We Remember: Women’s Rights Convention, 1848

By Dolores Delgado-Campbell

By Dolores Delgado Campbell

Flickr/Adam Fagan

On July 19-20, 1848, 300 women and men converged on Seneca Falls, New York, for the first Women’s Rights Convention in the U.S. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized it. The two had met in 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England. Theirs became a life-long friendship and commitment to organize and educate about the “status of women’s rights” in the United States.

Together they wrote “The Declaration of Sentiments,” a document that used the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a model. Some 68 women and 32 men signed the document.

The Declaration raised many issues including the women’s right to vote, which was not achieved until August 26,1920, with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Numerous other controversial issues were debated, as you can read in the document below —

Source: We Remember: Women’s Rights Convention, 1848