Letter from the Director

Transcription

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2 Letter from the Director Dear Delegates, Welcome to beautiful Seneca Falls, New York for two exciting July days in the year It is an honor to have you all participating in the world s first ever women s rights convention. I m Emily Jackson, a sophomore here at William & Mary planning to major in International Relations and minor in Economics. I am involved in the collaborative open data research initiative AidData, I help coordinate LGBTQ advocacy on campus, and I work on research analyzing land claims and negotiation practices of indigenous groups. In my free time I love cooking, being outdoors, and relaxing at our local coffee shops with friends. Above all else, though, I am a lover of human rights and a proud, unwavering feminist, and I am absolutely ecstatic that I get to relive one of the most revolutionary moments in the women s rights movement with you all this weekend. Our topics are broad, and pointedly so; I want for you all to think deeply and comprehensively during this weekend about how universal our claims are and the extent to which they relate to social justice movements that are continuing in full force today, 167 years later. How did political independence, education and employment, and abolitionism relate to citizenship at the time of the Convention? Who deserves full citizenship and all its benefits? Can we go beyond the call for women s suffrage to deliver a more comprehensive, inclusive declaration at the end of our time together? Familiarize yourselves with your personas and the political and social climate of 1848 and remember, although period costumes and appropriate colloquialism are absolutely not required, we are living in the year 1848 for our entire session. Additionally, remember that the Seneca Falls Convention was not a law-making body; it was a gathering of activists, and the revolutionary Declaration of Rights and Sentiments produced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton by the end was a non-binding declaration meant to guide and promote discussion. Position papers are required; one to three pages per topic should be sufficient to discuss your persona s history with and opinions on each topic. Bring a hard copy to our first committee session. Good luck and please feel free to me with any questions. Best, Emily Jackson Director, Seneca Falls Convention

3 Background on the Seneca Falls Convention Seneca Falls, New York was a great example of the industrializing cities of the Western world in the nineteenth century. Abundant waterpower provided a strong economic base for the community in the early 1800s, when sawmills, factories, flourmills and tin and sheet-iron plants populated the banks of the Seneca River. 1 A local lock company built a canal to improve transportation to Seneca Falls in 1821, and by 1828, the Cayuga-Seneca Canal connected to the Erie Canal and opened up a larger market for the town and the surrounding area. 2 In 1841, the Rochester-Auburn railroad system opened the industrializing city to the world market, bringing in new people and ideas and allowing local industry to expand and specialize. 3 Seneca Falls was not just an economic hotspot, though; the area surrounding the town in upstate New York was known for spawning bold new social and religious ideologies. Utopian communities such as the polygamous, egalitarian Oneida Association offered alternative ways of living and thinking, and the temperance and abolitionism movements also enjoyed strong support in the area. 4 Additionally, the First and Second Great Awakenings had reached upstate New York in the early 18 th and 19 th centuries, 1 National Park Service. Seneca Falls in Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Park Service. Seneca Falls in Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Park Service. Seneca Falls in Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June Ayers, Edward L., Lewis L. Gould, David M. Oshinsky, and Jean R. Soderlund. American Passages: A History of the United States. Boston: Cengage, Print.

4 respectively, and the Second had inspired women to take religious agency by converting in large numbers to Restorationist churches. This phenomenon had given women in the area and throughout the U.S. a stronger sense of independence and capability that played into the development of first-wave feminism soon after. 5 Liberalizing social politics and expanding industry in Seneca Falls gave women new opportunities to work and participate in local affairs, and it made people more willing to consider and promote women s rights. Several groups in particular were the most responsive to the call and played the biggest role in the convention as a whole. The abolitionist and women s rights movements were closely related and supported by many of the same people. In fact, first-wave feminist figureheads Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met for the first time in 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, and on the other hand, former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was an attendee of the first women s rights convention. 6 In 1848, the year of the Seneca Falls Convention and a presidential election year, both major candidates supported expanding slavery into new western territories. The Free Soil party, which only supported candidates that opposed the extension of slavery, was formed in response to this, and just one month prior to the Seneca Falls Convention, local abolitionists formed a Free Soil chapter in Seneca Falls own Wesleyan Chapel. 7 Quakers, who traditionally believed that all men and women were equal in the eyes of God, were also influencers in the women s rights movement. One month prior to the Seneca Falls Convention, around 200 Quakers broke off from the local congregation to establish their own Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends, or Progressive Friends. 5 Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven: Yale University Press, Print. 6 National Park Service. Abolitionism, Women s Rights, and Temperance Movements. Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Park Service. Seneca Falls in Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June 2015.

