Background:
Under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, a convention for the rights of women was held
in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. It was attended by
between 200 and 300 people, both women and men. Its primary
goal was to discuss the rights of women—how to gain
these rights for all, particularly in the political arena.
The conclusion of this convention was that the effort
to secure equal rights across the board would start by
focusing on suffrage for women. The participants wrote
the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,
patterned after the Declaration of Independence. It specifically
asked for voting rights and for reforms in laws governing
marital status. Reactions to the convention and the
new Declaration were mixed. Many people felt that the
women and their sympathizers were ridiculous, and newspapers
denounced the women as unfeminine and immoral. Little
substantive change resulted from the Declaration in
1848, but from that time through 1920, when the goal
of women’s suffrage was attained with the passage
of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Declaration served
as a written reminder of the goals of the movement.
Essential Question:
How did women of the nineteenth century use a national
document of independence dating from the eighteenth
century to make their argument for equal rights?
Materials:
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