Transcript Seneca Falls Conference: The Beginning of Women`s Rights.

Seneca Falls Conference:
The Beginning of Women's Rights.
Seneca Falls
One of the
earliest
gatherings for
women's
rights in the
United States
took place on
July 19 and
20, 1848 in
Seneca Falls,
N.Y.
Seneca Falls
The meeting was
organized by
Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia
Mott and others and
was attended by
many famous
Americans,
including Frederick
Douglass.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived in Seneca Falls with
her husband and children. In 1840, she attended
the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.
None of the women delegates to the convention
were allowed to speak at the meeting. They were
all forced to sit behind a curtain.
“We do not propose to petition
the legislature to make our
husbands just, generous, and
courteous, to seat every man at
the head of a cradle, and to
Lucretia Mott
At the convention, she
met Lucretia Mott, and
they agreed that they
must do something to
help guarantee women
basic civil rights.
Stanton and Mott
Lucretia Mott was a Quaker and was angered at the
brutality and injustices against enslaved people and by
the conditions and injustices in women's lives at the
time. Mott was an active abolitionist and opened her
home to escaped slaves.
Stanton joined Mott and a handful of other women in
Seneca Falls. Together they organized the first women's
rights convention held in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20.
Stanton drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, which she
read at the convention. Modeled on the United States
Declaration of Independence, Stanton's declaration
proclaimed that men and women are created equal. She
proposed, among other things, a then-controversial
resolution demanding voting rights for women.
The Seneca Falls Conference
At the Seneca Falls
convention, Stanton
read the "Declaration of
Sentiments" to the
assembly. This
document was based
on the Declaration of
Independence, and it
argued that women and
men should be treated
equally.
The Declaration of
Sentiments
Although the
declaration called
for a woman's
right to vote,
women would not
be able to vote in
the United States
until 70 years
later in 1920.
Significance of Seneca Falls
By awakening women to the injustices
under which they labored , Seneca Falls
became the catalyst for future change .
Soon other women's rights conventions
were held, and other women would come
to the forefront of the movement for
political and social equality.