A Brief Note On The Seneca Falls Convention

The first woman’s rights convention that was held in the United States was known as the Seneca Falls Convention, which had occurred in New York. This convention occurred during the year 1848 and lasted for 2 days. The convention had many facets that dealt with equality for both men and women. The Seneca Falls Convention formally introduced ideas that included: equality regardless of gender, equal voting rights for both men and women, and the equal opportunity for participation in trade and commerce. The convention served as a stepping stone on the way to equal rights for all women.

The convention was merely an idea that was later on, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and had over 300 people who had attended. Stanton

The individual’s names were Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. These five females met one another at a social visit on July 1848 (Seneca Falls). They were all acquainted with antislavery, and everyone except Stanton, were Quakers. While discussing about the call for a convention, the April passage of the long-deliberated New York Married Woman’s Property Rights Act, was still fresh in their minds. This act was passed on April 7, 1848, and although it allowed protection of the property of married women, it was still far from a comprehensive piece of Legislation for females (American). By the end of the meeting, they had decided to call for a convention, “to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights for woman” (Seneca

None of the women felt capable of presiding the meeting, so the task was given to Lucretia’s husband, James Mott. The resolutions were unanimously passed, except for woman suffrage that the Quaker males had declined to vote. Although, later on a former slave and newspaper editor of the Rochester North Star, named Fredrick Douglas, swayed the men into agreeing to the resolution. At the end of the convention, Lucretia Mott had won the approval of a final resolve for overthrowing of the monopoly of the pulpit, and securing women equal participation with men in various trade and commerce (Seneca Falls). About 100 of the attendees signed the declaration, although some had removed their names due to criticism from the pulpit (History).

The proceedings of the Seneca Falls Convention, had brought forth many torrents of ridicule and sarcasm from the press and pulpit. All the ridicule made Stanton discomforted about the widespread misinterpretation of the convention, but she understood the value of the attention in the press. She exclaimed that this “is what I wanted” (Seneca Falls). James Gordon Bennett was motivated by derision, and had eventually printed the entire Declaration of Sentiments in the New York Herald (Seneca Falls). With the publicity given, the convention became more exposed and allowed new steps of progress to be