Seneca Falls Convention

Setting the scene

By 1848, American women couldn't vote, own property, or attend college. After being barred from speaking at the 1840 anti-slavery convention, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton vowed to hold a women's rights convention.

What happened

The convention met July 19-20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, with 300 attendees. Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments listed 16 grievances. The suffrage resolution passed narrowly only after Frederick Douglass spoke for it. Sixty-eight women and 32 men signed.

Why it still matters

Seneca Falls launched the women's rights movement, though it took 72 years to win the vote in 1920. It established the template for reform movements. The Declaration is now a foundational American document. The demand for suffrage, radical in 1848, became mainstream by the 1900s.

Background

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. Its organizers advertised it as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women's rights conventions, including the Rochester Women's Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, two weeks later. Organizers issued the Declaration of Sentiments.