Seneca Falls: Common Ground By Andrea Brecheen The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was the single-most important event of the ea
rly women's suffrage movement. The suffrage movement grew out of centuries of shameful and unfair treatment of women. At the time of the Convention, women did not have the right to vote or serve on juries, and many women were unable to inherit property. In the decades leading up to the Convention, a small group of women began to rebel against these injustices. Suffrage originated from women's participation in the anti-slavery and temperance movements. The Seneca Falls Convention was the first conference dedicated to women's rights. The Convention was organized by two female abolitionists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Lucretia Mott was an eloquent Quaker social reformer. Mott had previously been denied the right to speak at an anti-slavery conference in London after the men voted to exclude women from participating. Unlike many women of her time, Elizabeth Cady Stanton received a formal education. At the age of 16, Stanton studied mathematics, Latin, and Greek, demonstrating her keen abilities by mastering the subjects alongside boys of her own age. Coming together to support the suffrage movement, Mott and Stanton organized the Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in July of 1848. During the six-day meeting, Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments, a document she based on the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration, she so elegantly wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal." The Declaration included a list of grievances detailing the treatment of women. The Declaration was signed by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men. Following the Convention, in 1848 the New York State Assembly passed the Married Women's Act. This act protected property that women brought into or earned during marriage. Read the passage. Which sentence from the text best expresses the author's opinion of conditions affecting women at the tim
