Seneca Falls Convention

"We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed," began the opening speech by women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. This event was America's first acknowledged women's rights convention. It was held in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19–20, 1848. The convention was famous for producing two key instruments in the U.S. women's rights movement: a document known as the "Declaration of Sentiments," and the start of the women's suffrage movement.

The convention was first conceived when Stanton, along with her fellow abolitionist Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), a Quaker who was a strong public speaker, were excluded from an anti-slavery convention. They were excluded...