Answer: Women's suffrage movement
The national meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, was the first women's rights convention to be held in the United States that was organized by women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not only a key organizer along with Lucretia Mott. Stanton also was the lead author of an important document issued by what we now call the "Seneca Falls Convention." The Declaration of Sentiments was signed by 68 women and 32 men who had been among the participants in the convention. The document was modeled after Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. In the way that Jefferson had listed grievances against the British monarchy, the Declaration of Sentiments listed grievances against how man had oppressed woman in regard to civil rights. Here's a small sample of some of the "sentiments" which were expressed:
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation 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:
- He has not ever permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
- He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
- He has withheld her from rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.
- Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
