The Development of the Women’s Rights Movement in

the US

Julie MacePhoto Credit: thefatalfeminist.com

Women’s Rights vs. Women’s Emancipation

• Women’s Rights- “civil rights to vote, hold office, have access

to education, and to have economic and political power at

every level of society on an equal basis with men.” 17

• Women’s Emancipation- “is the freedom from oppressive

restrictions imposed by reason of sex; self-determination and

autonomy. Oppressive restrictions are biological restrictions

due to sex, as well as socially imposed ones.” 18

• In 1769, the law of coverture was recognized by American colonists in which,

"transferred a women's civic identity to her husband at marriage". 1 This

elaborate system of women oppression in property rights & voting rights strictly

confined a women's ability to be full participants in a society of the free. Women

however, didn't remain idle recipients of the inequalities with coverture; women

fought to get their right to vote & own property.

The Law of Coverture & Voting

The “Republican Women”• Through their determination during the Revolutionary

War and after the war ending in 1783, women's

optimism of gaining rights of property and suffrage in

America ran high as their model of the “Republican

Women" was "competent and confident". 2 Women

and men both knew that the “republican mother”

could teach and raise solid democratic sons who could

vote, yet they remained denied this right from these

same men. Judith Sargent Murray in 1798 wrote, "I

expect to see our young women forming a new era in

female history", and she couldn't have been more

prophetic in her statement.2 Photo Credit: Judith Sargent Murray, 1790 #hst202 Via Jessica Marie Johnson.

Sarah Pierce’s School for Girls• According to the Litchfield Historical

Society, “Sarah Pierce encouraged her

students to become involved in

benevolent and charitable societies. The

Litchfield Female Academy students

organized to support local missionary,

bible and tract societies and raised

money for the training of ministers.

Many of the academy alumnae carried

on these activities in later life, becoming

leaders and ardent members of

maternal societies, moral reform

movements, and temperance societies.”

Some of her most well known women

reformers who attended here included

Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher

Stowe. 3

Photo Credit: Litchfield Historical Society

School for Girls & Sentiments• Forty years after Judith Sargent Murray

wrote how a new era of women in

history would emerge, the female

students at Sarah Pierce's school for girls

in Litchfield, Connecticut wrote in 1838

"a Ladies Declaration of Independence"

for their 4th of the July celebration. A

decade later, this same inspiration

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia

Mott would use in their Declaration of

Sentiments and Resoultions.4

Photo Credits: www.havlicek.weebly.com

World Anti-Slavery Convention Inspires Seneca Falls!

• In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention

in London, but were denied access to the event because they were a women. Although most

people in this time period agreed that women should not be a part of the public sphere, Stanton

and Motts were, “Outraged by this humiliating experience and decided in London that they

would convene a meeting of women in the United States to discuss their grievances as soon as

possible.” Stanton wrote, “I poured out that day a torrent of my long accumulating discontent

with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do

or dare anything.” 5

Photo Credits: http://clements.umich.edu

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• According to NPS.gov, in 1863, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would create the Women’s Loyal

National League that inspired through their petition drives, the passage of the 13th Amendment

ending slavery. Stanton also found the American Equal Rights Association to gain suffrage for

all citizens of America and helped pass the 15th Amendment that gave African American men the

right to vote. During 1868-1870, Stanton in the newspaper, The Revolution, began publishing

articles about the lives of women, and in 1869-1890, headed the National American Women

Suffrage Association to further advance the voting rights to women. Between 1878-1919, a new

suffrage bill was introduced to the Senate each year, but it wouldn’t be until 1920, that the 19th

Amendment passed gaining women full suffrage rights. 7

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was known as the “great communicator

and propagandist of the nineteenth century feminism” and

“wrote the great manifesto that would set the agenda for the

American women’s movement for 150 years.” 6 Photo Credits: www.womenon20s.org

Lucretia Mott• Lucretia Mott was “an experienced and

highly acclaimed public speaker, a Quaker

minister and longtime abolitionist.” 8

Mott’s founded the Philadelphia Female

Anti-Slavery Association in 1833 that

helped bring passage of the 13th

Amendment. According to NPS.gov,

“Throughout her life Mott remained

active in both the abolition and women’s

rights movements. She continued to

speak out against slavery, and in 1866 she

became the first president of the

American Equal Rights Association, an

organization formed to achieve equality

for African Americans and women.” 9

Photo Credits: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.

Seneca Falls

• The first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, “a region

where they held their convention…had for more than two decades been the

center of reform and utopian movements. The region was known as the “burned-

over” district, because so many schemes for reforms had swept over it in rapid

succession” including evangelical revivalism, temperance, abolition, church

reform, Mormonism, and chiliastic movements.” 10

Photo Credits: www.opschools.org.

Map of Women’s Suffrage in the US, 1848

Photo Credits: emaze.com

Seneca Falls, 18481st Women’s Rights Convention

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Jane Hunt, and Mary Ann

McClintock organized the 1st Women’s Rights Conference on July 19-20, 1848.

Most of the 300 participants “were reformers with considerable organizational

experience” including religious dissidents groups, lawyers from the Liberty Party

or Free Soil group, and Frederick Douglas, famed former slave. 11

Photo Credits: www.historynet.com

Seneca Falls: Day 1

• The first day of the Seneca Fall’s Women’s Convention was “reserved to women,

who occupied themselves with debating, paragraph by paragraph, the Declaration

of Sentiments prepared by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” 12

Photo Credits: www.griid.org

Seneca Falls: Day 2

• On the second day of the convention, men were invited to participate and speak.

