Explain how the women’s suffrage movement began.

Objectives • Explain how the women’s suffrage movement began. • Describe the goals of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. • Identify the new opportunities that women gained in the mid-1800s.

Terms and People • Sojourner Truth– a former slave who spoke out for the rights of African Americans and women • Lucretia Mott – a Quaker and an abolitionist with considerable organizing and public speaking skills • Elizabeth Cady Stanton – an abolitionist who was a co-organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights; author of the Declaration of Sentiments; co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association

Terms and People (continued) • women’s suffrage – the right of women to vote • women’s rights movement – an organized effort to improve the political, legal, and economic status of women in American society • Susan B. Anthony – a close ally of Stanton’s; co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association

How did the women’s suffrage movement begin? Women participated in abolitionism and other reform efforts. Some women activists also began to focus on equal rights for themselves.

Most Americans believed that a woman’s place was in the home.

Women who were active in social reform movements believed that they could make valuable contributions to American society. Sojourner Truth was one of these women. She inspired the large crowds who came to hear her speak in favor of political rights for women and enslaved African Americans.

Lucretia Mott was a Quaker and an abolitionist who had considerable organizing and public speaking skills. In 1840, Mott traveled to London to attend an international antislavery convention.

There, she met another abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mott and Stanton were told that women could not take an active role in the London convention. Furious, they decided to hold a convention to advance women’s rights.

Not everyone wanted to include women’s suffrage in the Declaration of Sentiments, but in the end the convention voted to include it. In 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthonyfounded the National Woman Suffrage Association.

However, the women’s rights movement did win some victories in the nineteenth century: • In 1860, New York passed a law protecting women’s property rights, and many other states followed. Women did not win the vote nationally until 1920. • Some states gave married women the right to keep their wages.

In the early 1800s, women were seldom given the opportunity to study advanced subjects like math and science. The women’s rights movement focused much attention on education for girls and women. Even before the Seneca Falls Convention, reformers worked to give girls opportunities for better education.

American society came to accept that girls could be educated and that women could be teachers. More schools began hiring women teachers who had been trained at one of the new schools for women.

Causes of the Women’s Rights Movement Effects • Women lacked many of the rights had by men. • Many abolitionists believed that women also deserved equal rights. • The Seneca Falls Convention launched the women’s rights movement. • Suffragists demanded that women have the right to vote. • States passed laws to protect women’s property rights. • Private schools for women were opened; some colleges accepted women. • Women entered careers once closed to them.

Section Review QuickTake Quiz Know It, Show It Quiz

Explain how the women’s suffrage movement began.