Women of Influence: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a famous American writer and activist and a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was active at a time when women were not allowed to vote and although she never ran for office, she changed American history by laying the groundwork that would lead to women's suffrage in the 20th century.
She was born on November 12, 1815, as Elizabeth Cady and was born into a life of privilege. She was a child of one the leading family of Johnstown, New York. Their family lived in a mansion on the town's main square that had as many as twelve servants. Her father, Daniel Cady, was one of the richest landowners in the state. He was a member of the Federalist Party, and was an attorney who served one term in the U.S. Congress and who later became a justice in the New York Supreme Court. Her mother, Margaret Livingston Cady, was a progressive abolitionist who supported the radical wing of the abolitionist movement led by William Lloyd Garrison. There was an irony in this because at least one of the family servants, Peter Teabout, was an enslaved man. Elizabeth was the seventh of eleven children, six of whom died before reaching full adulthood, including all of the boys. The loss of so many children left her mother feeling withdrawn and depressed.
In 1840 Elizabeth married Henry Brewster Stanton, a prominent abolitionist, despite her father's reservations. In their wedding ceremony, the couple omitted the word "obey" from the marriage ceremony. Stanton later wrote, "I obstinately refused to obey one with whom I supposed I was entering into an equal relation." Henry Stanton studied law under his father-in-law until 1843, when the couple moved to Boston (Chelsea), Massachusetts, where Henry joined a law firm. The couple had seven children. Each time a child was born, Stanton had a flag raised in front of her house, a red flag for a boy and a white one for a girl. One of her daughters, Harriot Stanton Blatch, later became a leader of the women's suffrage movement.
While on their honeymoon in England in 1840, the Stantons attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Elizabeth was appalled by the convention's blatant sexism, as male delegates voted to prevent women from participating even if they had been appointed as delegates by their respective abolitionist societies. The men required the women to sit in a separate section, hidden by curtains from the convention's proceedings. William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent American abolitionist and supporter of women's rights who arrived after the vote had been taken, refused to sit with the men and sat with the women instead. At the conference Stanton befriended Lucretia Mott, a Quaker minister, abolitionist and women's rights advocate, who was one of the women who had been sent as a delegate. Although Mott was much older than Stanton, they formed an enduring friendship. While in London, Stanton heard Mott preach in a Unitarian chapel, the first time Stanton had heard a woman give a sermon or even speak in public.
The London convention was a turning point in her life and she became motivated to work for legal changes needed to overcome gender inequities. In the summer of 1848, Lucretia Mott traveled from Pennsylvania to attend a Quaker meeting near the Stanton's home. Stanton was invited to visit with Mott and three other progressive Quaker women. It was at this gathering that the women present agreed to organize a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls a few days later, while Mott was still in the area.
Stanton was the primary author of the convention's Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It included a list of grievances such as the wrongful denial of women's right to vote. Stanton's wanted the subject of women's suffrage to be a major area of discussion at the convention. This was highly controversial idea at the time. Her husband Henry Stanton was critical of this and told his wife that she was acting in a way that would turn the proceedings into a laughing stock. Lucretia Mott, the main speaker, was also uncomfortable about this.
The Seneca Falls Convention was attended by over 300 men and women and lasted two days. Stanton addressed the convention in what would be her first address to a large audience. She outlined the purpose of the gathering and stressed the importance of women's rights. Following a speech by Mott, Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments, which the attendees were invited to sign. This was followed by the resolutions. All of which the convention adopted unanimously except for the ninth. It read, "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right of the elective franchise." The resolution was passed after a vigorous debate. Key to its passage was the strong support of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist leader who had formerly been been an enslaved man.
Stanton's sister Harriet attended the convention and signed its Declaration of Sentiments. Her husband, however, insisted that she remove her signature.
Despite the last-minute manner in which the convention was organized, it was widely reported in the press because of its controversial nature. Articles appearing in newspapers in New York City, Philadelphia and many other large cities. The Seneca Falls Convention is now remembered as being the first convention to be called for the purpose of discussing women's rights. The convention's Declaration of Sentiments is credited with spreading news of the women's rights movement around the nation. By the time of the second National Women's Rights Convention in 1851, the demand for women's right to vote had become a central tenet of the United States women's rights movement.
A Rochester Women's Rights Convention was held in Rochester, New York two weeks later, organized by local women who had attended the one in Seneca Falls. Both Stanton and Mott spoke at this convention. The Rochester convention was chaired by a woman, Abigail Bush, a first and a controversial decision. Many people were disturbed by the idea of a woman chairing a convention of both men and women. Even Stanton herself spoke in opposition to the election of a woman as the chair of this convention, although she later acknowledged that she was incorrect in doing so.
