Women's History Profile: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today, we go back a hundred and fifty years to take a look at one of the most famous women’s rights activists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony’s cohort in the suffrage movement of the 19^th century. Although she is best known for her work with the women’s suffrage movement, her passion for women’s rights expanded beyond the scope of many of her peers including Susan B. Anthony. Born in 1815, Stanton was also thrust into the abolition movement until the passage of the 13^th amendment in 1865.

What I find the most interesting about Stanton is how she became aware of sexual discrimination in the world and became impassioned to work against it. All of her male siblings had died, leaving her parents with four girls and no male heirs. At a young age, Stanton’s father, a prominent lawyer and politician told her, “Oh my daughter, I wish you were a boy.” This blatant preference of the male sex not only by her father but by society stirred a determination in Elizabeth from a young age to excel in the areas usually reserved to men and to be their equal. Her awareness of society’s prejudices and inequalities grew as her father taught her about the legal barriers between men and women. She also had her own personal experiences of discrimination including being denied admission to the Union college because she was female.

Stanton began her activist lifestyle by standing up for her individual rights within her marriage. Her outrage at the subordinate role of wives beneath their husbands caused her to refrain from vowing to obey her husband in their wedding ceremony. She also refused to be referred to as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton, keeping her maiden name Cady as part of her name. Stanton displayed her convictions and beliefs in her own actions and life, breaking traditions and social standards with no hesitation.

Stanton had been an avid abolitionist for years, but it wasn’t until she met Lucretia Mott at an Anti-Slavery Convention in London she was attending with her husband for their honeymoon, did she become a leader in the women’s rights movement. The two women, official delegates at the conference, were denied the right to participate in the convention by the men because they were female. This discrimination outraged Stanton, and she and Lucretia Mott began planning the first and most famous women’s rights convention.

The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 was the launching ground for the women’s movemen. Stanton played a major role at the convention, not just as an organizer, but as the writer of the “Declaration of Sentiments.” Written in the style of the Declaration of Independence, it stated that men and women are created equal and demanded voting rights, equal social behavioral standards, and education and was a concrete product of the convention.

An anti-slavery advocate her whole life, Stanton worked tirelessly on abolition during the civil war. Afterwards however, when the 14^th and 15^th amendments were proposed, Stanton and her associates like Susan B. Anthony felt betrayed by their male abolitionists who did not include giving suffrage to women in the amendments, only African-American males. In fact, they worked against the legislation and tried and failed to pass their own petition that included women.

Yet Stanton was much more than just a suffragist. She was a mother who raised seven children and throughout her life, she advocated for a broad spectrum of women’s rights issues. Legal property and marriage and divorce laws were an important part of her political policy, and she also supported birth control and interracial marriage. Additionally, she spoke out against religion as an institution of discrimination and inequality.

Many of these views and her stance against the 14^th and 15^th amendments pushed some women away and even caused a schism in the women’s rights organization. But no matter who was offended or disagreed with her beliefs, Elizabeth Cady Stanton stuck to them with dedication and drive. By refusing to compromising her ideals and thinking beyond the limited scope of women’s suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton made her mark on women’s rights and on history, and even though she herself never saw the passage of the 19^th amendment in 1920 because of her death in 1902, she was a significant part of why it was passed.