Elizabeth Cady Stanton
("Veeder")
Stanton was an advocate for women's rights. In July of 1848, she wrote the "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," which she read at the Seneca Falls Convention. She also proposed the right to vote for women. During that same day, Stanton continued to give speeches about women's rights. In later years, Stanton worked with Susan B. Anthony when she was president of the National Women's Suffrage Association ("Elizabeth").
"Most important Elizabeth Cady Stanton connected women and law. This is not spontaneous combustion. You have to go back to when Elizabeth was a child. She grew up in the SOUP of law. Her father was a lawyer and a judge in Johnstown, New York (eventually in the NY Supreme Court too). In Elizabeth’s childhood town, the courthouse was just down the street from their home; her father’s law office was in the family’s house. Elizabeth as a child visited the courtroom; she visited the jail. In her home, Elizabeth conversed with law clerks who studied lay with Judge Cady.
"Once about Christmas time, after receiving a coral necklace as a present, a law clerk told her, 'You see that necklace you ware, according to the law, when you get married, your husband will own it. He will be able to swap it for a cigar and just smoke it.' You can imagine how unfair or outrageous this was to Elizabeth. The clerk had the full weight of the law behind his argument. So Elizabeth grew up in the soup of law – law was all around her. She also had a sense of fairness and assumed what's good for man is good for woman. In other words, 'All men and WOMEN are created equal . . .' "
-Coline Jenkins, great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"She was a social activist and a leading figure of the early women's rights." ("Profile")
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"In 1869, with the help of Susan B. Anthony, [she] founded the National Women's Suffrage Association, an organization dedicated to gaining the right to vote for women." ("Profile")
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"The object of the convention, Stanton remembered, was to inaugurate nothing less than a rebellion,
to overthrow the customs and laws that had kept women powerless for centuries."
(Elizabeth Cady Stanton; pt. 1)
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Lucretia Mott | Martha C. Wright | Mary Ann McClintock | Jane Hunt | July 19, 1848 | July 20, 1848