DOCSLIB.ORG

Women's Rights, Seneca Falls, Stanton, and Mott

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Women's Rights, Seneca Falls, Stanton, and Mott CK_4_TH_HG_P087_242.QXD 10/6/05 9:03 AM Page 232 IV. Reformers two-year investigation and won support to have the state-run mental hospital expanded. Dix then took her crusade to other states and found similar conditions. For 40 years, Dix worked to help the mentally ill. She persuaded legislators in 15 U.S. states and in Canada to build or upgrade state-operated hospitals for the mental- ly ill. 46 Teaching Idea Horace Mann and Public Schools While studying Horace Mann you may wish to try to give students a sense of Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first colony to establish public-supported how schools in the 19th century dif- education. In 1642, the General Court of Massachusetts passed an education law fered from schools today. Share pic- to ensure that everyone was able to read the Bible. According to the law, parents tures, and possibly also selections from had to teach their children to read. Five years later, the General Court passed a old school books, such as McGuffey’s law ordering every town of 50 families or more to support a school. Eclectic Readers (see More Resources). Horace Mann built on this foundation when he served as the first secretary of the Massachusetts state board of education from 1837 to 1848. During that time, he did much to promote public education by establishing state-supported colleges to train teachers and by setting up school districts under a statewide sys- Teaching Idea tem of public education. Mann also lobbied for better pay for teachers. He want- As a writing exercise, tell students to ed to standardize the age for compulsory school attendance, place students in respond in 5-paragraph essay form to graded classrooms, and use the same grade-level textbooks across the state. the following prompt: To which move- But most importantly, Mann and his supporters advocated public education ment would you have volunteered your as the “great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social time to help? Why? machinery.” They saw public education as a means to create a harmonious and homogeneous society of hardworking citizens, who would support the values, beliefs, and loyalties of America. Mann’s philosophy appealed to the middle class Cross-curricular in the north, and interest in public education soon spread from Massachusetts to other northern states. The midwest, which had been settled under the Northwest Teaching Idea Ordinance requiring the establishment of schools, already supported education. You may wish to teach the science Public education in the south did not take hold until the 1850s because of the biography of Elizabeth Blackwell in scarcity of towns. conjunction with this discussion of women’s rights. See “Science Women’s Rights, Seneca Falls, Stanton, and Mott Biographies” (pp. 519–520). In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. Many advocates of the women’s rights movement were inspired by their efforts in the antislavery move- ment. At that time, women had very limited public roles. They usually could attend meetings but were not allowed to speak in public. In fact, a major catalyst for the women’s rights movement occurred in 1840, when Lucretia Mott and other female delegates were refused as delegates at the World’s Antislavery Convention in London due to their gender. In general, women were not allowed to enter the professions, such as medi- cine and law. Few girls were educated past eighth grade because education was not considered important for girls. People were concerned that education would weaken women’s minds. In addition, married women could not own property; if they had property in their names before they were married, they had to turn it over to their husbands after marriage. In the 1800s, women could not vote and Elizabeth Cady Stanton they could not hold public office. 232 Grade 4 Handbook CK_4_TH_HG_P087_242.QXD 10/6/05 9:03 AM Page 233 Women like Stanton and Mott, who were educated and were not intimidated by the rules of society, set out to do something about their circumstances. Stanton was the daughter of a lawyer and the wife of a prominent abolitionist. Among her accomplishments was the passage of laws in New York State giving married women the right to own property, to keep their wages, and to have equal guardianship with the father of their children. Mott was a Quaker and an aboli- tionist who organized the Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society and worked for more than 50 years for abolition, women’s rights, and peace. The convention that Stanton and Mott called at Seneca Falls was a first step toward gaining women’s rights. The delegates to the convention passed the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the nation’s Declaration of Independence. The document began: Lucretia Mott “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness . .” It ended with the statement, “We insist that they [women] have immediate admission to the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the Teaching Idea United States.” 