5 This group maintained the original, firmly held beliefs of the Quakers but at a more radical level; they introduced joint meetings of men and women, sought to increase women s presence in religious affairs, and turned out in great numbers to the Seneca Falls Convention to promote radical equality. 8 In July of 1848, noted abolitionist, Quaker and women s rights activist Lucretia Mott was in Seneca Falls visiting family when a social visit brought her together with Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt, and the group agreed to call for a women s rights convention then and there. Stanton was to write a declaration to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman. 9 The Convention was the first tangible demonstration of a phenomenon that has been stewing since the beginning of the century: what is now called first-wave feminism. These feminists focused on the basest components of political agency: voting rights, property rights, and economic independence, among other significant political issues. Nearly 300 women and men responded to the call in 1848, coming together for two days in bustling, industrialized Seneca Falls under an atmosphere of idealistic reform. 8 National Park Service. Quaker Influence Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Portrait Gallery. The Seneca Falls Convention. Past Exhibitions. The Smithsonian. Web. 01 June 2015.

6 Topic One: Political Independence First-wave feminism is remembered primarily for advocating women s suffrage, and that was certainly one of the biggest focuses at the Seneca Falls Convention as well, but there were several other components of political agency that Seneca Falls attendees were promoting as well. Because women were not automatically granted citizenship at the time of the Convention, they were also denied the right to own property, earn a salary, enter into contracts, and hold public office or participate in politics in general. 10 The political status of women in early America was largely based on the old common law doctrine coverture, which stated that married women were considered under the protection and cover of their husbands to the absolute fullest extent. 11 Unlike widowed or unmarried women, wives could not own property, collect rent, keep earned salary money, or have a standing in court; they effectively had no legal existence. Mississippi passed the first Married Women s Property Act in 1839, giving married women the right to New York s Married Women s Property Act of 1848 own property, protect it from her husband s debts, and manage the property with her husband s consent. 12 This was a landmark move for women s rights in the U.S., and other southern states such as Maryland and Arkansas followed with similar legislation soon after. 13 In Texas, a Married Women s Property Act was established in 1840 that allowed 10 Mary Beth Norton, "'Either Married or to bee Married': Women's Legal Equality in Early America," in Carla Gardina Pestana and Sharon V. Salinger, eds., Inequality in Early America (University Press of New England, 1999), Zaher, Claudia When a Woman s Marital Status Determined Her Legal Status: A Research Guide on the Common Law Doctrine of Coverture. Law Library Journal 94: Coryell, Janet L. Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers That Be. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, Print. 13 Linda E. Speth, "The Married Women's Property Acts, : Reform, Reaction, or Revolution?", in J. Ralph Lindgren, et al, The Law of Sex Discrimination, 4th edition (Wadsworth, 2011), 12-5

7 women to own property and even control it to a certain extent: she could veto the selling of her property and even the selling of the family homestead even if she was not the owner. New York s own Married Women s Property Act, which Ernestine Rose, Paulina Wright Davis and Stanton had been campaigning for since as early as 1836, was passed in April of 1848, just before the Seneca Falls Convention. 14 This law allowed women to own and control their own property independently of their husbands for the first time in New York. As a symbol of slow but present progress for women, it was a great introduction to the Seneca Falls Convention just three months later. Suffrage was a slightly less murky matter, although women were not completely deprived of the right to vote throughout early American history; under British rule, Lydia Taft became the first woman to legally vote in America in Massachusetts Colony in Even after the Revolutionary War, unmarried women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to After this point, though, women were barred from voting as universal male suffrage was instated. In June of 1848, abolitionist and presidential candidate Gerrit Smith made women s suffrage part of the Liberty Party platform. 15 All of these factors were in mind when the attendees of the Convention gathered on July 19 th and 20 th to consider the state of women s rights. Although the right to vote is esteemed and powerful, suffrage alone would not allow women to achieve equality with their male counterparts; property, legal status, and ability to hold public office were all vital to the cause if women were to establish themselves politically in the 1800s. 14 Hoff-Wilson, Joan. Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press, 1991 (KF4758.H ). 15 Reinhard O. Johnson, The Liberty Party, : Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.

