The Road To Seneca Falls

Feminists from 1848 to the present have rightly viewed the Seneca Falls convention as the birth of the women's rights movement in the United States and beyond. In The Road To Seneca Falls, Judith Wellman offers the first well documented, full-length account of this historic meeting in its contemporary context. The convention succeeded by uniting powerful elements of the antislavery movement, radical Quakers, and the campaign for legal reform under a common cause. Wellman shows that these three strands converged not only in Seneca Falls, but also in the life of women's rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It is this convergence, she argues, that foments one of the greatest rebellions of modern times. Rather than working heavy-handedly downward from their official "Declaration of Sentiments," Wellman works upward from richly detailed documentary evidence to construct a complex tapestry of causes that lay behind the convention, bringing the struggle to life. Her approach results in a satisfying combination of social, community, and reform history with individual and collective biographical elements. The Road to Seneca Falls challenges all of us to reflect on what it means to be an American trying to implement the belief that "all men and women are created equal," both then and now. A fascinating story in its own right, it is also a seminal piece of scholarship for anyone interested in history, politics, or gender.

A biography of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the organizers of the country's first women's rights convention, which took place in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a little girl in the early 1800s, she realized that most people seemed to think that boys were better than girls. As Stanton grew up, she saw that women had fewer opportunities than men. With this in mind, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her longtime friend Lucretia Mott organized the nation's first women's rights convention, which took place in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

On July 13, 1848, five women conversed over tea in a small upstate New York town. The next day, the local newspaper carried their announcement inviting women to attend “A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.″ A few days later, the American woman's right movement became reality. Miriam Gurko traces the course of the movement from its origin in the Seneca Falls Convention through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. She examines each of the movement's founders—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and others—to show the various backgrounds from which their feminist consciousness sprang and the unique contribution that each made to the destiny of the movement. This straightforward, comprehensive history of the early years of the woman's rights movement in America is essential background reading for anyone involved with women's studies. With 34 black-and-white illustrations

Creative Minds Biographies. This theme unit introduces intermediate readers to several women who changed history. Through their courage, perseverance, and intellect, the women in these lively, well-written biographies forever altered their communities and impacted the world.

In a quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, over the course of two days in July, 1848, a small group of women and men, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, held a convention that would launch the woman's rights movement and change the course of history. The implications of that remarkable convention would be felt around the world and indeed are still being felt today. In Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman's Rights Movement, the latest contribution to Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments in American History series, Sally McMillen unpacks, for the first time, the full significance of that revolutionary convention and the enormous changes it produced. The book covers 50 years of women's activism, from 1840-1890, focusing on four extraordinary figures--Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony. McMillen tells the stories of their lives, how they came to take up the cause of women's rights, the astonishing advances they made during their lifetimes, and the lasting and transformative effects of the work they did. At the convention they asserted full equality with men, argued for greater legal rights, greater professional and education opportunities, and the right to vote--ideas considered wildly radical at the time. Indeed, looking back at the convention two years later, Anthony called it "the grandest and greatest reform of all time--and destined to be thus regarded by the future historian." In this lively and warmly written study, Sally McMillen may well be the future historian Anthony was hoping to find. A vibrant portrait of a major turning point in American women's history, and in human history, this book is essential reading for anyone wishing to fully understand the origins of the woman's rights movement.

Celebrate the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment with another historical novel about women's suffrage from the author of The Hope Chest! Bridie's life has been a series of wrongs. The potato famine in Ireland. Being sent to the poorhouse when her mother's new job in America didn't turn out the way they'd hoped. Becoming an orphan. And then there's the latest wrong--having to work for a family so abusive that Bridie is afraid she won't survive. So she runs away to Seneca Falls, New York, which in 1848 is a bustling town full of possibility. There, she makes friends with Rose, a girl with her own list of wrongs, but with big dreams, too. Rose helps Bridie get a job with the strangest lady she's ever met, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mrs. Stanton is planning a convention to talk about the rights of women. For Bridie and Rose, it's a new idea, that women and girls could have a voice. But they sure are sick of all the wrongs. Maybe it's time to fight for their rights!

They were two days that changed the world. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention was the first of its kind to address the topic of women’s rights. Featuring excerpts from primary sources, images, and sidebars, this informative volume describes the low status held by nineteenth-century women, and how a handful of key players sought to achieve equal rights during this convention that spawned a greater movement.