45 Read parts of the Declaration of During the 1850s, many women activists like Stanton and Mott put aside Sentiments to students (see More their own struggle for equal rights to support the cause of abolition. Once the Resources). Ask them if the opening Civil War was over and slavery was abolished, they expected support for their reminds them of any other documents cause. However, few male abolitionists returned the favor, and the two groups did they have studied. It is, of course, a not always agree with one another. In 1869, when the Fifteenth Amendment was careful imitation of the Declaration of proposed to give African-American males the vote, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Independence. Just as Benjamin founded the National Woman Suffrage Association to protest the amendment Banneker used that document to state because it did not include women. The amendment was ratified nonetheless. It the case for African-American rights, was not until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, that women so the authors of the Declaration were allowed to vote. invoked it to make the case for women’s rights. In fact, the entire Women’s Rights: Sojourner Truth Declaration of Sentiments was close- Another woman active in both abolition and women’s rights was Sojourner ly patterned on the Declaration of Truth. Born to a slave family in New York State and given the name Isabella, she Independence. Students who are was freed in 1827 as a result of passage of the New York Emancipation Act, which familiar with the Declaration of granted freedom to all enslaved African Americans in the state. She later changed Independence will be able to see her name to Sojourner Truth, reflecting her quest for truth and justice, and many similarities. became an itinerant preacher. Adopting first abolition and later women’s rights, Truth took to the lecture circuit. Her fame spread with the publication of The Narrative of Sojourner Truth in 1850. During the Civil War, Truth worked to gain Cross-curricular admission of black units into the Northern army. After the war, she worked for a Teaching Idea time with former slaves to help them make the transition to freedom, and she You may wish to teach Sojourner continued to advocate for women’s rights. Truth’s speech “Ain’t I a woman?” An eloquent speaker who created great emotion in her audiences, she is often discussed in the Language Arts sec- credited with the speech “Ain’t I a woman?” However, it is possible that she never tion (on pp. 71–72) and found in the actually spoke the words as they were written. There were no recordings at that Text Resources in conjunction with time, of course, and it is possible that another woman, Frances Dana Gage, this unit. You may also wish to share embroidered Truth’s speech for publication. Regardless, those words became selections from Truth’s Narrative. almost an anthem for women’s rights’ advocates. History and Geography: American 233 CK_4_TH_HG_P087_242.QXD 10/6/05 9:03 AM Page 234 IV. Reformers Name Date Women’s Rights: Amelia Bloomer People Who Made a Difference Fill in the blanks to complete each sentence. Amelia Jenks Bloomer worked for women’s rights and the temperance move- abolitionist Amelia Bloomer Dorothea Dix ment. She edited a newspaper called The Lily: A Ladies Journal Devoted to Frederick Douglass Horace Mann Lucretia Mott reformer Seneca Falls, N.Y. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Temperance and Literature, which printed articles of interest to both women’s Sojourner Truth rights activists and temperance reformers. It is possibly the first newspaper run abolitionist 1. Someone who worked to end slavery was a(n) . by a woman. 2. A person who worked for reform was a(n) reformer . Dorothea Dix 3. was a crusader for the mentally ill. Bloomer is better known, however, for her adoption of full-legged pants, 4. A former slave, Sojourner Truth became a preacher and abolitionist. “Turkish trousers,” which she wore under a short skirt. She championed the idea 5. An advocate of public education,Horace Mann was from Massachusetts. that the full-skirted, many-crinolined outfits that women wore at the time ham- 6. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Seneca Falls, N.Y. organized the first women’s rights convention at . pered their freedom of movement and, therefore, their freedom.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 19Th Amendment Conference | CLE Materials
