Seneca Falls Convention
Lucretia Mott’s decision to
begin working for women’s rights came at an international abolitionists
convention. When American women were
denied seating and a voice equal to that of men at the World Anti-Slavery
Convention in London in 1840 and were confined to the gallery as silent
observers, Mott met Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who attended with her husband but
was not a delegate herself) and the two talked much about women’s rights and
the possibility of an organized women’s rights movement.[30] Mott and other women had been sent to London
as American delegates to the convention, but were not recognized as delegates
upon arrival. The seriousness of their
inferior status to men was realized when abolitionist men fighting for the
rights of blacks did not believe that abolitionist women were their
equals. From this point forward, Mott’s
work in the two movements would be inseparably intertwined.
Eight years after their
encounter at the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840, Mott and Stanton’s
dream of forming an organized women’s rights movement became reality. In 1848, the first women’s rights convention
was held in Seneca Falls, New York.[31] The impact that this event had on American
society is immeasurable; most importantly though, the convention was the
impetus to the organized feminist movement.
To organize the convention, women organizers drew on skills they had
acquired during the abolitionist movement.[32] The first logical step was to promote
interest in the convention. To do this,
Mott, Stanton, and others advertised in the local newspaper a meeting for women
to discuss their civil, religious, and social rights.[33] An advertisement such as this likely created
a stir and an air of curiosity. Would
women be interested or offended? Would
women be afraid to come?
Despite what worries
organizers may have had, more than three hundred women and men (mostly women)
came.[34] Although most of the men who attended the
convention were probably there out of curiosity, the turnout of women
demonstrates the sense of urgency that must have permeated Seneca Falls and the
surrounding communities. Five women,
including Mott, her sister Martha Wright, and Stanton, planned the convention.[35] However, it was Mott’s husband, James Mott,
who presided over the meeting.[36] None of the women thought that they should
take on such a role because they did not know if it was proper or not. They still were not sure if there were
boundaries to what they were trying to achieve or not.
This one element of
organization did not halt progress however.
The business to get on with was the making of resolutions regarding
women’s rights. These resolutions, as
they were called, were goals of a sort on which the women would vote to decide
if the goals should be a part of the women’s rights movement. Lucretia Mott herself was one of the
convention speakers, and one resolution she made was that women should be able
to do whatever jobs they pleased.[37] This and other resolutions were put together
in a document that is today famous. The
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, as it was titled, was an exact analogy
to the George III situation years earlier.[38] It was fashioned after the Declaration of
Independence, with an adapted Preamble, list of grievances, and a call for
women’s release from the oppression of men.[39] The act of fashioning the document after the
Declaration of Independence was ingenious, for there was no better way to draw
on the emotions of a young republic than to remind it of its own struggle for
independence. In addition to Mott’s
proposal that women should be permitted in various vocations, other resolutions
called for representation in Congress, property rights, and more liberal
divorce laws, none of which seem terribly radical today. Click
here to read the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.[40]
However, at the time of the
Seneca Falls Convention, these resolutions did indeed cause a stir. And none caused a stir quite like the one
that women’s suffrage did. Lucretia Mott
herself was not sure about the call for women’s voting rights; the issue was
most controversial because it would mean that women were totally equal to men.[41] Mott undoubtedly feared that this resolution
might create so much controversy that none of the convention’s other
resolutions would be taken seriously.
Even if it meant making temporary sacrifices, Mott considered it prudent
to wait for a better foothold to work for such a revolutionary right. This is in no way to say that Mott was
unsure if women should be able to vote or not.
She did. When convention attendees
voted on the resolutions, the right to vote was the only one controversial;
nonetheless, the voting resolution did pass with the others,[42]
and over one hundred women and men signed the document of resolutions.[43]
So what was the outcome of
the Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions? To be sure, Mott and her
counterparts definitely stepped on toes.
Women attendees to the convention were criticized in newspapers for
doing things deemed by men inappropriate for women.[44] No matter the criticism, women were now well
on the way to making strides for their independence. This struggle for independence was now a formal, organized
movement. Furthermore, women now met
more often to discuss women’s rights, and many local and national women’s
rights organizations sprung up. Women
everywhere could take heart in and follow the example of Seneca Falls. And this effect was almost immediate. Only two weeks following the Seneca Falls
Convention, a women’s rights meeting was held in Rochester, New York, a city
larger than Seneca Falls and therefore with a larger audience than the first.[45] At this meeting, women fully presided, and
the resolution for female suffrage passed without the conflict that had
occurred in Seneca Falls.[46] Within the two weeks between these two
meetings, women were already taking for themselves greater liberties than
previously. Also because of the
Rochester meeting, many small-town, state, and national meetings and organizations
were formed in the next decade (1850s).[47] If Mott had done no more in the women’s
rights movement, she would have at least partly spearheaded the beginning of
the organized movement itself.
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