Feminists in America

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was at the frontier of the feminist movement revolution. Stanton, an upper-class suburban housewife and mother of seven children, spent seventy years advocating for female equality. Stanton had lived through the Civil War and personally witnessed the abolitionist movement and the battle against slavery. Stanton was devoted herself towards the abolitionist movement, as was her husband and fellow abolitionist, Henry Stanton. In fact, the couple was so dedicated towards the eradication of the institution of slavery, that they traveled several thousand miles to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England. It was at this conference, that Elizabeth Stanton came to the realization that while she was striving for the pursuit of justice for those enslaved, she and fellow women were being unjustly treated themselves. While at the convention, the female attendees, including Stanton, were forced to sit in a secluded balcony off the convention center floor. In 1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton, with the help of other females abolitionists, organized the Seneca Falls Convention. At this convention, Stanton revealed what was known as the Declaration of Sentiments, and it was a variation of the Declaration of Independence, that include provisions for women's rights. Such provisions included the right to vote, the right to retain property, as well as the right to enter any profession.

Since the feminists were radical in thought and were at the forefront of social revolution, they were met with severe hostility by others attempting to hinder their cause. Though the feminists tried to petition for women to be included in the fourteenth amendment that provided for "equality" for African-Americans, they were not successful. It is unfortunate that Elizabeth Stanton passed away in 1902, because she wasn't alive to see women attain the right to vote when the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920.