    The 19th Amendment at 100: From the Vote to Gender Equality Center for Constitutional Law at The University of Akron School of Law Friday, Sept. 20, 2019 CONTINUING EDUCATION MATERIALS More information about the Center for Con Law at Akron available on the Center website, https://www.uakron.edu/law/ccl/ and on Twitter @conlawcenter 001 Table of Contents Page Conference Program Schedule 3 Awakening and Advocacy for Women’s Suffrage Tracy Thomas, More Than the Vote: The 19th Amendment as Proxy for Gender Equality 5 Richard H. Chused, The Temperance Movement’s Impact on Adoption of Women’s Suffrage 28 Nicole B. Godfrey, Suffragist Prisoners and the Importance of Protecting Prisoner Protests 53 Amending the Constitution Ann D. Gordon, Many Pathways to Suffrage, Other Than the 19th Amendment 74 Paula A. Monopoli, The Legal and Constitutional Development of the Nineteenth Amendment in the Decade Following Ratification 87 Keynote: Ellen Carol DuBois, The Afterstory of the Nineteth Amendment, Outline 96 Extensions and Applications of the Nineteenth Amendment Cornelia Weiss The 19th Amendment and the U.S. “Women’s Emancipation” Policy in Post-World War II Occupied Japan: Going Beyond Suffrage 97 Constitutional Meaning of the Nineteenth Amendment Jill Elaine Hasday, Fights for Rights: How Forgetting and Denying Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality 131 Michael Gentithes, Felony Disenfranchisement & the Nineteenth Amendment 196 Mae C. Quinn, Caridad Dominguez, Chelsea Omega, Abrafi Osei-Kofi & Carlye Owens, Youth Suffrage in the United States: Modern Movement Intersections, Connections, and the Constitution 205 002 THE CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AT AKRON th The 19 Amendment at 100: From the Vote to Gender Equality Friday, September 20, 2019 (8am to 5pm) The University of Akron School of Law (Brennan Courtroom 180) The focus of the 2019 conference is the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
    [Show full text]
  • Votes for Women! Celebrating New York’S Suffrage on November 6, 1917, New York State Passed the Referendum for Women’S Suffrage
    New York State’s Women’s Suffrage History Votes for Women! Celebrating New York’s Suffrage On November 6, 1917, New York State passed the referendum for women’s suffrage. This victory was an important event for New York State and the nation. Suffrage in New York State signaled that the national passage of women’s suffrage would soon follow, and in August 1920, “Votes for Women” were constitutionally guaranteed. Although women began asserting their independence long before, the irst coordinated work for women’s suffrage began at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. The convention served as a catalyst for debates and action. Women like Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage organized and rallied for support of women’s suffrage throughout upstate New York. Others, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer supported the effort through the use of their pens. Stanton wrote letters, speeches, and articles while Bloomer published the irst newspaper for women, The Lily, in 1849. These combined efforts culminated in the creation of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). By the dawn of the twentieth century, the political and social landscape was much different in New York State than ifty years before. The state experienced dramatic advances in industry and urban growth. Several large waves of immigrants settled throughout the state and now more and more women were working outside of the home. Reformers concerns shifted to labor issues, health care, and temperance. New reformers like Harriot Stanton Blatch and Carrie Chapman Catt used new tactics such as marches, meetings, and signed petitions to show that New Yorkers wanted suffrage.
    [Show full text]
  • Iowa's Role in the Suffrage Movement
    Lesson #5 Commemorating the Centennial Of the 19th Amendment Designed for Grades 9-12 6 Lesson Unit/Each Lesson 2 Days Based on Iowa Social Studies Standards Iowa’s Role in the Suffrage Movement Unit Question: What is the 19th Amendment, and how has it influenced the ​ United States? Supporting Question: How was Iowa involved in the promotion of and ​ ​ passage of the 19th Amendment? Lesson Overview The lesson will highlight suffrage leaders with Iowa ties and events in ​ the state leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Lesson Objectives and Targets Students will… 1. take note of key events in Iowa’s path to achieve women’s enfranchisement. 2. read provided biographical entries on selected Iowa suffrage leaders. 3. read and review the University of Iowa Library Archives selections on suffrage, selections from the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics website, and the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame coverage about Iowa suffragists and contemporary ​ ​ ​ ​ Iowa women leaders.. Useful Terms and Background ● Iowa Organizations - Iowa Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA), Iowa Equal Suffrage Association (IESA) along with several local and state clubs of support ● National suffrage leaders with Iowa roots - Amelia Jenks Bloomer & Carrie Chapman Catt ● Noted Iowa suffragists included in the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame ● Suffrage activities throughout the state ● Early state attempts for amendments along with Iowa ratification of the 19th Amendment Lesson Procedure Day 1 Teacher Notes for Day 1 1. Point out that lesson materials have been selected from three unique Iowa sources: the University of Iowa Library Archives and the websites for Iowa State University’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics and the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame.