8 Questions to consider: What are the inherent rights and responsibilities of citizenship status? Should women have full citizenship status, or some other version of it? What other characteristics determine citizenship status? Should certain rights for women be phased in slowly so as to not cause controversy, or is it better to instate all rights immediately?

9 Topic Two: Education & Employment In colonial America, girls were often taught to read and write but rarely were given the opportunity to learn at a higher level, since most schools accepted boys only. 16 The first women s college, the Bethlehem Female Seminary, was established in 1742 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and was followed 30 years later by Single Sister s House, initially a private school that eventually evolved into today s women s college Salem College. Throughout the early years of the United Bethlehem Female Seminary, States, women s access to education grew and expanded as these women s institutions rose in prominence and became more common. In 1783, the first women instructors at any American college were appointed to Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland to teach painting and drawing. 17 In 1826, the first public high schools for girls opened in New York and Boston. 18 Oberlin College became the first coeducational college in the U.S. in 1833, and in 1841 three women graduated from there and became the first of their sex to earn Bachelors degrees in the U.S. 19 However, these were the accomplishments of the few; education for women in the midnineteenth century was almost entirely through private, girls-only schools that were expensive and not as common as similar institutions for men. Coeducational institutions were rare, and even at those institutions classes for women centered on what were deemed more appropriate studies, such as home economics and the arts. 20 The attendees of the Seneca Falls Convention 16 "Women's History in America". Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia June "Kohl Gallery: History". Washington College. Retrieved Olsen, Kirstin. Chronology of Women s History. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group, "Oberlin History Timeline". Oberlinheritage.org. Retrieved Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture. Boston: Cengage, 2009.

10 had these disparities in mind and certainly considered access to education one of the greatest ways to improve and expand the role of women in society in the nineteenth century. Women had an extremely limited number of options available for work in the early days of the United States. In colonial America, women who wanted to work could be seamstresses, operate boardinghouses, or sometimes assist their husbands in keeping shops or other businesses. Interestingly, some enterprising women were able to obtain positions as lawyers, preachers, teachers and writers despite the widespread lack of availability of formal training. Additionally, prior to the 1800s, no formal training was required to practice medicine, so some women did; obstetrics was the woman s domain within the medical field. 21 Unfortunately, though, when medical professional regulations were tightened and educational preparation became required to practice, women largely lost access to the field. Then, in 1846, the American Medical Association barred women from membership, specifically discriminating against women and further decreasing access to the career. The medical field was a unique case, though; most professional fields were either explicitly or functionally inaccessible to women in Some women worked as nurses, teachers, and servants, but these and other more domestic careers were the only options available. This situation can be at least partially attributed to the Cult of Domesticity, or cult of true womanhood, which was the prevailing value system among the middle and upper class in the nineteenth century. The cult of domesticity emphasized new ideals of femininity that had been largely influenced by men s flight from homes to industry in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It maintained that the 21 "Women's History in America". Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia June Home Sweet Home : the cult of domesticity determined women s roles in society in the nineteenth century.