At the end of the day, “sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed their names

to the Declaration of Sentiments which embodied the program of the nascent

movement and provided the model for future woman’s rights conventions.” 13

Photo Credits: http://myoncell.mobi/

Declaration of Sentiments• Stanton & Mott’s along with the others of the convention, selected their model for

their Declaration of Sentiments after the Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence,

“following its preamble almost verbatim, except for the insertion of gender-neutral

language.” 14

• The main argument was “to base their main appeal (property rights , wages, &

voting) on the democratic rights embodied in the nation’s founding document…

that all men and women are created equal. The second fundamental argument for

the equality of woman was religious” that had long established that a man had

“absolute tyranny” over a women. 15

• Seneca Falls and its Declaration of Sentiments was a “public voice for women and

the recognition that women could not win their rights unless they organized.” 16

Married Women’s Property Acts

Photo Credits: http://www.slideshare.net/

First National Women’s Rights Convention, 1850

• Two years after Seneca Falls and the passing of the first women’s property

acts in NY, Worcester, Massachusetts attracted 1,000 in hopes of gaining

additional rights and securing women’s right to vote.

• In 1869, two women’s group form in hopes of gaining women’s suffrage

across America.

Susan B. Anthony• This woman suffragist got her roots by demanding

“equal pay for equal work”. She was a teacher and

realized that male teachers were making $700 a year

while she only made $250 a year. 23

• She later becomes active in temperance movement,

but she is not allowed to speak at temperance rallies

because she was a woman. “This experience, and

her acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led

her to join the women's rights movement in 1852.

Soon after, she dedicated her life to woman

suffrage.”

Photo Credits: gloster.com

National Women Suffrage Association

• In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National

Women Suffrage Association with the primary goal of achieving voting

rights for women by means of Congressional amendments to the

Constitution. 20

Photo Credits: ocp.hul.harvard.edu

American Women Suffrage Association

• That same year, Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others form the

American Woman Suffrage Association with their primary goal of gaining

voting rights for women through amendments to state constitutions. 20

Photo Credits: Bryn Mawr College

1869: Racial Equality Splits Women’s Suffrage Associations!

• After the passing of the 13th Amendment which freed slaves, the 14th

Amendment which dealt with citizenship and equal protection of the laws,

and the 15th Amendment which granted African American MEN the right to

vote, the association between the National Woman’s Suffrage Association

and the American Woman Suffrage Association began to crumble in 1869. 20

1870: First Women Nominated for President

• The Equal Rights Party

nominates Victoria

Chaflin Woodhull for

presidency despite

herself being allowed

the right to vote. 20

Photo Credits: sllideshare.net

1874: Minor v. Happersett• After Susan B. Anthony’s arrest in 1872, other suffragists began testing

the 14th Amendment. Virginia Minor, who was president of the Woman

Suffrage Association in Missouri, took to the polls. When refused to

being allowed, Virginia and her husband sued “for denying her one of

the privileges and immunities of citizenship”.

• Even though they lost, the appealed to the Supreme Court. The

Supreme Court justices “held that if the authors of the Constitution had

intended that women should vote, they would have said so explicitly.” 21

1890: Women’s Suffrage Associations Join Together Again!

• In 1890, the National Woman

Suffrage Association and the

American Woman Suffrage

Association merge to form the

National American Woman

Suffrage Association and

campaigned state by state for

voting rights for women. 20

Photo Credits: Bryn Mawr College

Wyoming: First State to Grant Women’s Suffrage!

• In 1869, the territory of Wyoming needed enough voting citizens to

become a state, thus opened up election voting to women over the age of

21. In 1890, Wyoming became a state and continued to permit women to

vote in elections. 20

• Kansas followed in 1887 allowing women to vote in municipal elections,

along with other western states (see map). 20

1896: National Association of Colored Women Organize!

• More than hundred African American clubs across the nation merge to

form the National Association of Colored Women led by Josephine St.

Pierre Ruffin whose goal was to “promote equality for women, raise funds

for projects that benefit women and children and oppose segregation and

racial violence.” 20Photo Credits: nacwc.org

Western States Begin Granting Women the Right to Vote before

1920!

Photo Credits: University of South Florida

1878: 19th Amendment Written!• Susan B. Anthony will write the woman suffrage amendment in 1878, and

was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The

amendment was then sent to the States to ratify. 22

Photo Credits: http://www.weloveladiesfirst.com/

1920: 19th AmendmentWomen Gain Suffrage!

• On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granted

woman the right to vote and was ratified by all states. It was signed into

law by Secretary of State Brainbridge Colby. 22

Photo Credits: usconstitutionday.us

Presentation Citations• All photo credits are given on the photo.

• 1. Kerber, Linda., Women‘s America Refocusing the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 147. 2. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 147. 3. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 148. 4. http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/history/academy.php 5. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 259. 6. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 258-259. 7.https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/elizabeth-cady-stanton.htm 8. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 259. 9. https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/lucretia-mott.htm 10. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 259. 11. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 260. 12. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 260. 13. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 260. 14. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 260. 15. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 260-261. 16. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 261. 17. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 261. 18. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 262. 20. Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics www.AnnenbergClassroom.org 21. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 315. 22. Women‘s Rights Movement in US History: History and Timeline of Events (1848-1920), www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html.

• 23. 16. Women‘s America Refocusing the Past, 264. 24. http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/her-story/biography.php

Photo Credits: Arago-Smithsonian