Women's+Rights+and+Suffrage

== Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the Pursuit of women's rights

Lucretia Mott

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The women's rights movement started during the early decades of the 19th century. During an antislavery convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were barred from speaking. As a responce to the injustices that they suffered, they started advocating women's rights. Others followed their lead, most notably Susan B. Anthony, and in 1848 the leading feminists met in Seneca Falls, NY to discuss the issue. "The Declaration Of Sentiments," was the document that they produced. Much like the Declaration of Independence, the feminists declared that, "All men //and// women are created equal." This early campaign for women's rights was stopped short by the crisis over slavery that consumed the nation.

Although the intitial movement was cut off early, it had a huge impact on the way women were treated in the close of the 19th century. Women now had the right to own property and keep seperate bank accounts from their husbands. It was huge steps forward in equality, but one of the most important rights in a democratic society still illuded them: the right to vote. The 15th amendment to the constitution garunteed that freedmen had a right to vote but not women, or black women for that matter. So the feminists kept trying to obtain suffrage for women.

http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/sba/big.gif http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12081/12081-h/images/c3mott.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/ElizabethCadyStanton-Veeder.LOC.jpg