Title: The road from SENECA FALLS. (cover story)
Source: New Republic, 08/10/98, Vol. 219 Issue 6, p26, 12p, 3bw
Author(s): Stansell, Christine
Abstract: Reviews several books related to women’s suffrage and feminism. ‘The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady STANTON and Susan B. Anthony, Volume One: In the School of Anti-Slavery, 1840-1866,’ edited by Ann D. Gordon; ‘Harriet STANTON Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage,’ by Ellen Carol DuBois; ‘Woman Suffrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in the United States, 1820-1920,’ by Suzanne M. Marilley; More.
AN: 888132
ISSN: 0028-6583
Full Text Word Count: 9663
Database: Academic Search Premier
Section: BOOKS & THE ARTS
The feminism of the mothers, the feminism of the daughters, the feminism of the girls.
THE ROAD FROM SENECA FALLS
I.
One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, in the little country town of SENECA FALLS in upstate New York, several dozen excited women and a few interested men held the first meeting in the world devoted solely to women’s rights. It was 1848, the “springtime of the peoples” in Europe; and, although these Americans were far removed from the emancipatory proclamations in Europe, they caught the fever and produced one of their own, the Declaration of Sentiments: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” Compared to the apocalypticism of The Communist Manifesto, another product of that year, the SENECA FALLS Declaration seems modest, a relic of right-thinking republicanism rather than a portent of wrenching revolutionary transformation. Yet its effects were destined to be no less profound, and far more benign.
The gathering in 1848 emerged from a long, fitfully articulated history of women’s grievances, though the participants were not aware of it. The interruption of historical memory and, in its absence, the strains of improvising a politics of grievance on the spot, have always characterized this tradition. The written record of female protest extends back to the late middle ages, to the French woman of letters Christine de Pizan and her Book of the City of Ladies. It was in the late eighteenth century, however, that the language of the rights of man gained momentum around the northern Atlantic world, shifting the idea of justice for women out of the register of utopia to make it, for a few highly politicized women in the age of revolution, a plausible goal in the here and now.
Thus, in 1776, Abigail Adams admonished her patriot husband, away in Philadelphia at the Continental Congress, to “remember the ladies” in their declarations, a nudge tempered by coyness but at heart quite serious.
While being born in the modern times, no woman knows what it was like to have a status less than a man’s. It is hard to envision what struggles many women had to go through in order to get the rights to be considered equal. In the essay The Meanings of Seneca Falls, 1848-1998, Gerda Lerner recalls the events surrounding the great women’s movement. Among the several women that stand out in the movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton stands out because of her accomplishments. Upon being denied seating and voting rights at the World Antislavery Convention of 1840, she was outraged and humiliated, and wanted change. Because of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s great perseverance, the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was a success as well as a great influence on the future of women’s rights.
The journals review signifies the perception through an author’s concentration being on specific scope in regards to the women’s suffrage. The collection of information led to an enhanced understanding of the subject matter. Therefore, the perspective author’s analyzing topics varying in methods used by women for political recognition, the feminist movement impact, challenges faced within the campaign, and the history of the national and social movements in the global battle for women suffragists. However, some of the author’s did not provide a direct link of their articles to other information from other works of literature though they all have significant contributions to the topic.
While each woman chose her own unique approach to the subject of women’s rights, both Child’s Letter XXXIV [Women’s Rights] and Stanton’s The Seneca Falls Declaration (1848) provide a detailed description of their reactions to a chauvinistic society. Each woman is so offended by the matter that she is compelled to compile a document of grievances.
2. The leading topic of the book is the history of the convention, which took place in 1848 and its further impact. First, the author starts from an introductory chapter, which describes in details the sufferings of women of that time. It is the first example supporting the diversity of topics touched by the author. For example, the McMillen mentions that the majority of women did not have any right to vote, receive the same amount of payment for the work they did equally with men, or hold property. All these issues have a relation to economic and political aspects, which penetrated the society of that time. In addition, throughout the book, the author mentions class divisions and discrimination based on race. All these discussions represent the book’s intention to touch on political, socia...
I have read Kathryn Kish Sklar book, brief History with documents of "Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870" with great interest and I have learned a lot. I share her fascination with the contours of nineteenth century women's rights movements, and their search for meaningful lessons we can draw from the past about American political culture today. I find their categories of so compelling, that when reading them, I frequently lost focus about women's rights movements history and became absorbed in their accounts of civic life.
Although women did not have the same rights as men, they came to possess a mentality that was a force to be reckoned with in a fight for equality. In 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, 150 women and 30 men met to dispute the male sovereignty of the time. At this conference, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an educated, married abolitionist, presented the “Declaration of Sentiments”. This document was a testament to the drastic changes the United States would have to go through to include women in its widespread ideals. As the basis for their argument, the writers of the Seneca Falls Declaration utilized the Declaration of Independence to catch the attention of the public and display the severity of the situation. However, in her oration, Stanton changes the male centralized voice of the Declaration of Independence. When addressing the self –evident truths, she expressed that “all men and women are created equal” instead of the original phrase that excluded women (Anthony, Stanton, and Gage, 239). Their document was further structured with 18 grievances and 11 resolutions; each was meant to recognize women as equal members of society. As the current government has “become destructive of [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government” (Anthony, Stanton, and Gage, 240). Because women were rightfully entitled to an equal station beside men, they demanded the recognition of the rights that society was currently denying them. The most controversial resolution presented at the conference was the desire to vote. Women wanted this ability because they deserved to have a voice in the laws that would inevitably affect them. As free American citizens, it was their inalienable right to vote and have some form of representation in legislation. The Seneca Falls Conference and the Declaration of Sentiments was just the beginning of a public fight for women’s equality and rights.
