L'issent The Meaning of Seneca Falls: 1848-1998

Gerda Lerner to the resurgence of modern and the advances of the field of Women's History that the convention has entered the nation's con- sciousness. The establishment of Women's N 1848, acccording to Karl Marx and History Month as a national event during the Frederick Engels, "a specter [was] haunt- Carter administration and its continuance ing Europe—the specter of communism." through every administration since then has In1 that same year, the vil- helped to educate the nation to the signifi- lage of Seneca Falls hosted a gathering of fewer cance of women's role in history. Still, it took than three hundred people, earnestly debat- decades of struggle by women's organizations, ing a Declaration of Sentiments to be spread feminist historians and preservationists to res- by newsprint and oratory. The Seneca Falls cue the building at Seneca Falls and finally to 's Rights Convention marked the be- persuade the National Park Service to turn it ginning of the woman's rights movement. into a historic site. Today it is a major tourist The specter that haunted Europe devel- attraction and has been enhanced by the es- oped into a mighty movement, embracing the tablishment of a National Women's Hall of globe, causing revolutions, wars, tyrannies and Fame on the site. This history of "long forget- counterrevolutions. Having gained state power ting and short remembering" has been an im- in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, twenti- portant aspect of women's historic past, the eth-century communism, in 1948, seemed significance of which we only understood as more threatening a specter than ever before. we began to study women's history in depth. Yet, after a bitter period of "cold war," which

pitted nuclear nations against one another in , LIZABETH CADY STANTON, the great Com- a futile stalemate, it fell of its own weight in municator and propagandist of nine- almost all its major centers. F teenth-century feminism, has left a de- The small spark figuratively ignited at Sen- tailed account of the origins of the Seneca Falls eca Falls never produced revolutions, usurpa- convention both in her autobiography and in tion of power or wars. Yet it led to a transfor- the monumental History of Woman . mation of consciousness and a movement of The idea for such a meeting originated with empowerment on behalf of half the human her and with , when they both race, which hardly has its equal in human his- attended the 1840 World Antislavery Conven- tory. tion in London, at which representatives of Until very recently, the Seneca Falls con- female antislavery societies were denied seat- vention of 1848 was not recognized as signifi- ing and voting rights. Outraged by this humili- cant by historians, was not included in history ating experience, Stanton and Mott decided textbooks, not celebrated as an important in London that they would convene a meet- event in public schools, never mentioned in ing of women in the United States to discuss the media or the press. In the 1950s, the build- their grievances as soon as possible. But her ing where it was held, formerly the Wesleyan responsibilities as mother of a growing family chapel, was used as a filling station. In the intervened, and Stanton could not implement 1960s, it housed a laundromat. It was only due her plan until 1848, when Lucretia Mott vis- ited her sister Martha Wright in Waterloo, a

Copyright © Gerda Lerner , 1998. All rights reserved. town near Seneca Falls. There, Stanton met