    [Show full text]
  • Wesleyan Chapel
    National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Women’s Rights Women’s Rights National Historical Park The Wesleyan Chapel 72 years after ‘The Declaration of Independence’ was signed, 300 people met at the Wesleyan Chapel to protest the laws and customs that discriminated against women. Here they signed a new document, ‘The Declaration of Sentiments’. Both of these documents challenged the status quo and both of them were just the beginning of a years-long struggle for freedom. It would take another 72 years after the convention before women were given the right to vote. Like the movement, the chapel underwent many changes, but its significance as a cradle of liberty was not forgotten. Origins In 1843 a small group of reform-minded Seneca Falls residents declared they were forming a Wesleyan Methodist church. This followed a national trend that had begun several years earlier when antislavery members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church decided to break away and organize a new church that condemned slavery. The Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodists set to work building their new church, and by October 1843 the building was completed. An article about the church published in the True Wesleyan described its appearance: “[The Cha- pel is] of brick, 44 x 64, with a gallery on three sides, and is well finished, though, as it should be, it is plain.” The spirit of reform that inspired the Seneca Falls First Woman’s Rights Convention was already present in the early use of the chapel. Antoinette Brown, the first ordained female minister in America, spoke about the violence in Kansas Territory at the chapel in May 1855.
    [Show full text]
  • How the Women's Rights Movement Began
    How The Women’s Rights Movement Began As it was written in 1787, the Constitution said little about black slaves. It said nothing about women. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, women were treated like children. Adult females were barred from most occupations and professions. They could not make binding contracts or sue people in court. Even though women could be tried for crimes, they were excluded from juries. In most cases, any money or land a woman possessed became the property of her husband once she married. A married woman gave up all individual status; she kept no legal right to her own earnings or even personal belongings such as clothing or jewelry. Most states did not allow single women or widows sole control over their own property, either. Most men simply believed women were not capable of handling business affairs. When the Constitution was written, women could vote only in New Jersey, but by 1807, even this state had banned suffrage (the right of women to vote in governmental elections). The main argument against women voting assumed they would be too easily influenced by their fathers, brothers and husbands. According to this view, if women voted, a married man would control twice the voting power of a single male. From Abolition to Women’s Rights The lack of political clout did not discourage women from becoming deeply involved in public affairs. Lucretia Mott was raised by a MassachusettsLucretia Mott Quaker Wikimedia father Commons) who believed in equal education for girls. She became a teacher and married another Quaker teacher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Journey to Seneca Falls: Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Legal Emancipation of Women
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of St. Thomas, Minnesota University of St. Thomas Law Journal Volume 10 Article 9 Issue 4 Spring 2013 2013 The ourJ ney to Seneca Falls: Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Legal Emancipation of Women Charles J. Reid Jr. [email protected] Bluebook Citation Charles J. Reid, Jr., The Journey to Seneca Falls: Mary Wollstonecraft, lE izabeth Cady Stanton and the Legal Emancipation of Women, 10 U. St. Thomas L.J. 1123 (2013). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UST Research Online and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLE THE JOURNEY TO SENECA FALLS: MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND THE LEGAL EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN DR. CHARLES J. REID, JR.* ABSTRACT “[T]he star that guides us all,” President Barack Obama declared in his Second Inaugural, is our commitment to “human dignity and justice.”1 This commitment has led us “through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stone- wall”2 towards the equality that we enjoy today. This Article concerns the pre-history to the Seneca Falls Convention of Women’s Rights, alluded to by President Obama. It is a journey that began during the infancy of the common law in medieval England. It leads through the construction, by generations of English lawyers and religious figures, of a strong and im- posing monolith of patriarchal rule. By marriage women lost their indepen- dent legal personality and were, for purposes of law, incorporated into their husband in accord with the legal doctrine known as coverture.
