The Seneca Falls Convention: Teaching about the
Rights of Women and the Heritage of the Declaration of Independence
The following article is from the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement which is part of the Department of Education.
THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT
ACCESS ERIC 1-800-LET-ERIC
Different groups at different times have turned to founding documents
of the United States to meet their needs and to declare their entitlement
to the promises of the Revolution of 1776. At Seneca Falls, New York in
the summer of 1848, a group of American men and women met to discuss the
legal limitations imposed on women during this period. Their consciousness
of those limitations had been raised by their participation in the
anti-slavery movement; eventually they used the language and structure of
the Declaration of Independence to stake their claim to the rights they
felt women were entitled to as American citizens. This Digest places the
events of the Seneca Falls Convention within the larger context of
American reform movements of the 1840s, discusses the influence of the
Declaration of Independence on the Convention, and provides teachers and
students with a sampling of social studies curriculum resources such as
primary source documents, books, articles, and lesson plans available
through local libraries or the World Wide Web.
BACKGROUND OF THE SENECA FALLS
CONVENTION.
America in the 1840s was in the throes of cultural and economic change.
In the years since the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention, the
nation's geographic boundaries and population had more than doubled, the
population had shifted significantly westward, and many Americans' daily
lives had drifted away from Jefferson's vision of a nation composed of
independent farmers. Instead, farmers, artisans, and manufacturers existed
in a world built around cash crops, manufactured goods, banks, and distant
markets. Historians generally refer to this shift from production for a
local economy based on a series of shared relationships to production for
a distant, unknown market as the Market Revolution. Not all Americans
welcomed these changes, which often left them feeling isolated and cut off
from traditional sources of community and comfort.
In an effort to regain a sense of community and control over their
nation's future, Americans, especially women, formed and joined reform
societies. Inspired by the message of the Second Great Awakening (a
religious movement that emphasized man's potential and forgiveness of sin)
and the Transcendentalist message of man's innate goodness, reformers
joined together in organizations aimed at improving life in America. These
groups attacked what they perceived as the various wrongs in their
society, including the lack of free public school education for both boys
and girls, the inhumane treatment of mentally ill patients and criminals,
the evil of slavery, the widespread use of alcohol, and the "rights and
wrongs" of American women's legal position. The Seneca Falls Convention is
a part of this larger period of social reform movements, a time when
concern about the rights of various groups percolated to the surface.
What brought three hundred men and women to this small upstate New York
town in July 1848? Women of the Revolutionary era such as Abigail Adams
and Judith Sargent Murray raised questions about what the Declaration of
Independence would mean to them, but there had never been a large scale
public meeting to discuss this topic until Seneca Falls. Many women
participated in reform organizations whose goals were to improve the lives
of others and to fight for the rights of those who could not speak for
themselves, such as schoolchildren and the mentally ill, so the air was
ripe for a close examination of women's rights as well. A
consciousness-raising experience, however, was necessary to turn these
women's thoughts to their own condition.
The triggering incident was a direct result of participation in
anti-slavery organizations by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
Anti-slavery societies proliferated in the Northeast region of the United
States and in some parts of what today we call the Midwest. Many of these
organizations had female members. In 1840 the World Anti-Slavery
Convention met in London; some of the American groups elected women as
their representatives to this meeting. Once in London, after a lengthy
debate, the female representatives were denied their rightful seats and
consigned to the balcony. It was at this meeting, while sitting in the
balcony and walking through the streets of London, that Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott met. Eight years later Stanton and Mott called a
convention to discuss women's rights.
THE CONVENTION'S CALL FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS, 1848.
On July 14, 1848, the SENECA COUNTY COURIER announced that on the
following Wednesday and Thursday a "convention to discuss the social,
civil, and religious condition and rights of women" would be held. The
Convention issued a document titled the Declaration of Sentiments, a
statement written by Stanton and modeled on the Declaration of
Independence.
In adapting the Declaration of Independence, Stanton replaced "King
George" with "all men" as the agent of women's oppressed condition and
compiled a suitable list of grievances, just as the colonists did in the
Declaration of Independence. These grievances reflected the severe
limitations on women's legal rights in America at this time: women could
not vote; they could not participate in the creation of laws that they had
to obey; their property was taxed; and a married woman's property and
wages legally belonged to her husband. Further, in the relatively unusual
case of a divorce, custody of children was virtually automatically awarded
to the father; access to the professions and higher education generally
was closed to women; and most churches barred women from participating
publicly in the ministry or other positions of authority.
Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments proclaimed that "all men and women
were created equal" and that the undersigned would employ all methods at
their disposal to right these wrongs. David Walker, in his efforts to gain
recognition of the legal rights of Black Americans, similarly used the
Declaration of Independence in his call to the American people on behalf
of the oppressed Black population, both freed and enslaved. In the 1840s
and even today, the language of Thomas Jefferson resonates through
American life. Americans from every background believe that the ideals of
the Revolution are alive and well, and applicable to life in the present,
just as the women of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention felt those ideals
spoke to them.
TEACHING WITH THE DECLARATION OF
SENTIMENTS.
The Declaration of Sentiments provides an opportunity for teachers to
bring historic documents into their classrooms in a variety of social
studies courses.