DISSENT / Fall 1998 n 35 SENECA FALLS with her, her hostess and their tition with western agriculture, which brought friend Mary Ann McClintock. Stanton wrote: many farmers to bankruptcy. Economic uncer- "I poured out that day the torrent of my long tainty led many to embrace utopian schemes accumulating discontent with such vehe- for salvation. The region was known as the mence and indignation that I stirred myself, "burned-over" district, because so many as well as the rest of the party, to do or dare schemes for reforms had swept over it in rapid anything." The five drafted an announcement succession, from the evangelical revivalism of for a "Woman's Rights Convention" to be held Charles Grandison Finney, to temperance, at Seneca Falls on the nineteenth and twenti- abolition, church reform, Mormonism and the eth of July, and placed the notice in the local chiliastic movement of William Miller, who paper and the abolitionist press. predicted the second coming of Christ with precision for October 12, 1843 at three A.M. HE FIVE women who issued the call to The nearly one million followers of Miller had the Seneca Falls convention were hardly survived the uneventful passing of that night T as naive and inexperienced as later, and the similarly uneventful revised dates of somewhat mythical versions of the events March or October 1844, but their zeal for re- would lead one to believe. Lucretia Mott was form had not lessened. an experienced and highly acclaimed public The men and women who gathered in the speaker, a Quaker minister and longtime abo- Seneca Falls Wesleyan chapel were not a na- litionist. She had attended the founding meet- tional audience; they all came from upstate ing of the American Antislavery Society in New York and represented a relatively narrow 1833, which admitted women only as observ- spectrum of reform activists. Their local back- ers. She was a founder of the Fe- ground predisposed them to accept radical male Anti-Slavery Society and its long-term pronouncements and challenging proposals. president. The fact that she was announced Most of them were abolitionists, the women as the principal speaker at the Seneca Falls having been active for nearly ten years in chari- convention was a distinct drawing card. table, reform, and antislavery societies. They 's "long accumu- were experienced in running petition cam- lating discontent" had to do with her struggle paigns and many had organized antislavery to raise her three children (she would later fund-raising fairs. Historian Nancy Isenberg, have four more) and run a large household in who has analyzed the origins and affiliations the frequent absences of her husband Henry, of those attending the convention, showed that a budding lawyer and Free Soil politican. Still, many were religious dissidents, , who she found time to be involved in the campaign just two months prior had separated from their for reform of women's property rights in New more traditional church and would shortly York state, where a reform bill was passed just form their own group, New York Congregation- prior to the convention, and she had spoken alist Friends. Another dissident group were before the state legislature. Wesleyan Methodists who had been involved Martha Wright, Jane Hunt and Mary Ann in a struggle within their church about the role McClintock were all separatist Quakers, long of women and of the laity in church gover- active in working to improve the position of nance. Yet another group came from the ranks women within their church. All of them were of the . Among the men veterans of reform and women's organizations in attendance several were local lawyers with and had worked on antislavery fairs. Liberty Party or Free Soil affiliations. Also The place where they held their conven- present and taking a prominent part in the tion was particularly suited for attracting an deliberations was , the audience of radical thinkers. The region had former slave and celebrated abolitionist for more than two decades been the center of speaker, now editor of the North Star. reform and utopian movements, largely due to Far from representing a group of inexperi- the economic upheavals brought by the open- enced housewives running their first public ing of the Erie Canal and the ensuing compe- meeting, the majority of the convention par-

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ticipants were reformers with considerable or- ganizational experience. For example, and six other women from Rochester who came to Seneca Falls were able to organize a similar woman's rights convention in Roches- ter just two weeks later. One of the significant aspects of the Seneca Falls convention is that it was grounded in several organizational net- works that had already existed for some time and could mobilize the energies of seasoned reform activists. Most of the reformers attending had fam- ily, church and political affiliations in other areas of the North and Midwest. It was through them that the message of Seneca Falls spread quickly and led to the formation of a national movement. The first truly national convention on Woman's Rights was held in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850. By 1860 ten national and many local woman's rights conventions had been organized.

The Declaration of Sentiments The first day of the Seneca Falls meeting was reserved to women, who occupied them- selves with debating, paragraph by para- graph, the Declaration of Sentiments pre- pared by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Resolu- Elizabeth Cady Stanton addresses the Convention. tions were offered, debated and adopted. At the end of the second day, sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed their names to a They also put the weight and symbolism of this Declaration of Sentiments, which embodied revered text behind what was in their time a the program of the nascent movement and radical assertion: "We hold these truths to be provided a model for future woman's rights self-evident: that all men and women are cre- conventions. The number of signers repre- ated equal." sented only one third of those present, which The feminist appeal to natural rights and probably was due to the radical nature of the the social contract had long antecedents on statement. the European continent, the most important The inequities cited and the demands advocate of it being . Her raised in this Declaration were not entirely work was well known in the United States, novel. Like all major social and intellectual where the same argument had been well made movements, feminism has many and diverse by Judith Sargent Murray, , antecedents. Emma Willard, Sarah Grimké and . Y SELECTING the Declaration of Indepen- The second fundamental argument for the dence for their formal model and follow- equality of woman was religious. As stated in ing its preamble almost verbatim, except the Declaration: for the insertion of gender-neutral language, Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was the organizers of the convention sought to base intended to be so by the Creator, and the their main appeal on the democratic rights em- highest good of the race demands that she bodied in the nation's founding document. should be recognized as such.

