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Elizabeth Cady Stanton

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 25, 2022 | Original: November 9, 2009

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an abolitionist, human rights activist and one of the first leaders of the women’s rights movement. She came from a privileged background, but decided early in life to fight for equal rights for women. Stanton worked closely with Susan B. Anthony—she was reportedly the brains behind Anthony’s brawn—for over 50 years to win the women’s right to vote. Still, her activism was not without controversy, which kept Stanton on the fringe of the women’s suffrage movement later in life, though her efforts helped bring about the eventual passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave all citizens the right to vote.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in Johnstown, New York , on November 12, 1815, to Daniel Cady and Margaret Livingston.

Her father was the owner of enslaved workers, a prominent attorney, a Congressman and judge who exposed his daughter to the study of law and other so-called male domains early in her life. This exposure ignited a fire within Elizabeth to remedy laws unjust to women.

When Elizabeth graduated from Johnstown Academy at age 16, women couldn’t enroll in college, so she proceeded to Troy Female Seminary instead. There she endured strict preaching of hellfire and damnation to such a severe degree that she had a breakdown. The experience left her with a negative view of organized religion that followed her the rest of her life.

WATCH: Yohuru Williams on the Long Push for Women's Suffrage

In 1839, Elizabeth stayed in Peterboro, New York, with her cousin Gerrit Smith—who later supported John Brown’s raid of an arsenal in Harper’s Ferry , West Virginia —and was introduced to the abolitionist movement . While there, she met Henry Brewster Stanton, a journalist and abolitionist volunteering for the American Anti-Slavery Society .

Elizabeth married Henry in 1840, but in a break with longstanding tradition, she insisted the word “obey” be dropped from her wedding vows.

The couple honeymooned in London and attended the World Anti-Slavery delegation as representatives of the American Anti-Slavery Society; however, the convention refused to recognize Stanton or other women delegates, including activist Lucretia Mott .

Upon returning home, Henry studied law with Elizabeth’s father and became an attorney. The couple lived in Boston , Massachusetts , for a few years where Elizabeth heard the insights of prominent abolitionists. By 1848, the couple had three sons and moved to Seneca Falls, New York.

Stanton bore six children between 1842 and 1859 and had seven children total: Harriet Stanton Blach, Daniel Cady Stanton, Robert Livingston Stanton, Theodore Stanton, Henry Brewster Stanton, Jr., Margaret Livingston Stanton Lawrence and Gerrit Smith Stanton.

During this time, she remained active in the fight for women’s rights , though the duties of motherhood often limited her crusading to behind-the-scenes activities.

Declaration of Sentiments

Then, in 1848, Stanton helped organize the First Women’s Rights Convention—often called the Seneca Falls Convention —with Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary Ann M’Clintock and Martha Coffin Wright.

Stanton helped write the Declaration of Sentiments, a document modeled after the Declaration of Independence that laid out what the rights of American women should be and compared the women’s rights struggle to the Founding Fathers’ fight for independence from the British.

The Declaration of Sentiments offered examples of how men oppressed women such as:

• preventing them from owning land or earning wages

• preventing them from voting

• compelling them to submit to laws created without their representation

• giving men authority in divorce and child custody proceedings and decisions

• preventing them from gaining a college education

• preventing them from participating in most public church affairs

• subjecting them to a different moral code than men

• aiming to make them dependent and submissive to men

Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments at the convention and proposed women be given the right to vote, among other things. Sixty-eight women and 32 men signed the document—including prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass —but many withdrew their support later when it came under public scrutiny.

READ MORE: Early Women’s Rights Activists Wanted Much More than Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony

The seeds of activism had been sown within Stanton, and she was soon asked to speak at other women’s rights conventions.

In 1851, she met feminist Quaker and social reformer Susan B. Anthony . The two women could not have been more different, yet they became fast friends and co-campaigners for the temperance movement and then for the suffrage movement and for women’s rights.

As a busy homemaker and mother, Stanton had much less time than the unmarried Anthony to travel the lecture circuit, so instead she performed research and used her stirring writing talent to craft women’s rights literature and most of Anthony’s speeches. Both women focused on women’s suffrage, but Stanton also pushed for equal rights for women overall.

Her 1854 “Address to the Legislature of New York,” helped secure reforms passed in 1860 which allowed women to gain joint custody of their children after divorce, own property and participate in business transactions.

