SENECA FALLS CONVENTION BEGINS:

July 19, 1848

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a woman's rights convention--the
first ever held in the United States--convenes with almost 200 women in
attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in
London. As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the convention floor, and
the common indignation that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for
their founding of the women's rights movement in the United States.In 1848, at
Stanton's home near Seneca Falls, the two women, working with Martha Wright,
Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt, sent out a call for a women's conference to
be held at Seneca Falls. The announcement, published in the Seneca County
Courier on July 14, read, "A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and
religious condition and rights of women will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at
Seneca Falls, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July
current; commencing at 10 o'clock A.M. During the first day the meeting will be
exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally
are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of
Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, will address the Convention."On
July 19, 200 women convened at the Wesleyan Chapel, and Stanton read the
"Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances," a treatise that she had drafted over
the previous few days. Stanton's declaration was modeled closely on the
Declaration of Independence, and its preamble featured the proclamation, "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..." The
Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances then detailed the injustices inflicted
upon women in the United States and called upon U.S. women to organize and
petition for their rights.On the second day of the convention, men were invited
to intend--and some 40 did, including the famous African American abolitionist
Frederick Douglass. That day, the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances was
adopted and signed by the assembly. The convention also passed 12
resolutions--11 unanimously--which called for specific equal rights for women.
The ninth resolution, which declared "it is the duty of the women of this
country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise,"
was the only one to meet opposition. After a lengthy debate, in which Douglass
sided with Stanton in arguing the importance of female enfranchisement, the
resolution was passed. For proclaiming a women's right to vote, the Seneca Falls
Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women's rights
withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the
women's suffrage movement in America.The Seneca Falls Convention was followed
two weeks later by an even larger meeting in Rochester, N.Y. Thereafter,
national woman's rights conventions were held annually, providing an important
focus for the growing women's suffrage movement. After years of struggle, the
19th Amendment was adopted in 1920, granting American women the constitutionally
protected right to vote.