Today is the 210th anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was born on November 12, 1815. She was one of the early women suffragists in the United States, and along with Susan B. Anthony, one of the most famous.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton grew up in a prosperous family in New York. Her father was an attorney who served a term as a U.S. Congressman and later became a New York Supreme Court judge. Elizabeth was well-educated,, and through informal exposure at her father’s law office, she learned how the law treated women as subordinates, which probably led to her later advocacy for women’s suffrage.
In 1840, Elizabeth married an abolitionist lawyer, Henry Brewster Stanton. Their honeymoon was spent in London, where they attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention. Elizabeth was outraged to see women delegates to the convention denied recognition, which further increased her interest in women’s rights.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the main organizers of the first large-scale women’s rights convention in the U.S., held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. She was the primary author of the convention’s Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence and included in its list of grievances the denial of women’s right to vote.
Stanton met Susan B. Anthony in 1851, and the two women built a national suffrage campaign. Stanton was the primary writer and strategist, while Anthony (who was unmarried) had more freedom to travel as speaker and organizer. The two of them founded and led the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). And Anthony voted in the 1872 election (and was arrested and tried for doing so), but there is no evidence that Elizabeth Cady Stanton did.
After the Civil War, conflicts developed between advocates for women’s suffrage and those pushing civil rights for former male slaves. Stanton argued for universal suffrage, and her opposition to the 15th Amendment, which granted Black men (but no women) the vote, alienated some of her allies. As she said, “if that word ‘male’ be inserted [in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution], it will take us a century at least to get it out.” Luckily, I suppose, it only took until 1920, when the 19th Amendment became law.
Although women’s suffrage was Stanton’s primary focus, she also advocated for married women’s property rights, divorce law reform, equal wages, and girls’ and women’s education.
When I researched A Life of Joy, I looked for connections between Abigail Scott Duniway (a character in my novel) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but I couldn’t find any. I know Duniway communicated with Susan B. Anthony, and invited Anthony to tour Oregon and other Western locations in 1871. But I didn’t see any correspondence between Stanton and Duniway, so I don’t know whether they met or corresponded. Still, the work that Stanton did on the women’s suffrage movement certainly paved the way for what Duniway did in the West.
Unfortunately, none of the three illustrious women mentioned in this post—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, or Abigail Scott Duniway—survived to see the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. It’s worth remembering Elizabeth Cady Stanton today. Women might still be waiting for suffrage without her work.
What do you know about the early American suffragists?
My grandmother in Edmonton, Alberta CANADA was a suffragist in her own country. My mother was active like her, and I would like to think that I too carry a torch where equality and rights are concerned.
Irene, I would say that you are!
Theresa