Women’s Suffrage Movement Divides

When the Civil War broke out, Stanton and Anthony formed the Women’s Loyal National League to encourage Congress to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.

In 1866, they lobbied against the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment giving Black men the right to vote because the amendments didn’t give the right to vote to women, too. Many of their abolitionist friends disagreed with their position, however, and felt that suffrage rights for Black men was top priority.

Some of Stanton’s rhetoric during this period has been interpreted as entitled, even racist, in tone: When discussing voting rights for Black men, she once declared, “We educated, virtuous white women are more worthy of the vote.”

In the late 1860s, Stanton began to advocate measures that women could take to avoid becoming pregnant. Her support for more liberal divorce laws, reproductive self-determination and greater sexual freedom for women made Stanton a somewhat marginalized voice among women reformers.

A rift soon developed within the suffrage movement. Stanton and Anthony, feeling deceived, then established the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, which focused on women’s suffrage efforts at the national level. A few months later some of their former abolitionist peers created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on women’s suffrage at the state level.

By 1890, Anthony managed to reunite the two associations into the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Stanton at the helm. By 1896, four states had secured woman’s suffrage.

READ MORE: 5 Black Suffragists Who Fought for the 19th Amendment—And More

Stanton’s Later Years

In the early 1880s, Stanton co-authored the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage with Matilda Joslyn Gage and Susan B. Anthony. In 1895, she and a committee of women published The Woman ’ s Bible to point out the bias in the Bible towards women and challenge its stance that women should be submissive to men.

The Woman ’ s Bible became a bestseller, but many of Stanton’s colleagues at the NAWSA were displeased with the irreverent book and formally censured her.

Though Stanton had lost some creditability, nothing would silence her passion for the women’s rights cause. Despite her declining health, she continued to fight for women’s suffrage and champion disenfranchised women. She published her autobiography, Eighty Years and More , in 1898.

Stanton died on October 26, 1902 from heart failure. True to form, she wanted her brain to be donated to science upon her death to debunk claims that the mass of men’s brains made them smarter than women. Her children, however, didn’t carry out her wish.

Though she never gained the right to vote in her lifetime, Stanton left behind a legion of feminist crusaders who carried her torch and ensured her decades-long struggle wasn’t in vain.

Almost two decades after her death, Stanton’s vision finally came true with the adoption of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920, which guaranteed American woman the right to vote.

READ MORE: Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote

Address to the Legislature of New York, 1854. National Park Service. Declaration of Sentiments. National Park Service. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Biography. Biography. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. National Park Service. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Biography. PBS.

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The declaration of sentiments.

Read the full text here: https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm

During the summer of 1848 abolitionist Lucretia Mott left her home in Philadelphia and headed for upstate New York to attend a Quaker meeting and visit her pregnant sister, Martha Coffin Wright. While in the area, both Mott and Wright attended a tea party in Seneca Falls. Their friend Jane Hunt hosted the party. Invitations were also extended to Hunt’s neighbors, Mary Ann M’Clintock and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. By the end of the tea, the group was planning a meeting for women’s rights. They published a notice in local papers reporting: “a Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religions condition of women.” [1] Elizabeth Cady Stanton volunteered to write an outline for their protest statement, calling it a Declaration of Sentiments . Stanton and M’Clintock, then, drafted the document, from M’Clintock’s mahogany tea table. The Declaration of Sentiments set the stage for their convening. Elizabeth Cady Stanton voiced the claims of the antebellum-era conventioneers at Seneca Falls by adopting the same language of colonial revolutionaries, decades prior. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was her template. Historian Linda Kerber perhaps best explains the significance of Stanton’s rhetorical decision, writing: “By tying the complaints of women to the most distinguished political statement the nation had made [Stanton] implied that women’s demands were no more or less radical than the American Revolution had been; that they were in fact an implicit fulfillment of the commitments already made.” [2] The Declaration of Sentiments was a clarion call in celebration of women’s worthiness—naming their right not be subjugated. Most prominent among the critiques Stanton advanced were: women’s inferior legal status, including lack of suffrage rights (which was true except both for some local elections and in New Jersey between 1790 and 1807); economic as well as physical subordination; and limited opportunities for divorce (including lack of child custody protections). These offences were particularly ironic considering the expansive civic wartime roles women performed, including their contributions to the nation’s independence—by working as nurses and cooks, spies, and, even, fundraisers. [3] Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments to dramatize the denied citizenship claims of elite women during a period when the early republic’s founding documents privileged white propertied males. The document has long been recognized for the sharp critique she made of gender inequality in the U.S. Yet, her words also obscured significant differences in the lived experiences of women across racial, class, and regional lines. For example, at the very moment Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, Native Americans were being displaced to create space for westward expansion. This does not mean they had no relationship to the women’s rights movement. Rather, matrilineal Native societies inspired women’s rights advocates who referenced them in order to claim that women in the U.S. deserved greater autonomy. [4] Additionally, African Americans in New York were but a mere generation removed from slavery. There were black women advocates of the women’s rights movement, but there is no evidence that they were invited to Seneca Falls. [5] Frederick Douglass played a prominent role in the proceedings. Making clear these distinctions creates a space to better understand both the inequalities that existed between women at the time of Stanton’s call for women’s rights and the intellectual tensions that existed in the movement during some of its earliest days. Yet, the Declaration of Sentiments as an idea created an important space for articulating the rights owed to women, one embraced by many now in a larger project of gender equality. References: Lori D. Ginzberg, Untidy Origins: A Story of Women’s Rights in Antebellum New York (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) Linda K. Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999) ----“From the Declaration of Independence to the Declaration of Sentiments: The Legal Status of Women in the Early Republic, 1776-1848,” Human Rights 6, No. 2 (Winter 1977): 115. Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists (New York: Native Voices, 2001) Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998) Judith Wellman, Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004) ----“Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention,” Journal of Women's History, 3: 1 (Spring 1991), 9-37.

