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Mar 18, 2017

Seneca Falls Convention 1848 – first US women’s rights convention

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a women’s rights convention was the first ever held in the United States. Almost over 200 women attended this convention. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mott and Stanton were two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London over a cup of tea. As women, Mott and Stanton were not allowed on the convention floor. The anger and disappointment these women felt was the driving force that helped them start the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. At the convention, Stanton read a treatise she had wrote called the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, which was heavily based on the Declaration of Independence. It called women to recognize their rights as US citizens. Its purpose was "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Organized by women for women, many consider the Seneca Falls Convention to be the event that triggered and solidified the women's rights movement in America. Historians and other scholars agree that the leaders of the Seneca Falls Convention played a significant role in shaping the first wave of feminism in the United States and starting the fight for women’s suffrage.  (https://votesforwomennhd.weebly.com, and https://www.biography.com/)