Seneca Falls Convention - July 19, 1848

The Seneca Falls Convention convened in New York on this day in 1848.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to this day in history class. It's July nine.
The Seneca Falls Convention took place on this day in
eighteen forty eight, and it was the first major women's
rights convention in the United States. The two women who
get the most credit for organizing this convention were Lucretia
Mott and Elizabeth Katie Stanton. Both of them had a
history of activism before this. Lucretia Mott had helped organize

(00:27):
the Philadelphia Female Anti Slavery Society, and then Elizabeth Katie
Stanton had gone to the World Anti Slavery Convention in
London on her honeymoon. As a side note, she also
famously refused to include a vow of obedience in those
wedding vows. The two women actually met at this convention,
where they were forced to sit in a separate section

(00:47):
that was only for women. On July nine of eighteen
forty eight, the two of them were at a gathering
at the home of Jane and Richard Hunt, with Marian
McClintock and Martha right there also, and they were talking
about their frustration with the limitations on their lives. And
we should take a moment to note that these were
all white educated, well off women, and so the frustrations

(01:09):
they were talking about were really ones that were affecting
white educated, well off women. And when they talked about
these issues, you can tell that they were sort of
assuming them to be universal when they really weren't. They
were as a particular subset of women that their work
really applied to, and that would play out in a
lot of ways later on in this movement. So they

(01:32):
decided to hold a convention. This was something that Stanton
and Mott had been talking about way back in London
in eighteen forty, and they scheduled this convention for ten
days later. They announced that in the Seneca County Courier
on July fourteenth. It was to be a two day
convention only for women on the first day, with the
general public invited on the second day. The same ad

(01:53):
ran in other newspapers as well, including in Frederick Douglas's
North Star. Douglas was really an important part of this movement,
and he was present at the convention. Elizabeth Katie Stanton
drafted a declaration of sentiments leading up to this. This
detailed eighteen injuries and usurpations that women were subject to.
This included the idea that women had an inalienable right

(02:18):
to vote, but they weren't actually being given that right,
that by being denied the right to vote, women were
also being denied representation that they were held to a
different moral code from men, with women being cast out
from society for behavior that was tolerated in men. Speaking
of mankind as a concept, this declaration said, quote, he

(02:41):
has made her, if married in the eye of the
law civilly dead, and he has taken from her all
right and property, even to the wages she earns. There
are also eleven resolutions in this document that included that
women were equal to men and quote that the same
amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior fear that
is required of women in the social state should also

(03:03):
be required of man, and the same transgressions should be
visited with equal severity on both man and woman. One
of the resolutions was also that women should have the
right to vote. Between two hundred and three hundred people
attended this convention. The declaration was read and discussed and
read again. Changes were made, and an amended and updated
version was signed on the second day by sixty eight

(03:25):
women and thirty two men. You can learn more about
the Seneca Falls Convention on the December seven episode of
Stuff You Missed in History Class called The Road to
the Declaration of Sentiments, and you can subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and
whatever else you get your podcasts. Tomorrow, we'll look at
an event for young athletes that was really groundbreaking for

(03:47):
its time.