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Last updated: March 29, 2023

A Thorough Look at the Declaration of Sentiments

This essay about the Declaration of Sentiments discusses its significance as a foundational document in the women’s rights movement in the United States. Drafted in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, the Declaration outlined the systemic inequalities faced by women and demanded equal rights. It mirrored the Declaration of Independence, asserting that women deserved the same rights as men. Key issues addressed include women’s suffrage, legal inequality, lack of educational and employment opportunities, and societal double standards. The essay highlights the document’s impact on subsequent advocacy efforts and its enduring legacy in the fight for gender equality.

How it works

The Declaration of Sentiments, drafted in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, marks a pivotal moment in the history of women’s rights in the United States. Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, this document articulated the grievances and demands of women, highlighting the systemic inequalities they faced and calling for equal rights. Its creation and adoption were led by prominent activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who sought to challenge the societal norms that relegated women to subordinate roles.

The document begins with a powerful preamble that mirrors the language of the Declaration of Independence, asserting that “all men and women are created equal.” This deliberate choice underscores the foundational belief that women deserve the same rights and opportunities as men. The preamble sets the stage for a series of grievances that detail the various ways in which women were oppressed and discriminated against in mid-19th century America.

One of the primary grievances outlined in the Declaration of Sentiments is the lack of women’s suffrage. The document condemns the fact that women were denied the right to vote, arguing that this exclusion from the political process left them without a voice in the laws that governed their lives. This call for women’s suffrage was revolutionary at the time and laid the groundwork for future movements that eventually secured this right with the 19th Amendment in 1920.

The Declaration also addresses the issue of legal inequality. It points out that women had no legal identity separate from their husbands, effectively rendering them invisible in the eyes of the law. Married women could not own property, enter into contracts, or earn wages in their own right. This lack of legal recognition deprived women of autonomy and economic independence, reinforcing their dependence on men.

Educational and employment opportunities for women were also significant concerns highlighted in the document. The Declaration criticizes the limited access to education for women, which restricted their intellectual and professional growth. It calls for equal opportunities in education and the workforce, arguing that women should be allowed to pursue any occupation and achieve financial independence. This demand for educational and professional equality was crucial in challenging the traditional roles assigned to women and advocating for their right to self-determination.

Furthermore, the Declaration of Sentiments addresses the double standards and moral expectations imposed on women. It condemns the societal norms that judged women harshly for behaviors deemed acceptable in men. This criticism extends to the religious sphere, where the document denounces the exclusion of women from church leadership roles and the interpretation of religious texts that justified women’s subordination.

