Seneca falls convention significance

‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal’, begins the Declaration of Sentiments, which was read by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848.

The Declaration of Sentiments aired grievances against inequality that women experienced in the US by using constitutional language to demonstrate inconsistencies between American ideals as laid out in the Constitution and the realities of women’s experience in the country.

Reformers had started calling for women’s rights in the 1830s, and by 1848, it was a divisive issue.

The organisers of the Seneca Falls Convention, originally known as the Women’s Rights Convention, were chiefly arguing for property rights for women, rights to divorce and the right to vote.

Though the organisers did not achieve the right to vote in their lifetime, the Seneca Falls Convention laid the groundwork for later legislative victories and drew the nation’s attention to the issue of