Woman’s Rights Movement

I. Important precursors

  • Mary Wollstonecraft
    • Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
  • Frances Wright
    • From Scotland; supported wide range of radical ideas (divorce reform, abolitionism, etc.)
    • Speaking tour in the US in 1829
  • Margaret Fuller
    • Part of transcendentalist circle
    • Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

II. 19th century woman’s rights

  • Not just about suffrage
    • Child custody
    • Married women’s property acts
      • First state laws were actually not feminist in intent
      • MS (1837) Reforms promoted by slave-owning men
      • First campaign led by women occurred in New York in 1836 and failed; 1848 campaign succeeded
        • Women in NY could now control property, though issues of wages remained unresolved
          • First real challenge to coverture

III. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  • Participated in the 1848 campaign for a Married Woman’s Property Act in NY
  • Daughter of successful lawyer
    • Educated herself in her father’s library
  • Jealous of her brother because he got to attend college
  • Influenced by abolitionist cousin, Gerrit Smith; married an abolitionist, Henry Stanton

IV. Seneca Falls (1848)

  • ECS and Lucretia Mott came up with the idea at 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention
    • Women had been forced to sit behind screens
    • But didn’t take place for another 8 years
      • In part because Stanton gave birth in 1841, 1842 and 1845
  • At the Seneca Falls Convention, no woman would chair the meeting
    • Lucretia Mott’s husband ended up acting as chair
  • Beginning of annual woman’s rights conventions (continued until Civil War)

V. Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848)

  • Written by ECS; adopted at the 1848 Seneca Fall Convention
    • Modeled after the Declaration of Independence
      • Rhetorically powerful
  • Most radical demand: the vote
    • Frederick Douglass convinced skeptics to support this resolution

VI. Susan B. Anthony

  • Met Stanton in 1851; beginning of 50-year friendship and collaboration
  • SBA raised as a Quaker
  • Had been involved in temperance
  • Savvy political strategist

VII. Dress reform

  • Amelia Bloomer
  • “Bloomer costume”
    • Short skirt with pantaloons
    • Briefly popular, but attracted much ridicule

VIII. Civil War’s impact

  • Important victory: 1860 NY Married Woman’s Property Act
  • But then the woman’s rights movement was put on hold during the war
    • Women decided to focus on supporting the Union; suspended annual meetings
    • Only SBA protested
  • 1862: NY legislature rescinded much of 1860 law
    • Few even protested

IX. Woman’s National Loyal League (1863)

  • Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  • Formed to promote full and complete abolition
  • Waged the first popular campaign for a constitutional amendment (13th amendment banning slavery)
    • Collected over 260,000 signatures
  • Hoped their efforts would be reciprocated