Avengers of the Week | Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
On July 19, 1848 the Seneca Falls Convention, the first ever women’s rights convention in the country, convened at Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Abolitionists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton put out a call in the Seneca County Courier that 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 the first day, The Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, a document based on the Declaration of Independence was read. The Declaration 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, 40 men rose to speak, including African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
One of the resolutions passed at this convention was the Women’s Right to Vote resolution, marking the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in America. After this first convention, similar gatherings were held each year but it wasn’t until 1920, 72 years after the first gathering of women standing up for their equality, that the 19th Amendment granting American women the constitutionally protected right to vote was adopted.
* Information sourced from History.com
This dynamic duo ignited the women’s suffrage movement in America. They're our Avengers of the Week. #genderavenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avengers-of-the-week-lucretia-mott-elizabeth-cady-stanton