11 place of women was in the home, and it promoted four virtues that all True women ought to have: piety, purity, domesticity and submissiveness. 22 The ruling social expectation that women stay in the home and behave as second-class citizens completely barred women from pursuing careers and education beyond a minimal domestic level. However, at the same time as this phenomenon swept upper and middle class families, another phenomenon was affecting lower class women s professional lives. The rapid growth of the textile manufacturing industry of New England in the early nineteenth century created a constant demand for labor. Recruiters brought young women from farmlands to nearby industrial centers, where women were able to work to provide some aid to their families and save for marriage. Eventually, immigrants, who would face harsher conditions for lower pay, largely replaced these women. 23 Women in general earned lower wages than men in industry as well as every other field. 24 All of these disadvantages in both education and employment gave women little choice but to work as housewives and stay out of professional careers altogether, an effect that even further solidified women s political and social status as second-class. Although the focus of the Seneca Falls Convention was political in nature, attendees recognized that women s economic and social status would contribute in a big way to their political capabilities, and thus these issues were a large part of the discussion as well. 22 Lavender, Catherine. "Notes on The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood" (PDF). The College of Staten Island/CUNY. Retrieved 27 October Dublin, Thomas. "Lowell Millhands". Transforming Women's Work. Ithaca: Cornell UP "Working Conditions in Factories (Issue)." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History Encyclopedia.com. 7 Jun. 2015

12 Questions to consider: How could education be more accessible to girls? Should existing schools accept more female students, or should more schools for girls only be built? What level of schooling, and what fields of study, should women be able to access? Should women be able to access more or all professions and employment opportunity? How so? Is it up to the government, private employers, or the women themselves to access careers?

13 Topic Three: Abolitionism The abolitionism movement had its origins in Revolutionary-era America, when intellectuals Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, despite being slave owners themselves, began speaking out against slavery. Franklin was a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized organization for abolitionists in the United States. 25 Northern states in the U.S. began to abolish slavery almost immediately after the country s establishment; Vermont was the first state to do so in its 1777 constitution. In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, and it is said that in 1820 he privately supported the Missouri Compromise, thinking it would help bring an end to slavery. 26 In the South, slavery continued to be practiced and the U.S. slave population reached 4 million by the 1860 census. 27 In the North, though, both black and white reform-minded people, many of them former slaves, were advocating for abolitionism. Massachusetts printer and editor William Lloyd Garrison first published The Liberator in 1831 with strong abolitionist statements, and in 1838 the newspaper printed an issue strongly in favor of equal rights for women. 28 Garrison also co-founded the American Anti-Slavery Society with Arthur Tappan in 1833 as an abolitionist organization that aimed to promote its mission by convincing the American public that slavery was against God s law. 29 The American Anti-Slavery Society was known for allowing women to participate in discussions, speak on behalf of slaves, raise funds, and even hold office. Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was one of the premier advocates for both abolition and women s rights in the nineteenth century. He published a weekly abolitionist 25 Seymour Stanton Black. Benjamin Franklin: Genius of Kites, Flights, and Voting Rights. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, Finkelman, Paul. "Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves." Milestone Documents. Accessed June 7, United States. Census Bureau. Washington: GPO, Print. 28 Boston Directory, 1831, Garrison & Knapp, editors and proprietors Liberator, 10 Merchants Hall, Congress Street 29 Hewitt, Nancy A. Abolition & Suffrage. Not for Ourselves Alone. PBS. Web. 07 June 2015.

14 newspaper, the North Star, with the slogan Right is of no sex Truth is of no color and was actively involved in the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. It was there that he met Elizabeth M Clintock, who invited him to the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, where he was introduced to the cause of women s suffrage. 30 In her book History of Woman Suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton describes how the abolitionist movement inspired women to advocate for their own natural rights as well: Women not only felt every pulsation of man's heart for freedom, and by her enthusiasm inspired the glowing eloquence that maintained him through the struggle, but earnestly advocated with her own lips human freedom and equality. 31 Many women saw their positions as similar to that of slaves; both groups were expected to be passive, cooperative, and obedient to their master-husbands. Abolitionists and women s rights activists fed off of each other, supplying each other s audiences, borrowing each other s language, and speaking on behalf of each other s causes throughout the early and mid-nineteenth century. Two especially notable early feminists who spoke on behalf of the abolition movement were sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who gave rousing speeches to mixed audiences of both men and women at a time when it was not considered acceptable for women to speak in public at all. 32 In 1837, the causes of abolitionism and women s rights collided for one of the first times Sarah & Angelina Grimke in history at the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York. 71 delegates from eight states published resolutions, formed executive committees, and since they were unable to vote as a means of political action, campaigned to collect signatures on anti-slavery petitions. 30 National Park Service. Frederick Douglass. Women s Rights National Historic Park. Department of the Interior. 10 June Stanton, Elizabeth C. and others. History of Woman Suffrage. New York: Fowler & Wells, "Women's History in America". Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia June 2015.

