Seneca Falls Convention Research Paper

The Seneca Falls Convention was held on July 19th and 20th, 1848 in New York at the Wesleyan Methodist Church, it was the first Women’s Rights Convention held in the United States and became the catalyst to the start of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The Seneca Falls Convention provided a place for women activists to voice their concerns and call for reform of society, which ultimately led to giving women the much needed momentum to push for the right to vote. The two main Women’s Rights Activists who began their careers in political activism with the abolitionist movement were Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London where they share their interest in Women’s rights and formed a

In 1833 she, along with Mary Ann M’clintock and 30 other female abolitionists organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slave Society. She married James Mott on April 1811. He was also an active abolitionist and chaired at the Seneca Falls Convention with his wife. He also signed the Declaration of Sentiments.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, and an abolitionist. She married Henry B stanton, who was and abolitionist and reformer, in 1840. He was known as “the Man Behind the Great Woman.” Stanton got her start by organizing the Seneca Falls Convention and soon after created the Women’s Loyal Nation League, which gathered 400,000 signatures on a petition to bring to bring about immediate passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to end

Most of the Seneca Falls delegates agreed that American women were self-governing individuals who have the right to their own political identities. On the first day of the Convention, Stanton spoke first explaining to the women how important it was for them to be responsible for their own life and to “understand the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of her own degradation” Lucretia Mott then took up the stands encouraging them all to stand up for he cause. Stanton then read the Declaration of Sentiments, there were changes made to it as others put in their say. Elizabeth M’Clintock gave a speech and the meeting was then closed for the day. The next day, Stanton opened the meeting again, with The Declaration of Sentiments where the ninth resolve was brought up. The ninth resolve states “Resolved, that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.” There were people who argued that the women would lose support for the other resolutions because this one is not as rational. There were also people arguing that only the civil, social and religious rights of women should be addressed, not political rights. They had several men, including Fredrick Douglass speak, Fredrick was the only African American at the meeting