“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” – Mary Wollstonecraft. In the 19th century the hot topic was women’s rights everybody had an opinion about it. Of course the expected ones like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had much to say but a few unexpected ones like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass spoke out for women’s rights. The focus will be the responsibilities and roles that the activists played in the Women’s Rights or Feminist Movement. The relevance to the theme is the activists had a very important role toward reaching the ultimate goal of the Women’s Rights Movement. The Women’s Rights Movement was one of the most essential times in American history; it was the fight for women acquiring the same rights as men. Susan B. Anthony was considered the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement after she was denied the right to speak in a temperance convention; she had the responsibility of creating the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) and helping to secure voting rights by her historic court case, the Trials of Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an important women’s rights activist that helped plan the first organized women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. Lucretia Mott worked along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to plan the first women’s rights convention and wrote the, “Discourse on Women”. Lucy Stone formed the American Women’s Suffrage Association (AWSA) and convince individual states to join the effort towards women rights. These women had an influence in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) achievement of the goals in the Women’s Rights Movement. These women had a profound effect on reaching equal rights between men and women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an important element of the Women’s Rights Movement, but not many people know of her significance or contributions because she has been overshadowed by her long time associate and friend, Susan B. Anthony. However, I feel that she was a woman of great importance who was the driving force behind the 1848 Convention, played a leadership role in the women’s rights movement for the next fifty years, and in the words of Henry Thomas, “She was the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies ad documents.”
According to Ellen Carol Dubois, the campaigns to acquire women suffrage were not easy that they required voters to “be persuaded to welcome new and unpredictable constituencies into the political arena” (420). There was also severe resistance in the North about the immigrant vote and the exclusion of African American and poor whites in the South (420). Immigrants in the North and African American in the South were not fully qualified to vote for the women. Harriot Stanton Bl...
Perhaps the most crucial reformists of the time period were those battling to obtain their God-given rights. Many lower class workers, such as African Americans, women, and immigrants, sought after the opportunity to vote, work it certain facilities, and be accepted in society as a whole. An engraving by Patrick Reason depicts an African American female in chains; with the inscription ‘Am I not a Woman and a Sister?’(Doc C) The woman shown is crying out, begging to be heard and listened to. Many males of the time period did not take female reformists seriously, or listen to them at all. On August 2nd, 1848, through the Seneca Falls Declaration, Elizabeth Cady Stanton prote...
The early women's movement was dominated by an uncompromising attitude of right versus wrong. This attitude came from the involvement of this same segment of society in the abolitionist movement. While intellectually appealing, in "Not Wards of the Nation: The Struggle for Women's Suffrage," William H. Chafe tells us that early women's rights advocates "were generally dismissed as a 'class of wild enthusiasts and visionaries' and received little popular support (Oates 153). One of the founders of this movement was Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
On July 19th 1848, the first Women's Convention was held in Seneca Falls, from which 68 women and 32 men participated, to discuss Women's rights and equality to men. During the convention, was written the “Declaration of Sentiments”, document that approached the issues to be overcome by women, including their rights regards: voting; social equality; intellectual capacity; equal payment and right to occupy high positions. Today, one hundred and sixty six years after this convention was held, what have women really accomplished in terms of acceptance and support from our government and society? Researches show that women are still under paid in comparison to men in same positions; women are still struggling to occupy higher positions within the companies they work; society is still imposing to women the main part on parenthood without attributing shared responsibilities to men; government is still lacking support regards laws involving maternity leave and equal pay.
The nineteenth century encountered some of most revolutionary movements in the history of our nation, and of the world – the movements to abolish slavery and the movement for women’s rights. Many women participated alongside men in the movement to abolish slavery, and “their experience inspired feminist social reformers to seek equality with men” (Bentley, Ziegler, and Streets-Salter 2015, pg. 654). Their involvement in the abolition movement revealed that women suffered many of the same legal disadvantages as slaves, most noticeably their inability to access the right to vote. Up until this time, women had little success in mobilizing their efforts to gain the right to vote. However, the start of the women’s rights movement in the mid-1800s, involving leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, paved the path for the expansion of women’s rights into the modern century.
"The beginning of the fight for women suffrage is usually traced to the Declaration of Sentiments' produced at the first woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N. Y. in 1848." (Linder) A few years before this convention, Elizabeth Cady St...
The first meeting solely dedicated to women’s rights was the Seneca Falls Convention on July 19-20, 1848 and was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. The convention attracted nearly one hundred people, in which two-thirds of those in attendance were women. It was here that the Women’s Rights Movement was born. Elizabeth Stanton created the “Declaration of Sentiments, Grievances and Resolutions” which mimicked the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence. She wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” ("Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony—."). From this point on women addressed their limited rights in society and the barriers holding them back. The Seneca Falls Convention served as a breeding ground for female activists to come together and fight theses social and economic issues.