The impact of the Declaration of Sentiments was profound, both in the immediate aftermath of the Seneca Falls Convention and in the broader context of the women’s rights movement. While it faced significant opposition and skepticism at the time, the document galvanized activists and provided a clear set of goals for the movement. It served as a blueprint for future advocacy, inspiring subsequent generations to continue the fight for gender equality.

In the years following its adoption, the Declaration of Sentiments influenced numerous other women’s rights conventions and reform efforts. It helped to frame the discourse around women’s rights and provided a rallying point for activists seeking to challenge the status quo. The issues raised in the document, such as suffrage, legal equality, and access to education and employment, remained central to the women’s rights movement for decades.

The legacy of the Declaration of Sentiments extends beyond the specific grievances it addressed. It represents a broader assertion of women’s humanity and their right to participate fully in all aspects of society. The document’s emphasis on equality, justice, and human dignity continues to resonate in contemporary discussions about gender equality and women’s rights.

In conclusion, the Declaration of Sentiments is a landmark document in the history of the women’s rights movement. Its eloquent articulation of the injustices faced by women and its bold demands for equality laid the foundation for subsequent advocacy and reform. The Declaration’s enduring legacy is a testament to the courage and vision of the women who drafted it and the generations of activists who have continued to fight for the rights and opportunities it championed. By understanding and appreciating the significance of the Declaration of Sentiments, we can better appreciate the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the progress that has been made over the past century and a half.

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How Trump’s Most Loyal Supporters Are Responding to the Verdict

Many saw in the jury’s finding a rejection of themselves, of their values and even of democracy itself.

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By Elizabeth Dias and Richard Fausset

The sense of grievance erupted as powerfully as the verdict itself.

From the low hills of northwest Georgia to a veterans’ retreat in Alaska to suburban New Hampshire, the corners of conservative America resounded with anger over the New York jury’s declaration that former President Donald J. Trump was guilty.

But their discontent was about more than the 34 felony counts that Mr. Trump was convicted on, which his supporters quickly dismissed as politically motivated.

They saw in the jury’s finding a rejection of themselves, and the values they believed their nation should uphold. Broad swaths of liberal America may have found long-awaited justice in the trial’s outcome. But for many staunch Trump loyalists — people who for years have listened to and believed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that the system is rigged against him, and them — the verdict on Thursday threatened to shatter their faith in democracy itself.

“We are at that crossroads. The democracy that we have known and cherished in this nation is now threatened,” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, said in an interview from Alaska. “I’ve got 13 grandchildren. What kind of nation are we leaving them?”

Echoing him was Marie Vast, 72, of West Palm Beach, Fla., near Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. “I know a lot of people who say they still believe in our government,” she said, “but when the Democrats can manipulate things this grossly, and use the legal system as a tool to get the outcome they want, the system isn’t working.”

Among more than two dozen people interviewed across 10 states on Friday, the sentiments among conservatives were so strong that they echoed the worry and fear that many progressives described feeling after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade almost two years ago.

The guilty verdict was “the dark spot of politics in America in my lifetime,” said Phillip Neff, 80, a retired businessman in Dalton, Ga. Mr. Trump “may be a clown in some ways, but he’s not a devil,” he said. “And I think what we’re facing right now is really a constitutional crisis.”

Perhaps even more than anger or fear, many of those interviewed described feeling a deep resolve. Cindy Swasey, 67, a retired office assistant in Dover, N.H., said the verdict had driven her straight to her computer, where she tried donating to the Trump campaign. (The computer or the campaign website crashed, she said, but she planned to follow through and send $50, her first-ever donation to a political candidate.)

“I’m not really wealthy enough to do it, but I felt almost obligated,” she said, “and I think it’s time we all do if we want to keep this country a democracy. I think people are waking up and realizing that the wealthy elitists are taking over the country.”

Paula Lopez, 52, a longtime Republican voter who works at a real estate firm in Dallas, said: “I wouldn’t use the word angry. I would use, I would use the word upset, but determined, you know? This isn’t going to stop us. It’s not going to stop him.”

Many others, like Ms. Lopez, said they were grappling with their faith in the legal system after Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.

For Woody Clendenen, a barber in Cottonwood, Calif., the verdict was either a “death knell for the Constitution” or a sign it was “on life support.” Others made comparisons to shocking disasters and turning points in history like the fall of Rome.

Willard Jones, 66, a retired veterinarian in La Porte, Texas, wondered if he could countenance serving on a jury in the future. “I’m just wondering, is our country like the Titanic?” he said, before giving Mr. Trump $20.24.

