state legislature (Lerner pg. 4). The other three women were all separatists Quakers, who had been active within their church in regards to improving the status of women within their congregations. They had also worked with a number of women’s organizations and advocated against slavery (Lerner pg.4).
On day one of the convention the attendance was regulated to only women. It was on this day that they went through and discussed, and created the Declaration of Sentiments. They also wrote the resolutions to The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. (1) The women asked for the same rights that were promised to men as citizens of the United States. (2) the women used religion as an argument for equality saying “Resolved, that woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.
And one of the “grievances” is: He [man] has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign to her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God” (Lerner pg.6), (The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments). (3) the Declaration asked that women be given the same right to vote and to have say in the law as men did (4) women wanted the right to keep their property and wages after marriage, to be able to receive a fair trial when it came to divorce and to obtain fair wages for the work that they would do (5) the Declaration of Sentiment also asked that women be given equal access to education, and positions in careers, home and religious institutions. (The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments)
What women wanted to obtain were both their rights and their emancipation. Women’s Emancipation referred to the freedom from the oppression that was placed on women because of their sex. This included both biological and social restrictions that were put on women, such as being expected to have and raise numerous children. Women wanted their emancipation based on the right of Self-Determination this is the idea that everyone has the right to decide and control their own destinies. They wanted Autonomy which is the right of a person to earn one’s status rather the marrying or being born into it. It is the idea of having both cultural and financial freedom. The right to choose one’s one life and the way that it is lived. Women’s Rights included the right of women to obtain an education, hold office and to have political and economic power that would be equal to that of men. This included fair wages, property rights which included being able to buy and sell, the right to sue and be sued. According to Lerner in “The Meaning of Seneca Falls” Women’s Emancipation always includes Women’s Rights, but Women’s Rights never ask or demand the emancipation of women. This is why women’s emancipation has not been achieved anywhere in the world (Lerner pg.7)
After the Seneca Falls Convention the movement to women obtaining equality with men has been quite slow at times. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920. This was in part due to the Civil War in “Prologue: Getting Acquainted with History Lisa Tetrault writes that the women’s rights movement which had suspended their meetings for the duration of the war decided to have the Eleventh National Woman’s Rights Convention on May 10, 1866 five years after they had their last meeting (Tetrault pg. 9) At the meeting Mott encouraged women to learn their history (Tetrault pg. 10)
Despite the call of Mott for women to learn their history. The events at Seneca Falls were not deemed to be important until rather recently. This was because the movement did not break out in full scale revolution of war. In fact; it was happening in the midst of The American Civil War, China, Eastern Europe and Russia executing state governments, and the growth of Communism. (Lerner pg. 3). This caused the Convention and what it began for the Women’s Rights Movement to be seen as insignificant. It was only when women’s history began to be studied that the events of Seneca Falls and their importance to history became known again (Lerner pg.3). The acknowledgement of the events at Seneca Falls being a turning point and the beginning of the Women’s Rights movement came in part because of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960’s
The Women’s Liberation Movement demanded that women were given the same political and legal rights as men, that they be permitted to exercise control over their own bodies, they demanded that they would be able to be protected from violence and rape even if it happened in a relationship or marriage and the right to be employed in jobs that were not traditionally female.
There has been a number of strides made in the rights of women since 1848, and the 1960’s but all of the Declarations of Sentiments have not been realized. Women still make less than men at .87/ 100. This discrepancy becomes worse when it involves single mothers. Many of who have to pay a substantial amount of their pay towards childcare costs. The debate over abortion continues on with male and female advocates and protesters on each side. The Federal government is slow to fund any bill or program that has to do with women’s health. For many years it was not necessary for insurance plans to include health services for women. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood are often attacked and even forced out of states, because they perform abortions. This is in despite of the fact that Planned Parenthood also other services that are vital to the health of many low income women, including mammograms, pelvic exams, prenatal care, etc.
However, many of the rights asked for have been given. These include the right to own property, to buy and sell property, to be on a jury, the right of a woman to divorce and to have custody or equal guardianship of her children, to join the military, police force and hold positions of rank. All rape including Marital rape has been declared a crime. Nonetheless there is a tendency to turn the victims into villains because of such petty and asinine things as the clothes they were wearing, or how much they had been drinking.
Works Cited
Lerner, Gerda. "The Meaning of Seneca Falls." Living with History / Making Social Change (2009): 73-84. Jstor. Web. 24 May 2016.
Tetrault, Lisa. “Prologue: Getting Acquainted with History” The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898. University of North Carolina Press. Ebook 2014
Text of “The Seneca Falls Declaration of Rights and Sentiments” from History of Women Suffrage Vol. 1, ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al. New York: Fowler and Wells, 1881
Timeline of Legal History of Women in the United States. National Women’s History Project. Web.
Wellman, Judith, “The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women’s Suffrage” History Now 7 (Spring 2006):n.p. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Web 5 May 24, 2016.