The Declaration of Sentiments is brief, and the language used is
familiar to most who encounter it. This accessibility gives the document
great potential for classroom use. The Declaration of Sentiments can be
incorporated into lessons on the Declaration of Independence or on the
ideas of the Revolution, a lesson on life in America in the 1840s, or
specialized units focusing on reform movements or women's history. The
full text of the Declaration of Sentiments is available through several of
the Web resources listed below.
WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES FOR
TEACHING ABOUT THE SENECA FALLS
CONVENTION AND THE DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS.
The following World Wide Web sites are a sampling of the many resources
on this topic available to teachers and students of United States history.
* Women's Rights National Historic Park, Seneca Falls, New York. This
site is maintained by the National Park Service and commemorates the
Seneca Falls Convention and early leaders of the women's rights movement.
It provides information about the convention itself, historic sites within
the park such as the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the text of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments, a list and selected pictures of
conference participants, and links to numerous other Web resources on
women's history and the activities of women leaders before the Civil War.
Especially useful for teachers and students is a time line placing the
Seneca Falls Convention within the context of other political and cultural
events of the 1840s and 1850s. http://www.nps.gov/wori/
* Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930.
Maintained by the University of New York at Binghamton, this site features
historical documents related to women and social movements in the U.S.
between 1830-1930, arranged topically. http://womhist.binghamton.edu/index.html
* National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921.
This site, part of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the
Library of Congress' American Memory Project, is one of several in a
collection on suffrage. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html
The second site of this collection, "Votes for Women" Suffrage
Pictures, 1850-1920, contains portraits, cartoons, photographs, and a time
line. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
* One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview, the third site, looks
at efforts toward suffrage divided into three historical time periods:
1776-1850, 1851-1899, and 1900-1920. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwtl.html
* Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan B. Anthony. This site is maintained by PBS Online and provides
material to supplement PBS programming on this topic. It contains
historical information, documents, lesson plans, and links to other
resources. http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/
REFERENCES AND ERIC RESOURCES
The following list of resources includes references used to prepare
this Digest. The items followed by an ED number are available in
microfiche and/or paper copies from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service
(EDRS). For information about prices, contact EDRS, 7420 Fullerton Road,
Suite 110, Springfield, Virginia 22153-2852; telephone numbers are (703)
440-1400 and (800) 443-3742. Entries followed by an EJ number, annotated
monthly in CURRENT INDEX TO JOURNALS IN EDUCATION (CIJE), are not
available through EDRS. However, they can be located in the journal
section of most large libraries by using the bibliographic information
provided, requested through Interlibrary Loan, or ordered from commercial
reprint services.
Franklin, Robin, and Tasha Lebow Wolf. REMEMBER THE LADIES! A HANDBOOK
OF WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Public Schools,
1980. ED 253 456.
Jacobsen, Margaret. "Giving Women the Vote: Using Primary Source
Documents to Teach about the Fight for Women's Suffrage." OAH MAGAZINE OF
HISTORY 3 (Summer-Fall 1988): 50-52. EJ 391 316.
Leighow, Susan, and Rita Stener-Hine. THE ANTEBELLUM WOMEN'S MOVEMENT:
A UNIT OF STUDY FOR GRADES 8-11. Los Angeles, CA: National Center for
History in the Schools, 1998. ED 436 443.
Prosaski, Lisa, Judith Krause, and Judith E. Harper. LESSON PLANS FOR
"NOT FOR OURSELVES ALONE: THE STORY OF ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND SUSAN B.
ANTHONY." Alexandria, VA: Public Broadcasting Service, 1999. ED 448 068.
Ryan, Joseph E. "Prelude to Seneca Falls: An Analysis of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton." NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF HISTORY 52 (Spring 1995): 21-27. EJ 520
784.
Teaching with Historic Places. M'CLINTOCK HOUSE: A HOME TO THE WOMEN'S
RIGHTS MOVEMENT. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1999. ED 434 051.
Wellman, Judy. BE YOUR OWN HISTORIAN: SENECA FALLS AND THE 1848 WOMEN'S
RIGHTS CONVENTION. Seneca Falls, NY: Women's Rights National Historic
Park's Visitor Center, 2001. For ordering information, call (315) NAT-PARK
(628-7275).
------
This project has been funded at least in part with Federal funds from
the U.S. Department of Education under contract number ED-99-CO-0016. The
content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or
policies of the U.S. Department of Education nor does mention of trade
names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S.
Government. ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely
reproduced and disseminated.
------
Elizabeth R. Osborn is a doctoral candidate in history at Indiana
University and a project assistant at the Social Studies Development
Center of Indiana University.
Title: The Seneca Falls Convention: Teaching about the Rights of
Women and the Heritage of the Declaration of Independence. ERIC Digest.
Document Type: Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis
Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in
Full Text (073);
Available From: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social
Science Education, 2805 East Tenth Street, Suite 120, Bloomington, IN
47408-2698. Tel: 800-266-3815 (Toll Free); Fax: 812-855-0455; e-mail:
ericso@indiana.edu. For Full Text: http://ericso.indiana.edu.
Descriptors: Civil Rights, Consciousness Raising, Elementary
Secondary Education, Females, Gender Issues, Minority Groups, Sex
Discrimination, Slavery, Social Action, Social Change, Social History,
Social Studies, United States History, Womens Studies
Identifiers: Declaration of Independence, ERIC Digests, Mott (Lucretia
Coffin), Stanton (Elizabeth Cady), Womens Rights Convention (Seneca Falls)
|