    [Show full text]
  • The Women's Suffrage Movement
    Name _________________________________________ Date __________________ The Women’s Suffrage Movement Part 1 The Women’s Suffrage Movement began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. The idea for the Convention came from two women: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Both were concerned about women’s issues of the time, specifically the fact that women did not have the right to vote. Stanton felt that this was unfair. She insisted that women needed the power to make laws, in order to secure other rights that were important to women. The Convention was designed around a document that Stanton wrote, called the “Declaration of Sentiments”. Using the Declaration of Independence as her guide, she listed eighteen usurpations, or misuses of power, on the part of men, against women. Stanton also wrote eleven resolutions, or opinions, put forth to be voted on by the attendees of the Convention. About three hundred people came to the Convention, including forty men. All of the resolutions were eventually passed, including the 9th one, which called for women’s suffrage, or the right for women to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott signed the Seneca Falls Declaration and started the Suffrage Movement that would last until 1920, when women were finally granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. 1. What event triggered the Women’s Suffrage Movement? ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ 2. Who were the two women
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 5- an Age of Reform
    Unit 5- An Age of Reform Important People, Terms, and Places (know what it is and its significance) Civil service Gilded Age Primary Recall Initiative Referendum Muckraker Theodore Roosevelt Susan B Anthony Conservation William Howard Taft Jane Addams Woodrow Wilson Carrie Chapman Catt Suffragist Ida Tarbell Frances Willard Upton Sinclair Prohibition Temperance Lucretia Mott Carrie Nation Jacob Riis Booker T Washington W.E.B Dubois Robert LaFollette The Progressive Party 16th Amendment Spoils System Thomas Nast You should be able to write an essay discussing the following: 1. What were political reforms of the period that increased “direct” democracy? 2. The progressive policies of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. How did they expand the power of the federal government? 3. The role of the Muckrakers in creating change in America 4. Summarize the other reform movements of the Progressive era. 5. What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on women and blacks? 6. Compare and contrast the beliefs of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Dubois Important Dates to Remember 1848 – Declaration of Sentiments written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1874 – Woman’s Christian Temperance Union formed. 1889 – Jane Addams founds Hull House 1890 – Jacob Riis publishes “How the Other Half Lives” 1895 – Anti Saloon League founded 1904 – Ida Tarbell publishes “The History of Standard Oil” 1906 – Upton Sinclair publishes “The Jungle” 1906 – Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act passed 1909 – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People founded. (NAACP) 1913 – 16th Amendment passed 1914 – Clayton Anti-Trust Act passed 1919 – 18th Amendment passed (prohibition) 1920 – 19th Amendment passed (women’s suffrage) .
    [Show full text]
  • The Seneca Falls Convention
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación END OF DEGREE PROJECT THE ORIGINS OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION Anne Ruiz Ulloa Translation & Interpreting 2018-2019 Supervisor: Jose Mª Portillo Valdés Department of Contemporary History Abstract: In the 19th century, women had very limited or almost inexistent rights. They lived in a male dominated world where they had restricted access to many fields and they were considered to be an ornament of their husband in public life, and as a domestic agent to the interior of the family, as the Spanish contemporary expression ángel del hogar denotes. In the eyes of the law, they were civilly dead. They were considered fragile and delicate, because they were dependent on a man from birth to death. Tired of being considered less than their male companions, a women’s rights movement emerged in the small town of Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Women gathered for the first time in history at the Wesleyan Chapel to discuss women’s rights and to find a solution to the denigration they had suffered by men and society during the years. Around 300 people gathered in Seneca Falls, both men and women. As an attempt to amend the wrongs of men, these women created the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, a document based on the Declaration of Independence, expressing their discontent with how the society had treated them and asking for a change and equal rights, among which there was the right for suffrage.
