National Women History Month Elizabeth Cady Stanton Declaration of Sentiments

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON - 1815 - 1902

One of the earliest American feminists, New Yorker Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted her life to the cause of women's rights and also campaigned to abolish slavery.

The daughter of a lawyer, Cady Stanton was given an unusually comprehensive education and realized early on how disproportionately the law favored men over women.

Although her family owned at least one slave, she became a passionate abolitionist under the tutelage of her brother-in-law Edward Bayard, whose sentiments were echoed by her husband, journalist Henry Brewster Stanton.

Suffragette: Elizabeth Cady Stanton was instrumental in building the women's rights movement in the US

Together, the couple, who had six children, campaigned vociferously for the abolition of slavery, although Brewster Stanton was apparently less enamoured of the idea of female suffrage.

Nevertheless, by 1848 Cady Stanton had become a leading light in the fledgling women's rights movement, helping Lucretia Mott organise the first convention in Seneca Falls that year.

During it, she published her Declaration of Sentiments, which was based on the US Declaration of Independence and called for equal rights for women.

Her determination to get equal rights for women even surpassed her desire to be rid of slavery and following the American Civil War, lobbied against the 14th and 15th Amendments which gave African American men the right to vote on the grounds it should be extended to women as well.

Later, she became one of the founder members of the National Woman Suffrage Association and continued to campaign for the vote right up to her death in 1902.

In 1920, 18 years after her death, the 19th Amendment gave women the vote in the US, two years after women over 30 were given the same right in the UK.

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The Lost History: Help Us Find the Declaration of Sentiments

This conversation is just beginning.
It is not lost on me that the ongoing invisibility of women and girls is a serious issue for our country, and for the world. The invisibility of our history, heroes, stories, challenges, and success handicaps the future of all Americans, and it deeply affects our economy and our communities.

The Declaration of Sentiments can help us tell that story. I hope that one day this foundational document will have a home on display in the Rotunda of our National Archives with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. But, even if we ultimately find that it is lost for good, my hope is that we can help bring to light the stories of heroes most of this country — and our children especially — have yet to meet. With that knowledge, the future for all men and women will be brighter.