The belief that the Democrats and President Biden have corrupted the democratic system is nothing new to the Trump coalition. But for some, the verdict was the most egregious evidence to date, even though it was delivered by 12 jurors selected in the textbook manner of any criminal trial in America. And it made their support for Mr. Trump even stronger.

In Russellville, Ark., Bill and Becky Brown had not been paying much attention to the trial. “Why follow it?” Ms. Brown, 67, said at a food truck fair. “They’re going to find him guilty anyway.”

She added that “it makes me mad that I don’t feel like there’s anything we can do. The only thing is to get him back in.”

Mr. Brown said the couple had been stockpiling food and other supplies in case of possible civil unrest and the need to defend their home. “If Biden gets it again, I mean, I have a feeling the way everybody is, that’s going to be a major uproar,” he said. “A lot of people I know — they’re stocking up on arms, they’re stocking up on survival gear.”

But instead of mass protest, conservative voters generally said that they planned to find vindication through the November election by returning Mr. Trump to the White House.

Some described actions they hoped Mr. Trump would take if re-elected — actions that would defy the democratic system. “When Trump does get back in there, he’ll need to get rid of the F.B.I., get rid of the C.I.A., get rid of the Department of Justice,” Mr. Clendenen, the barber in rural California, who belongs to a local militia group, said. “When this is all said and done, I suspect this judge will be tried and found guilty of several crimes, including treason, no doubt.”

In Boynton Beach, Fla., Nick Laudano, 54, described Mr. Trump, not the courts, as the last stand between the deep state and the people. “I’d love to see some justice served the next four years when we get Trump back in power,” he said.

Others said they saw flaws in Mr. Trump but still believed he was the solution to preserving democracy.

Richard Steele, 82, a pastor and retired building contractor in Dalton, Ga., which is in the district of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right House member and Trump loyalist, praised the former president as a “gentleman” who does not flaunt his wealth, and an “honest man” — despite the thousands of documented lies or misleading claims he has made over the years. Mr. Trump, he said, was cloaked in “Godly armor.”

“I figured they’d get him for something,” Mr. Steele said, referring to the Democrats. “He’ll come out on top. He’s smarter than they are. Seriously.”

Wayne Wolf, 67, a retired stockbroker who was having breakfast in Dalton, said that the verdict made a mockery of democracy. Part of his suspicion stemmed from the fact that the charges seemed so difficult to explain in plain language.

“Can you actually tell me what he got convicted of?” he said. “Can anybody tell me that?”

Debbie Puryear, 63, a colon hydrotherapist at a business in Dalton that also offers massage therapy, vitamins and CBD products, said that she had given $30 to Mr. Trump’s campaign on Thursday night, soon after the verdicts were announced.

But the only real redress for people like her, she said, was to go to the polls in November. “Well, we’re definitely going to have to vote, and quit being scared that it’s going to be rigged,” she said, referencing Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats manipulated the voting system to keep him from winning in 2020 and will try to do so again.

She added: “I don’t think they’re going to succeed this time. Too many people woke up to what’s going on.”

Emily Cochrane , Nicole Danna , J. David Goodman , Shawn Hubler , Jenna Russell Edgar Sandoval and Jonathan Wolfe contributed reporting.

Elizabeth Dias is The Times’s national religion correspondent, covering faith, politics and values. More about Elizabeth Dias

Richard Fausset , based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

Guilty Verdict : Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts  of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened his bid for the White House in 2016, making him the first American president to be declared a felon .

What Happens Next: Trump’s sentencing hearing on July 11 will trigger a long and winding appeals process , though he has few ways to overturn the decision .

Reactions: Trump’s conviction reverberated quickly across the country  and around the world . Here’s what voters , New Yorkers , Republicans , Trump supporters  and President Biden  had to say.

The Presidential Race : The political fallout of Trump’s conviction is far from certain , but the verdict will test America’s traditions, legal institutions and ability to hold an election under historic partisan tension .

Making the Case: Over six weeks and the testimony of 20 witnesses, the Manhattan district attorney’s office wove a sprawling story  of election interference and falsified business records.

Legal Luck Runs Out: The four criminal cases that threatened Trump’s freedom had been stumbling along, pleasing his advisers. Then his good fortune expired .