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And one of the "grievances is: dependent. He [man] has usurped the prerogative of Je- They concluded that in view of the disfran- hovah himself, claiming it as his right to as- chisement of one-half the people of this coun- sign to her a sphere of action, when that be- try longs to her conscience and her God. . . . we insist that [women] have immediate The feminist argument based on biblical admission to all the rights and privileges grounds can be traced back for seven hundred which belong to them as citizens of these years prior to 1848, but the women assembled United States. at Seneca Falls were unaware of that fact, be- It has been claimed by historians, and by cause of the nonexistence of anything like herself, that Stanton's controversial resolution Women's History. They did know the Quaker advocating voting rights for women—the only argument, especially as made in her public lec- resolution not approved unanimously at the tures by Lucretia Mott. They had read Sarah convention—was her most important original Grimke's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, contribution. In fact, Sarah and Angelina and several of the resolutions in fact followed Grimke had advocated woman's right to vote her text. They knew the biblical argument by and hold office in 1838, and Frances Wright Ann Lee of the Shakers and they echoed the had done so in the 1830s. It was not so much antislavery biblical argument, applying it to the originality, as the inclusiveness of the listed women. grievances that was important. The Declaration departed from precedent The Declaration claimed universality, even in its most radical statement: though it never mentioned differences among women. Future woman's rights conferences The history of mankind is a history of re- peated injuries and usurpations on the part before the Civil War would rectify this omis- of man toward woman, having in direct ob- sion and pay particular attention to the needs ject the establishment of an absolute tyranny of lower class and slave women. over her. While grievances pertaining to woman's sexual oppression were not explicitly included The naming of "man" as the culprit, in the Declaration of Sentiments, they were thereby identifying as a system of very much alive in the consciousness of the "tyranny," was highly original, but it may have leading participants. Elizabeth Cady Stanton been dictated more by the rhetorical flourishes had already in 1848 begun to include allusions of the Declaration of Independence than by to what we now call "marital rape" in her let- an actual analysis of woman's situation. When ters and soon after the Seneca Falls conven- it came to the list of grievances, the authors tion made such references explicit, calling on departed from the text and became quite spe- legislatures to forbid marriage to "drunkards." cific. She soon became an open advocate of divorce and of the right of women to leave abusive OMAN HAD been denied "her inalien- marriages. Later woman's rights conventions able right to the elective franchise"; would include some of these issues among W she had no voice in the making of their demands, although they used carefully laws; she was deprived of other rights of citi- guarded language and focused on abuses by zenship; she was declared civilly dead upon "drunkards." This was a hidden feminist theme marriage; deprived of her property and wages; of the mainstream woman's temperance move- discriminated against in case of divorce, and ment in the 1880s and caused many temper- in payment for work. Women were denied ance women to embrace woman suffrage. equal access to education and were kept out What we now call "a woman's right to her of the professions, held in a subordinate posi- body" was already on the agenda of the nine- tion in Church and State and assigned by man teenth-century woman's rights movement. to the domestic sphere. Man has endeavored It was the confluence of a broad-ranging to destroy woman's self-respect and keep her programmatic declaration with a format famil-

