Women You May Not Know

Elizabeth Cady Stanton crossed the Ocean with her husband to attend the World Anti Slavery Convention in London. The men voted to allow women to stay, but that they would not be allowed to speak. Furious, Stanton and a woman named Lucretia Mott became determined to have a convention of their own. In 1840, they held the Seneca Falls Convention. The most radical idea was pushed by Stanton: The right of women to vote. 

She celebrated motherhood openly, which scandalized her community in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

In a letter announcing the birth of her daughter, Harriot in1852 to Lucretia Mott, who helped her organize the first Woman’s Rights Convention in 1848 she wrote, “I am at length the happy mother of a daughter. Rejoice with me all Womankind for lo! A champion of thy cause is born.”  In 1859, after the birth of her seventh child, Henry, Stanton raised a flag outside her home, defying the era’s norm of secrecy around pregnancy and birth.

Stanton had been stirring controversy since moving to Seneca Falls in 1848, where she juggled her roles as a mother of seven and a women’s rights activist. Despite her love for motherhood, Stanton often felt isolated, especially when her husband was away. During her children’s early years, from 1843 to 1870, she focused on raising them, while collaborating with Susan B. Anthony to advance women’s rights, especially their right to vote. Stanton would write while Anthony babysat.

Stanton and Anthony co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Anthony and Stanton also launched The Revolution, Anthony’s newspaper dedicated to women’s rights and social justice. Among her many causes, Stanton championed the right of married women to own property and believed in women’s equality in public life, particularly through voting. She saw suffrage as essential for women to influence issues such as poverty, crime, and injustice. Stanton, along with other first wave feminists, opposed abortion and infanticide. She continued working for women’s rights until her death in 1902, leaving a legacy of bold advocacy and  is known as “the mother of the women’s movement.” 

By Bella Fechter and Serrin M. Foster