Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.Cronau, Rudolf
History
Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.
Cronau, Rudolf
Women -- History
At a gathering of abolitionists, held on July 19th, 1848, at the home of
=Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton= in Seneca, N.Y., the question of women’s
rights was eagerly discussed. Mrs. Stanton, the daughter of a lawyer,
had found by frequent visits to her father’s office that according to
the then existing laws, which had been adopted from England, married
women had no right of disposal over their own inherited property, their
own income, or their own children, no matter how unfit, degraded, and
cruel their husbands might be. There was even no redress for corporal
punishment which the husbands might inflict on their wives.
[Illustration:
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
]
Another woman, present at the gathering, was =Lucretia Mott=, a Quaker
teacher. It had been her experience, that female teachers, having paid
for their education just as much as the males, obtained, when teaching,
only half of the compensation granted to male teachers.
But the indignation of the two women over the inferior position of woman
had been especially excited while attending the World’s Anti-Slavery
Convention, held in 1840 at London. Both women, together with Mrs.
Wendell Phillips, had been appointed delegates by the abolitionists of
America, and as they were able speakers, much had been expected from
their eloquence. But when the women submitted their credentials, they
discovered that the English abolitionists had not reformed their
antiquated views of male predominance and would not admit any woman as
delegate nor on the platform. When the question was submitted to vote,
the women were excluded by a large majority. This flat refusal to
recognize woman’s right to an equal participation in all social,
political, and religious affairs brought what is termed “the Woman
Question” into greater prominence than ever before. The gathering in the
Wesleyan chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., Mrs. Stanton’s home, is known as
the =First Woman’s Rights Convention=. Held on the 19th and 20th of
July, 1848, it was attended by 68 women and 38 men. The simultaneous
discussion of the subject of slavery and the natural rights of man had
as their logical consequence, on the part of women, the demand of a
privilege exercised in many cases by persons far below them in
intelligence and education. They asserted that many of their number were
taxpayers, that all were interested in good government, and that it
would be unjust for women of intelligence to be deprived of a vote while
ignorant negroes could have a voice in the government. Furthermore they
asserted that the participation of women would have a purifying effect
on politics.
At the close of the second day the convention adopted the following:
Declaration of Sentiments.
“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts
be submitted to a candid world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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