38 n DISSENT I Fall 1 998 SENECA FALLS iar and accessible to reformers that gave the men, but also on stressing women's difference event its historical significance. The Seneca from other women. They are radical demands, Falls convention was the first forum in which which can only be achieved by transforming women gathered together to publicly air their society for men and women, equalizing gen- own grievances, not those of the needy, the der definitions for both sexes, assigning the enslaved, orphans or widows. The achieve- reproductive work of raising the next genera- ment of a public voice for women and the rec- tion to both men and women, and reorganiz- ognition that women could not win their rights ing social institutions so as to make such ar- unless they organized, made Seneca Falls a rangements possible. major event in history. Women, just like men, are placed in soci- ety as individuals and as citizens. They are both Rights and Emancipation equal and different. The demand for women's What progress has been made in the status of emancipation always includes the demand for women since 1848? women's rights, but the reverse is not true. It is useful to think of women's demands Generally speaking, women's rights have been as encompassing two sets of needs: women's won or improved upon in many parts of the rights and women's emancipation. world in the past 150 years. Women's emanci- Women's rights essentially are civil rights— pation has not yet been won anywhere. to vote, to hold office, to have access to edu- The movement started at Seneca Falls cation and to economic and political power at called itself the woman's rights movement— every level of society on an equal basis with embracing both concepts, that of the indi- men. They include property rights, the right vidual woman as a person and as a citizen de- to one's earnings, the right to sue and be sued, manding rights. As we have seen, its program, the right to dispose of property. These rights from the start, embraced both—by demand- are demanded on the basis of a claim to equal- ing legal, property, civil rights; and by demand- ity: as citizens, as members of society, women ing changes in gender-role definition and in are by rights equal and must therefore be woman's rights to her own body. As the nine- treated equally. All of the rights here listed are teenth-century movement matured, there de- based on the acceptance of the status quo— veloped some tension between advocates of all women ask is to be admitted to it on a ba- these two different sets of demands, with the sis of equality. These are essentially reformist mainstream focusing more and more on legal demands. and property rights, while radicals and outsid- Women's emancipation is freedom from ers, like sex reformers, birth control advocates, oppressive restrictions imposed by reason of and socialist feminists demanded more pro- sex; self-determination and autonomy. Oppres- found social changes. sive restrictions are biological restrictions due The twentieth-century women's movement to sex, as well as socially imposed ones. Thus, adopted the plural "women" to show inclusive- women's bearing and nursing children is a bio- ness and to reflect the fact that it was a broadly logical given, but the assignment to women of based, coalition-building movement. But the the major responsibility for the rearing of chil- same distinctions and tensions as in the first dren and for housework is socially imposed. wave of feminism have appeared in the "new Self-determination means being free to feminism" that started in the 1960s. One wing decide one's own destiny, to define one's own focused mainly on women's rights—adoption social role. Autonomy means earning one's sta- of ERA, legal/political rights and representa- tus, not being born into it or marrying it. It tion and civil rights for women of different means financial and cultural independence, classes, races and sexual orientations. The freedom to choose one's own lifestyle, regard- other wing began as "radical women's libera- less of sex. It means freedom to define issues, tion" and later branched off into many more roles, laws and cultural norms on an equality specialized groups working on abortion rights; with men. The demands for emancipation are protection of women against violence and based on stressing women's difference from sexual harassment; the opening up to women

