Seneca Falls Convention Research Paper

November 20, 2013 The Seneca Falls Convention
Throughout history women were not treated the same rights as men. Women were thought of as property, wives and mothers. People believed that women were inferior to men. Women could not own property and most of their education consisted of learning how to run a home. Men thought that they were more intelligent than women therefore, they didn’t think a woman could hold political office or vote. Men also thought women should not be involved in legal issues and they were not allowed to hold jobs outside of the home. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution many women went to work in the factories. Also, many women also worked as domestic servants and teachers. This was the first
It was the Quaker women who were the early organizers of these movements. They would organize secret women’s meetings which at the time could be very dangerous. This was just a small step. Women wanted to have equal rights in courts of law, in property matters and in civil rights. Women felt they should have the same rights as men to make decisions on their own and they didn’t want to be thought of as a man’s property ("Seneca falls convention," 2011) . Angelina and Sarah Grimke were sisters who were abolitionists. Even though their father was a slave owner, they were against slavery. The sisters compared the lack of rights of the slaves to the lack of rights of women. Mary Wellstonecraft was a writer and she was also an early supporter of women’s rights. She felt that an educated and powerful woman would be an asset to society. Although they were met with condemnation from others, their writings and lectures helped to start the women’s rights movement. (kelly,
This was the first time in American history where a large scale meeting was arranged to bring attention to the inequalities in the treatment of women. The Convention was led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There were over three hundred people in attendence. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She modele it after the Declaration of Independence. It was presented at the Convention and it said that women were men’s equals and that no man should withhold a women’s rights. The first item listed was that women were demanding the right to vote because they felt that without this right a woman was not as free as a man. The Declaration was debated and refined at the Convention. Most of the resolutions were supported unanimously and it was signed by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men including Frederick Douglas, a former slave (kelly,