Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. Her father, Daniel Cady, was a lawyer, judge and land speculator who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and later became a judge of the New York Supreme Court; her mother was Margaret Livingston Cady.⁠[1][2][3]

She was educated at home, attended a local boys’ school and Johnstown Academy, and then went to Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York, graduating in 1832. She afterward studied law in her father’s office, where she became aware of laws that discriminated against women.⁠[3][2][1]

On May 1, 1840, she married Henry Brewster Stanton, a lawyer and abolitionist, insisting that the word “obey” be omitted from the vows. On their honeymoon they attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where American women delegates were refused seats; she and Lucretia Mott, both sent to the women’s section, resolved to hold a women’s rights convention once they returned home.⁠[2][3][4]

In May 1847 she moved with her husband and three sons into a house at 32 Washington Street in Seneca Falls, New York; that June her father transferred the deed to her. She lived there for about 15 years and sold the house in 1862.⁠[5][2]

On July 9, 1848, at the home of Jane and Richard Hunt, Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M’Clintock, Martha Wright and Jane Hunt decided to call a women’s rights convention; on July 16 the planners met at the M’Clintock House to draft the Declaration of Sentiments, which Stanton and the M’Clintock family modeled on the Declaration of Independence.⁠[6][7][3]

The first women’s rights convention met at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19–20, 1848, attended by about 300 women and men, among them Lucretia Mott and Frederick DouglassFrederick DouglassFrederick Douglass (1818–1895) was an American abolitionist, orator, newspaper publisher and author. Born into slavery, he escaped in 1838 and became a leading figure of the abolition movement, best known for his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself; in later life he served as U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia and as U.S. minister to Haiti, among other posts.Open the full entry; 100 people, 68 women and 32 men, signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Stanton, then about 32, pressed the demand for the vote despite objections from allies including Mott, and after debate the convention adopted the resolution, the first public resolution for woman suffrage.⁠[7][6][1][3]

That year her petitioning helped win passage of a New York law granting property rights to married women.⁠[3]

In May 1851 Amelia Bloomer introduced her to Susan B. Anthony, whom she enlisted in the women’s rights cause; the two collaborated for some fifty years. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry judges that in their partnership Stanton was the writer and orator and Anthony the organizer and tactician.⁠[2][1][3]

In 1852 she and Anthony and others founded the Women’s New York State Temperance Society, of which she became president; her proposal that drunkenness be grounds for divorce angered some supporters, and liberalized divorce laws remained a major cause for her. In 1854 she addressed the New York State Woman’s Rights Convention in Albany on the legal restrictions women faced, and she addressed the state legislature; an 1860 New York law gave married women rights to their wages and equal guardianship of their children.⁠[8][3][4]

In 1862 the Stanton family moved to New York City. In 1863 she, Anthony and others founded the Women’s Loyal National League to press for the 13th Amendment, collecting more than 300,000 signatures. In 1866 she petitioned Congress for universal suffrage and became the first woman to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.⁠[2][8][3]

Britannica judges that the postwar campaign to extend the vote to African American men but not to women angered her and intensified her focus on woman suffrage.⁠[3]

From 1868 to 1870 she co-edited the women’s rights weekly Revolution with Parker Pillsbury. In 1869 she co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association with Anthony and became its first president, leading it, usually as president, until its 1890 merger with the American Woman Suffrage Association.⁠[1][3]

In 1876 she was the principal author of the Declaration of Rights for Women presented at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In 1878 the federal woman suffrage amendment she drafted was introduced in Congress by Senator Aaron A. Sargent, and it was reintroduced in every Congress until the 19th Amendment gave women the vote in 1920. In 1888 she helped organize the first International Council of Women in Washington, D.C.⁠[3][8]

After the 1890 merger formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she was elected its first president and served until 1892, when Susan B. Anthony succeeded her.⁠[3][6]

She published The Woman’s Bible in two volumes in 1895 and 1898, criticizing canon law and churches that restricted women. In 1896 the National American Woman Suffrage Association distanced itself from her criticism, fearing a loss of support for suffrage.⁠[8][1]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in New York City on October 26, 1902, at the age of 86.⁠[1][3]

Her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton, lived from 1808 to 1887. By 1859 the couple had seven children; their daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch gave her mother’s papers to the Library of Congress in 1927 and 1928.⁠[8][2][1]

From 1881 to 1886 she, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage published the first three volumes of the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage (Fowler & Wells). In 1898 she published her 474-page autobiography, Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897.⁠[1][3]

Her Seneca Falls house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965; it was bought by the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation and donated in 1982 to the National Park Service. Congress established the Women’s Rights National Historical Park on December 28, 1980, preserving the setting of the 1848 convention and the homes of some participants, including the Wesleyan Chapel, the Stanton house, the M’Clintock House and the Hunt House.⁠[5][6]

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers at the Library of Congress comprise about 1,000 items dating from 1814 to 1946, the first of them given by Susan B. Anthony in 1903.⁠[1]

Britannica credits her with launching the American women’s rights movement and pioneering the demand for women’s suffrage. The National Park Service notes that she advocated a broad platform of women’s citizenship, including suffrage, property rights and reform of divorce and custody laws, that her work drew both praise and debate, and that she was a friend of Frederick Douglass.⁠[3][2][4]

Women’s Rights National Historical Park (National Park Service): Web page: https://home.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/elizabeth-cady-stanton.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton House (National Park Service): Web page: https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/elizabeth-cady-stanton-house.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Library of Congress (Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers timeline): Web page: https://www.loc.gov/collections/elizabeth-cady-stanton-papers/articles-and-essays/timeline/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]