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of nontraditional occupations; self-empower- The cultural transformation on which de- ment and the creation of women's cultural in- mands for woman's emancipation build, has stitutions, ranging from lesbian groupings to been enormous. Many demands that seemed women's music festivals and pop culture. The outrageous 150 years ago are now commonly two informally defined wings of the movement accepted, such as a woman's right to equal often overlapped, sometimes collaborated on guardianship of her children, to divorce, to jury specific narrow issues, and recently have duty, to acceptance in nontraditional occupa- worked more and more on bridge-building. tions. Female police and fire officers and female The Women's Studies movement has struggled military personnel are accepted everywhere long and hard to bridge the two wings and en- without question. Women's participation in compass them educationally. Further, new competitive sports is another area in which forms of feminism by women of color or progress has been great, though it is far from women who define themselves as "different" complete. Many other feminist demands that from the majority in various ways have sprung seemed outrageously radical thirty years ago up and served their own constitutencies. Their have become commonplace today—the accep- existence has not weakened the movement, as tance of lesbians as "normal" members of the its critics like to claim, but has strengthened community; single motherhood; the criminal it immensely by grounding it more firmly in character of sexual harassment and marital different constituencies. rape. The acceptance of such ideas is still un- even and different in different places, but gen- / ETI US NOT forget, ever, that when we talk erally, the feminist program has been accepted about women's rights we talk about the by millions of people who refuse to identify rights of half the human race. No one themselves as "feminists." What critics decry as expects all men to have the same interests, is- the splintering and diffusion of the movement sues or demands. We should therefore never is actually its greatest strength today. expect women to have one agenda, one set of It should also he recognized that the aims issues or demands. of feminism are transformative, but its meth- The women's rights demands first raised ods have been peaceful reform, persuasion and at Seneca Falls have in the United States been education. For 150 years feminists have orga- generally achieved for middle-class white nized, lobbied, marched, petitioned, put their women. They have been partially achieved for bodies on the line in demonstrations, and have working-class women and women of color, but overcome ancient prejudices by heroic acts of progress has been very uneven. The continu- self-help. Whatever gains were won, had to be ing horrendous gaps in life expectancy, infant won step by step, over and over again. Noth- mortality and survival rates between white and ing "was given" to women; whatever gains we African-American women is but one illustra- made we have had to earn. And perhaps the tion of this unevenness. The progress on eco- most precious "right" we have won in these two nomic issues, such as equal wages, equal ac- centuries, is the right to know our own his- cess to credit, equal treatment in home-own- tory, to draw on the knowledge and experience ership and insurance availability has also var- of the women before us, to celebrate and emu- ied by class and race, with much remaining to late our heroines and finally to know that

be done. " greatness" is not a sexual attribute. The feminization of poverty and the in- creasing income gap between the rich and the What Meaning Does Seneca Falls Hold Today? poor have turned many legal gains won by • It shows that a small group of people, armed women into empty shells. An example is the with a persuasive analysis of grievances and way in which legal restrictions on women's an argument based on generally held moral right to choose abortion have fallen more and religious beliefs, can, if they are willing heavily on poor women than on the well-to- and able to work hard at organizing, create a do. The uneven availability of child care for transformative mass movement. working mothers is another example. • The fact that it took seventy-two years of

40 n DISSENT / Fall 1998 SENECA FALLS organized effort for American women to win sity it has progressed at an uneven pace, due the vote shows that social transformation and to different historical and cultural conditions legal change is a slow process. The women in different countries. who launched a small movement in 1848 had • Over the past 150 years all of the grievances to learn to stay with it over nearly four gen- listed at Seneca Falls have been resolved or at erations. They had to build, county by county, least dealt with, though new inequities and state by state, the largest grassroots movement grievances arise in each generation. The "spec- of the nineteenth century and then build it ter that haunted Europe" left some gains, but again in the twentieth century to transform the mostly bloodshed, terror and devastation in its right to vote into the right to equal represen- wake, and most of the inequities it sought to tation. adjust are still with us. Feminism has behind • Revolutionaries splutter and flare up like it a record of solid gains without the costs of rockets in the night. Those who transform non- bloody war and revolution. violently sign up for the long duration, through Although the media and many politicians good times and bad—sustaining the warmth with monotonous frequency declare feminism necessary for growth like a banked fire. to be dead, many of its goals have been ac- • Seneca Falls and the movement it spawned complished and its momentum, worldwide, is show that legal changes, hard won though they steadily rising. It will continue to live and grow, are, remain useless and can be reversed, un- as long as women anywhere have "grievances" less social and cultural transformations sus- they can proclaim and as long as they are will- tain them. ing and able to organize to rectify them. • • The feminist program proclaimed at Seneca Falls spoke to vast constituencies of women. GERDA LERNER is a historian, writer and teacher. The worldwide movement of women for their She has published ten books in women's history, rights and for emancipation has steadily pro- the latest among them Why History Matters and gressed and is irreversible, although of neces- The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimke.

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