    [Show full text]
  • Seneca Falls Convention
    Seneca Falls Convention http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti- Slavery Convention in London. The conference had refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. Stanton, the young bride of an antislavery agent, and Mott, a Quaker preacher and veteran of reform, talked then of calling a convention to address the condition of women. Eight years later, it came after a spontaneous social event. In July 1848, Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C. Wright, in Waterloo, New York. Stanton, now the restless mother of three small sons, was living in nearby Seneca Falls. A social visit brought together Mott, Stanton, Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. All except Stanton were Quakers. Quakers (or Friends) were strong supporters of abolition and also afforded women some measure of equality. All five women were well acquainted with antislavery and temperance meetings. Fresh in their minds was the April passage of the long-deliberated New York Married Woman's Property Rights Act, a significant but far from comprehensive piece of legislation. The time had come, Stanton argued, for women's wrongs to be laid before the public, and women themselves must shoulder the responsibility. Before the afternoon was out, the women decided on a call for a convention "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." To Stanton fell the task of drawing up the Declaration of Sentiments that would define the meeting.
    [Show full text]
  • Woman Suffrage
    LOCAL HISTORY & GENEALOGY 115 South Avenue, Rochester, NY 14604 ● 585-428-8370 ● Fax 585-428-8353 Women’s Suffrage Research Guide SCOPE This guide is intended to assist patrons in researching information available at the Rochester Public Library about the women’s suffrage movement. A good place to start your research is by searching the Ready Reference card file by appropriate subject heading. For clarification of any entry, please ask at the reference desk. For a more comprehensive review of the library’s holdings on the women’s suffrage movement, please check with other divisions. INTRODUCTION In the United States of America, the first large-scale organized effort to enfranchise women took place at the Seneca Falls Convention, which was convened by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott in 1848. The Civil War interrupted the momentum of the movement; however, upon its end, agitation by women for the ballot became increasingly determined. A few years after the war, a split developed among feminists over the proposed 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to black men. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others refused to endorse the amendment because it did not give women the ballot. Other suffragists, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued that passage of the amendment could be a stepping stone towards the vote for women. As a result, two distinct organizations emerged. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association to work for suffrage on the federal level and to press for more extensive institutional changes, such as the granting of property rights to married women.
    [Show full text]
  • Iroquois Native American Cultural Influences in Promoting Women's
    Iroquois Native American Cultural Influences in Promoting Women’s Rights Ideologies Leading Up to the First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848 Willow Michele Hagan To what extent did Iroquois Native American culture and policies influence the establishment of the first ever women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848? Abstract In Iroquois culture women have always shared equal treatment with men. They regard women with respect and authority; women can participate in equal labor and can own their own property. With these ideals so close in proximity to Seneca Falls, to what extent did Iroquois Native American culture and policies influence the establishment of the Seneca Falls Convention and the arguments for women’s rights it proposed? To answer this question, Iroquois relationships between women’s rights activists and other leaders in American society will be examined; including the spread of matrilineal thought into the minds of those who had ties to the Iroquois, predominantly with the leaders of the Seneca Falls Convention. The proposals put forth by the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments will also be addressed to look at the parallels between the thoughts promoted for women’s rights and those ideologies of Iroquois culture. Newspaper articles, as well as other primary and secondary sources, will be consulted in order to interpret this relationship. Through the exploration of the association between Iroquois culture and the Seneca Falls Convention, it can be determined that the culture of the Iroquois did have influence over the Seneca Falls Convention.
    [Show full text]