Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Suffragist and Femenist

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal.” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls Declaration). Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a suffragist and feminist. She worked towards many goals in order for women to have a say in a world where men ruled. She wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, a groundbreaking request for women’s rights. In a time in which women had no rights, Stanton, along with her partner Susan B. Anthony, started movements to change the lives of women for eternity. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on November 12, 1815 in Johnstown, New York. She was the daughter of Margaret Livingston and Daniel Cady, who was a lawyer and congressman himself. She was a daughter of ten, but experienced hardships during her childhood by losing her siblings. Four out of her five brothers died during early stages of their lives, and the fifth brother died after graduating college at Union. The passing her brother, Eleazar, profoundly affected her father’s attitude due to the fact her family was centered on the men. As she tried to console her father he said how he wished she was a boy. This small statement from her father led to her dedication to changing society’s unreasonable treatment of women. She graduated from Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminar in 1832. While with her cousin, she met fugitive slaves that were staying in his house. Visiting her cousin Gerrit Smith, a former reformer, led her to take place in women’s rights, abolitionist, and temperance movements. This really sparked her resilient anti-slavery views. In 1840, Elizabeth Cady married a man by the name of Henry Stanton. In their wedding, she omitted the word obey from the traditional ceremony. This enabled the marriage to start off ... ... middle of paper ... ...politics, she held Church responsible as well. When a local minister at a church protested against the convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, she confidently disputed his interpretation the Christianity did not tolerate inequality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s involvement in women’s rights drastically improved and intensified when she met an activist in the Temperance Movement and friend of women’s rights supporters, Susan B. Anthony. With struggles in her personal life, Stanton relied on Anthony for her enthusiasm, mobility, and ability to build a women’s rights movement. They made their first movement in 1852, when they came together to help Anthony’s cause and supervised over the Women’s New York State Temperance Society. Stanton was asked to leave because her views on women’s rights and the topic of divorce. Works Cited The Woman's Bible. Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1986.

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