Heralded as the first women’s rights convention in the United States, it was held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848. Seneca Falls was the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, along with Lucretia Mott, conceived and directed the convention.
Mott and Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the convention floor, and the common anger that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for their founding of the women’s rights movement in the United States.
The announcement for the convention, published in the Seneca County Courier on July 14, read, “A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July current; commencing at 10 A.M. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally is invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, will address the Convention.”
On July 19, 200 women convened at the Wesleyan Chapel, and Stanton read the “Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances,” a treatise that she had drafted over the previous few days. Stanton’s declaration was modeled closely on the Declaration of Independence, and its preamble featured the proclamation, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights….”
On the second day, the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances was adopted and signed by the assembly. The call went out to women and sympathetic men, of whom there were several, including Lucretia’s husband James, a leading anti-slavery crusader, and Fredrick Douglass from Rochester. Stanton’s husband Henry was a lawyer who advised her on points of law while she was drafting the resolutions.
The Declaration of Sentiments described 18 charges of "repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman," including the denial of the right to vote, unfair laws regarding separation and divorce, and inequality concerning religion, education, and employment.” It stated the hope that the convention in Seneca Falls would be followed by a series of conventions throughout the country.
The 12 resolutions enunciated in the Declaration of Sentiments called for the repeal of laws that enforced unequal treatment of women, the recognition of women as the equals of men, the granting of the right to vote, the right for women to speak in churches, and the equal participation of women with men in "the various trades, professions, and commerce."
After much discussion and debate, the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was passed largely as written. The biggest obstacle was the resolution that called for women's right to vote, known as woman suffrage.
After Douglass stated that "Suffrage is the power to choose rulers and make laws, and the right by which all others are secured," the woman suffrage resolution passed by a very narrow margin.
For proclaiming a woman’s right to vote, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women’s rights withdrew their support.
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