The first National Women's Rights Convention was organized in 1850, but Stanton was unable to attend because she was pregnant. She sent a letter to the convention entitled "Should women hold office" that outlined the movement's goals. The letter was emphatic in its support for the right of women to hold office. It became a tradition to open national women's rights conventions with a letter by Stanton, if she was unable to participate in person.
While visiting Seneca Falls in 1851, Susan B. Anthony was introduced to Stanton by Amelia Bloomer, a mutual friend and a supporter of the women's rights movement. Anthony was five years younger than Stanton. She came from a Quaker family that was active in reform movements. Anthony and Stanton soon became close friends and co-workers, forming a relationship that was f great importance to the women's movement.
The two had complementary skills. Anthony was an excellent organizer, while Stanton was a gifted writer and speaker. Stanton later said, "We did better work together than either could alone," adding, "I am the better writer, she the better critic." After the Stantons moved from Seneca Falls to New York City in 1861, a room was set aside for Anthony in every house they lived in.
In December 1865, Stanton and Anthony submitted the first women's suffrage petition directed to Congress during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment. The women challenged the use of the word "male" in the version submitted to the States for ratification. Congress failed to remove the language, and in response, Stanton announced her candidacy as the first woman to run for Congress in October 1866. She ran as an independent and secured only 24 votes, but her candidacy attracted significant notice and invigorated discussions about women's officeholding.
In December 1872, Stanton and Anthony each wrote New Departure memorials to Congress and were invited to read their memorials to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This further brought women's suffrage and officeholding to the forefront of Congress's agenda, even though the New Departure agenda was rejected. Nevertheless, the issue was one which needed to be addressed by President Ulysses Grant. During Grant's presidency the suffrage movement had gained national attention thanks to the efforts of Stanton and Anthony. The two women lobbied Grant for female suffrage, equal gender pay, and protection of property for women who resided in Washington D.C. In April 1869, Grant did sign into law the protection of married women's property from their husbands' debts and the ability for women to sue in court in Washington D.C. In March 1870 Representative Samuel M. Arnell introduced a bill, coauthored by suffragist Bennette Lockwood, that would give women federal workers equal pay for equal work. Two years later Grant signed a modified Senate version of the Arnell Bill into law. The law required that all federal female clerks would be paid the fully compensated salary; however, lower tiered female clerks were exempted. The law increased women's clerk salaries from 4% to 20% during the 1870s. But generally speaking, politicians only paid lip service to the suffragist movement. For example, in 1872 the Republicans' convention platform included that women's rights should be treated with "respectful consideration." Grant himself advocated equal rights for all citizens, but also recognized that this was likely a politically unsalable proposition.
Stanton and Anthony started a newspaper called The Revolution in 1868 to work for women's rights. After the war, Stanton and Anthony were the main organizers of the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both African Americans and women, especially the right of suffrage. When the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced that would provide suffrage for black men only, they opposed it, insisting that suffrage should be extended to all African Americans and all women at the same time. Others in the movement supported the amendment, and this resulted in a split in the organization.
Stanton became the president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, which she and Anthony created to represent their wing of the movement. When the split was healed more than twenty years later, Stanton became the first president of the united organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association. This was largely an honorary position.
Stanton was the primary author of the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, a massive effort to record the history of the movement, focusing largely on her wing of it. She was also the primary author of The Woman's Bible, a critical examination of the Bible, based on the premise that its attitude toward women was an antiquated one arising out of a less civilized age.
Stanton made a her final trip to Europe in 1891, and moved in with two of her unmarried children who shared a home in New York City. Her daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch was active in the women's suffrage movement in Britain and would later be a leading figure in the U.S. movement. Harriet and her mother disagreed over Stanton's position that acquiring an education should he a precondition to voting. This was known as "educated suffrage." Harriet published a critique of her mother's views, saying there were many people who were denied the opportunity to acquire an education and yet were intelligent and accomplished citizens who deserved the right to vote. But Elizabeth Cady Stanton continued her campaign, calling for "a constitutional amendment requiring an educational qualification" for voting. She said that "everyone who votes should read and write the English language intelligently."
In 1898, Stanton published her memoirs, Eighty Years and More. In the autobiography, she minimized political and personal conflicts and omitted any mention of the split in the women's movement. On the dedication page Stanton wrote, "I dedicate this volume to Susan B. Anthony, my steadfast friend for half a century." Stanton continued to write articles for a variety of publications right up until the time of her death.
Stanton died in New York City on October 26, 1902. American Women would not get the right to vote for another 18 years, through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The cause of death is listed as heart failure. According to her daughter Harriet, the day before she died, Stanton told her female doctor to give her something to speed her death if a severe problem she was having with breathing could not be cured. Stanton was interred beside her husband in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.
After Stanton's death, Susan B. Anthony wrote a fitting tribute to Stanton in a letter to a friend:
"Oh, this awful hush! It seems impossible that voice is stilled which I have loved to hear for fifty years. Always I have felt I must have Mrs. Stanton's opinion of things before I knew where I stood myself. I am all at sea."
