Women's Rights Movement
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's first major event for the women's rights movement was in 1848 when she contributed to organizing the Seneca Falls Convention, along with Lucretia Mott (pictured here) and others.1 At the convention, Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments, a document similar to the Declaration of Independence, which spoke about the injustices against women in the same way the Founding Fathers spoke about the injustices against them. This document included grievances such as:
"He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded mem - both natives and foreigners.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead."2
Soon after the convention, she met fellow feminist Susan B. Anthony, and a partnership was born from then on. Then, with a committe of women, Stanton wrote The Woman's Bible. The book, published in 1895, was seen by many as blasphemous due to it challenging the idea that men should be above women in every sense. In response to a clergyman saying The Woman's Bible is the work of the devil, Stanton said, "His Satanic Majesty was not invited to join the Revising Committee, which consists of women alone. Moreover, he has been so busy of late years attending Synods, General Assemblies or Conferences, to prevent the recognition of women as delegates, that he has no time to study the languages of 'higher criticism.'"3 This book was seen as extremely controversial, even by NAWSA (The National American Woman Suffrage Association), and Stanton was left discredited by them. Even so, she kept fighting for the right to vote until her death in 1902.
1 “Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Declaration of Sentiments - History.” History.com. A&E Television Networks. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/elizabeth-cady-stanton.
2 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (Applewood Books, 2015).
3 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, and Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006).