15 The 1840 annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society was a particularly divisive moment for the issues of abolitionism and women s rights. Abigail Kelly was nominated by Garrison to join the Society s business committee, but some of the more conservative men present disagreed with this action and lobbied audience members to vote against the decision. 33 When the vote passed and Kelly was granted the position, about half of the men present left to form a new abolitionist group. 34 Some abolitionist men of the nineteenth century would remain conservative in their views on women s rights, as some women suffragists opposed the end of slavery. However, because of the intersectional nature of their causes and cooperation among supporters, both groups made gains towards their objectives and propelled each other towards notoriety in the mid-nineteenth century. Questions to consider: How can women suffragists harness the abolitionist movement to gain more supporters and advance their mission? What are some common goals of suffragists and abolitionists? How can our movements work together to achieve those goals? How does cooperating or not affect the two movements goals and constituents? Are all women s suffragists abolitionists, and all abolitionists women s suffragists? 33 Stanton, Elizabeth C. and others. History of Woman Suffrage. New York: Fowler & Wells, Moran, Karen Board. Abigail Kelly Foster. National Women s History Museum. Web. 12 June 2015.

16 Works Cited Ayers, Edward L., Lewis L. Gould, David M. Oshinsky, and Jean R. Soderlund. American Passages: A History of the United States. Boston: Cengage, Print. Boston Directory, 1831, Garrison & Knapp, editors and proprietors Liberator, 10 Merchants Hall, Congress Street Coryell, Janet L. Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers That Be. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, Print. Dublin, Thomas. "Lowell Millhands". Transforming Women's Work. Ithaca: Cornell UP Finkelman, Paul. "Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves." Milestone Documents. Accessed June 7, Hewitt, Nancy A. Abolition & Suffrage. Not for Ourselves Alone. PBS. Web. 07 June Hoff-Wilson, Joan. Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press, 1991 (KF4758.H ). Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven: Yale University Press, Print. "Kohl Gallery: History". Washington College. Retrieved Lavender, Catherine. "Notes on The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood" (PDF). The College of Staten Island/CUNY. Retrieved 27 October Linda E. Speth, "The Married Women's Property Acts, : Reform, Reaction, or Revolution?", in J. Ralph Lindgren, et al, The Law of Sex Discrimination, 4th edition (Wadsworth, 2011), 12-5 Mary Beth Norton, "'Either Married or to bee Married': Women's Legal Equality in Early America," in Carla Gardina Pestana and Sharon V. Salinger, eds., Inequality in Early America (University Press of New England, 1999), Moran, Karen Board. Abigail Kelly Foster. National Women s History Museum. Web. 12 June National Park Service. Abolitionism, Women s Rights, and Temperance Movements. Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Park Service. Frederick Douglass. Women s Rights National Historic Park. Department of the Interior. 10 June National Park Service. Quaker Influence Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Park Service. Seneca Falls in Women s Rights National Historical Park. Department of the Interior. Web. 01 June National Portrait Gallery. The Seneca Falls Convention. Past Exhibitions. The Smithsonian. Web. 01 June "Oberlin History Timeline". Oberlinheritage.org. Retrieved

17 Olsen, Kirstin. Chronology of Women s History. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Reinhard O. Johnson, The Liberty Party, : Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, Seymour Stanton Black. Benjamin Franklin: Genius of Kites, Flights, and Voting Rights. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, Stanton, Elizabeth C. and others. History of Woman Suffrage. New York: Fowler & Wells, United States. Census Bureau. Washington: GPO, Print. "Women's History in America". Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia June Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture. Boston: Cengage, "Working Conditions in Factories (Issue)." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History Encyclopedia.com. 7 Jun Zaher, Claudia When a Woman s Marital Status Determined Her Legal Status: A Research Guide on the Common Law Doctrine of Coverture. Law Library Journal 94:

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