She was born on November 12, 1815, as Elizabeth Cady and was born into a life of privilege. She was a child of one the leading family of Johnstown, New York. Their family lived in a mansion on the town's main square that had as many as twelve servants. Her father, Daniel Cady, was one of the richest landowners in the state. He was a member of the Federalist Party, and was an attorney who served one term in the U.S. Congress and who later became a justice in the New York Supreme Court. Her mother, Margaret Livingston Cady, was a progressive abolitionist who supported the radical wing of the abolitionist movement led by William Lloyd Garrison. There was an irony in this because at least one of the family servants, Peter Teabout, was an enslaved man. Elizabeth was the seventh of eleven children, six of whom died before reaching full adulthood, including all of the boys. The loss of so many children left her mother feeling withdrawn and depressed.
In 1840 Elizabeth married Henry Brewster Stanton, a prominent abolitionist, despite her father's reservations. In their wedding ceremony, the couple omitted the word "obey" from the marriage ceremony. Stanton later wrote, "I obstinately refused to obey one with whom I supposed I was entering into an equal relation." Henry Stanton studied law under his father-in-law until 1843, when the couple moved to Boston (Chelsea), Massachusetts, where Henry joined a law firm. The couple had seven children. Each time a child was born, Stanton had a flag raised in front of her house, a red flag for a boy and a white one for a girl. One of her daughters, Harriot Stanton Blatch, later became a leader of the women's suffrage movement.
While on their honeymoon in England in 1840, the Stantons attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Elizabeth was appalled by the convention's blatant sexism, as male delegates voted to prevent women from participating even if they had been appointed as delegates by their respective abolitionist societies. The men required the women to sit in a separate section, hidden by curtains from the convention's proceedings. William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent American abolitionist and supporter of women's rights who arrived after the vote had been taken, refused to sit with the men and sat with the women instead. At the conference Stanton befriended Lucretia Mott, a Quaker minister, abolitionist and women's rights advocate, who was one of the women who had been sent as a delegate. Although Mott was much older than Stanton, they formed an enduring friendship. While in London, Stanton heard Mott preach in a Unitarian chapel, the first time Stanton had heard a woman give a sermon or even speak in public.
The London convention was a turning point in her life and she became motivated to work for legal changes needed to overcome gender inequities. In the summer of 1848, Lucretia Mott traveled from Pennsylvania to attend a Quaker meeting near the Stanton's home. Stanton was invited to visit with Mott and three other progressive Quaker women. It was at this gathering that the women present agreed to organize a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls a few days later, while Mott was still in the area.
Stanton was the primary author of the convention's Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It included a list of grievances such as the wrongful denial of women's right to vote. Stanton's wanted the subject of women's suffrage to be a major area of discussion at the convention. This was highly controversial idea at the time. Her husband Henry Stanton was critical of this and told his wife that she was acting in a way that would turn the proceedings into a laughing stock. Lucretia Mott, the main speaker, was also uncomfortable about this.
The Seneca Falls Convention was attended by over 300 men and women and lasted two days. Stanton addressed the convention in what would be her first address to a large audience. She outlined the purpose of the gathering and stressed the importance of women's rights. Following a speech by Mott, Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments, which the attendees were invited to sign. This was followed by the resolutions. All of which the convention adopted unanimously except for the ninth. It read, "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right of the elective franchise." The resolution was passed after a vigorous debate. Key to its passage was the strong support of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist leader who had formerly been been an enslaved man.
Stanton's sister Harriet attended the convention and signed its Declaration of Sentiments. Her husband, however, insisted that she remove her signature.
Despite the last-minute manner in which the convention was organized, it was widely reported in the press because of its controversial nature. Articles appearing in newspapers in New York City, Philadelphia and many other large cities. The Seneca Falls Convention is now remembered as being the first convention to be called for the purpose of discussing women's rights. The convention's Declaration of Sentiments is credited with spreading news of the women's rights movement around the nation. By the time of the second National Women's Rights Convention in 1851, the demand for women's right to vote had become a central tenet of the United States women's rights movement.
A Rochester Women's Rights Convention was held in Rochester, New York two weeks later, organized by local women who had attended the one in Seneca Falls. Both Stanton and Mott spoke at this convention. The Rochester convention was chaired by a woman, Abigail Bush, a first and a controversial decision. Many people were disturbed by the idea of a woman chairing a convention of both men and women. Even Stanton herself spoke in opposition to the election of a woman as the chair of this convention, although she later acknowledged that she was incorrect in doing so.
The first National Women's Rights Convention was organized in 1850, but Stanton was unable to attend because she was pregnant. She sent a letter to the convention entitled "Should women hold office" that outlined the movement's goals. The letter was emphatic in its support for the right of women to hold office. It became a tradition to open national women's rights conventions with a letter by Stanton, if she was unable to participate in person.
