(Rochester, NY: 1889) .

Resource 17: Reactions to Seneca Falls From the Newspapers

he first Women’s Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her daughter, Harriot, 1856, Daguerreotype, Library This is all wrong . . . . Society would have to be radically Rights Convention was of Congress Prints and Photographs remodeled in order to accommodate itself to so great a held on July 19–20, Division, Washington D .C ., 97500106 . 1848 in Seneca Falls, change . TNew York . The Declaration of –Mechanics’ Advocate, Albany, New York Sentiments (see Appendix B) was a list of grievances modeled on the “The anti-slavery papers Declaration of Independence . It stood by us manfully . . . The women folks have just held a Convention up in was signed by sixty-eight women but so pronounced was and, in a separate list, thirty-two the popular voice against New York State, and passed a sort of “bill of rights” . . . . men . The resolutions, including us . . . that most of the They should have resolved at the same time, that it was the call for suffrage, were endorsed ladies who had attended obligatory . . . upon the “lords” . . . to wash dishes, scour by those present, but not signed . the convention and signed the declaration, up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings, In her autobiography, Eighty one by one, withdrew patch breeches, scold the servants, dress in the latest Years And More, Stanton wrote: their names and “No words could express our influence and joined our fashion, wear trinkets, look beautiful, and be as fascinating astonishment on finding, a few persecutors . Our friends as those blessed morsels of humanity whom God gave days afterward, that what seemed gave us the cold shoulder and felt to preserve that rough animal man, in something like a to us so timely, so rational, and Discussion Questions themselves disgraced by the whole so sacred, should be a subject for proceeding ”. reasonable civilization . ✮✮ The Mechanics’ Advocate and the sarcasm and ridicule . . . ”. Perhaps –Lowell (Massachusetts) Courier she wasn’t quite so astonished Lowell Courier both objected In 1881, when Stanton, Susan as she remembered . Before the to the convention on similar B . Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn grounds . What was their main convention, Lucretia Mott and Gage published the first volume objection? Do you think their A woman is nobody . A wife is everything . A pretty girl is Elizabeth’s husband, Henry objection was reasonable? Why? of the History of Women Suffrage, Stanton, had both warned that the they included several of the equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, suffrage resolution would be seen ✮✮ Why did “the ladies of pro and con articles, undated, all powerful . The ladies of Philadelphia, therefore, under as ridiculous . At the convention, Philadelphia” object to the in an appendix . This resource the influence of the most serious “sober second thoughts,” it passed only after persuasive convention? Was their objection is a selection of those in the arguments by Elizabeth Cady reasonable? Why? “sarcasm and ridicule” category . are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Stanton and Frederick Douglass . ✮✮ How did the women who Virgins, and Mothers, and not as Women . participated in the Seneca Falls –Philadelphia Public Ledger and Daily Transcript As follow-up conventions were Convention feel about the Sources: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eighty Years And held elsewhere, newspapers More: Reminiscences 1815–1897 (New York: T . Fisher backlash? How would you feel Unwin, 1898); Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B . covered the growing story . Stanton in their position? Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds ., History Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B . Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, Vol . 1, © Copyright 2017 New-York Historical Society Historical © Copyright 2017 New-York continued in her autobiography: of Woman Suffrage, Vol . 1, 1848–1861, rev . ed . 1848–1861, rev . ed . (Rochester, NY: 1889) .

Saving Washington: The New Republic and Early Reformers, 1790–1860