While visiting Seneca Falls in 1851, Susan B. Anthony was introduced to Stanton by Amelia Bloomer, a mutual friend and a supporter of the women's rights movement. Anthony was five years younger than Stanton. She came from a Quaker family that was active in reform movements. Anthony and Stanton soon became close friends and co-workers, forming a relationship that was f great importance to the women's movement.
The two had complementary skills. Anthony was an excellent organizer, while Stanton was a gifted writer and speaker. Stanton later said, "We did better work together than either could alone," adding, "I am the better writer, she the better critic." After the Stantons moved from Seneca Falls to New York City in 1861, a room was set aside for Anthony in every house they lived in.
In December 1865, Stanton and Anthony submitted the first women's suffrage petition directed to Congress during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment. The women challenged the use of the word "male" in the version submitted to the States for ratification. Congress failed to remove the language, and in response, Stanton announced her candidacy as the first woman to run for Congress in October 1866. She ran as an independent and secured only 24 votes, but her candidacy attracted significant notice and invigorated discussions about women's officeholding.
In December 1872, Stanton and Anthony each wrote New Departure memorials to Congress and were invited to read their memorials to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This further brought women's suffrage and officeholding to the forefront of Congress's agenda, even though the New Departure agenda was rejected. Nevertheless, the issue was one which needed to be addressed by President Ulysses Grant. During Grant's presidency the suffrage movement had gained national attention thanks to the efforts of Stanton and Anthony. The two women lobbied Grant for female suffrage, equal gender pay, and protection of property for women who resided in Washington D.C. In April 1869, Grant did sign into law the protection of married women's property from their husbands' debts and the ability for women to sue in court in Washington D.C. In March 1870 Representative Samuel M. Arnell introduced a bill, coauthored by suffragist Bennette Lockwood, that would give women federal workers equal pay for equal work. Two years later Grant signed a modified Senate version of the Arnell Bill into law. The law required that all federal female clerks would be paid the fully compensated salary; however, lower tiered female clerks were exempted. The law increased women's clerk salaries from 4% to 20% during the 1870s. But generally speaking, politicians only paid lip service to the suffragist movement. For example, in 1872 the Republicans' convention platform included that women's rights should be treated with "respectful consideration." Grant himself advocated equal rights for all citizens, but also recognized that this was likely a politically unsalable proposition.
Stanton and Anthony started a newspaper called The Revolution in 1868 to work for women's rights. After the war, Stanton and Anthony were the main organizers of the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both African Americans and women, especially the right of suffrage. When the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced that would provide suffrage for black men only, they opposed it, insisting that suffrage should be extended to all African Americans and all women at the same time. Others in the movement supported the amendment, and this resulted in a split in the organization.
Stanton became the president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, which she and Anthony created to represent their wing of the movement. When the split was healed more than twenty years later, Stanton became the first president of the united organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association. This was largely an honorary position.
Stanton was the primary author of the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, a massive effort to record the history of the movement, focusing largely on her wing of it. She was also the primary author of The Woman's Bible, a critical examination of the Bible, based on the premise that its attitude toward women was an antiquated one arising out of a less civilized age.
Stanton made a her final trip to Europe in 1891, and moved in with two of her unmarried children who shared a home in New York City. Her daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch was active in the women's suffrage movement in Britain and would later be a leading figure in the U.S. movement. Harriet and her mother disagreed over Stanton's position that acquiring an education should he a precondition to voting. This was known as "educated suffrage." Harriet published a critique of her mother's views, saying there were many people who were denied the opportunity to acquire an education and yet were intelligent and accomplished citizens who deserved the right to vote. But Elizabeth Cady Stanton continued her campaign, calling for "a constitutional amendment requiring an educational qualification" for voting. She said that "everyone who votes should read and write the English language intelligently."
In 1898, Stanton published her memoirs, Eighty Years and More. In the autobiography, she minimized political and personal conflicts and omitted any mention of the split in the women's movement. On the dedication page Stanton wrote, "I dedicate this volume to Susan B. Anthony, my steadfast friend for half a century." Stanton continued to write articles for a variety of publications right up until the time of her death.
Stanton died in New York City on October 26, 1902. American Women would not get the right to vote for another 18 years, through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The cause of death is listed as heart failure. According to her daughter Harriet, the day before she died, Stanton told her female doctor to give her something to speed her death if a severe problem she was having with breathing could not be cured. Stanton was interred beside her husband in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.
After Stanton's death, Susan B. Anthony wrote a fitting tribute to Stanton in a letter to a friend:
"Oh, this awful hush! It seems impossible that voice is stilled which I have loved to hear for fifty years. Always I have felt I must have Mrs. Stanton's opinion of things before I knew where I stood myself. I am all at sea."