Elizabeth Cady Stanton
•  Born in 1815 in
Johnstown, New York
•  Father was a
prominent attorney,
congressman, and
judge
•  Excellent education at
Johnstown Academy
Marriage
•  Married Henry
Brewster Stanton in
1840
•  Refused to have
word “obey” in
ceremony
•  Refused to be
known as Mrs.
Henry Stanton
•  They had 7
children
•  Stanton was
an active
abolitionist
•  Active as well
in the
Temperance
Movement
1840 Anti-Slavery Convention
•  Met Lucretia Mott
•  Women forced to sit in roped-off area behind a
curtain
•  William Lloyd
Garrison, famous
abolitionist
•  Refused his seat,
sat with women
instead
Seneca Falls Convention,
1848
•  Stanton helped
organize convention
•  Drafted “Declaration
of Sentiments and
Resolutions”
adopted there
•  Met lifelong
friend and
collaborator,
Susan B.
Anthony in
1851
Collaboration with Stanton
•  Anthony single,
thus better able to
travel and give
speeches
•  Stanton often
drafted these
speeches
15th Amendment
•  Granted suffrage to
African American
men
•  Both Stanton and
Anthony argued
against 15th
Amendment w/o
adding women
•  Split with Douglass
Schism in the Women’s
Movement
• Many leaders in the women’s movement, including Lucy
Stone, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe disagreed.
•  By 1869, disagreement
over 15th Amendment
led to two separate
women’s suffrage
groups
•  The National Woman’s
Suffrage Association
(MWSA) included
Stanton, Anthony
•  The American Woman’s
Suffrage Association
(AWSA) was led by
Stone, Blackwell, and
Howe
•  NWSA more radical
•  Focused on issues other than suffrage
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Gender-neutral divorce and child custody laws
Women’s property rights
Birth Control
Right of women to serve on juries, etc.
NWSA
•  15th Amendment
passed,
unchanged, in 1870
•  Later, Stanton and
Anthony took
position that 14th
and 15th
amendments did
give women the
right to vote.
14th Amendment:
All persons born or
naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United
States and of the State
wherein they reside.
15th Amendment:
The right of citizens of the
United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by
any State on account of
race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.
•  In 1872, Anthony
arrested by a U.S.
Marshall for illegally
voting in presidential
election.
•  Convicted and later
fined.
•  Sojourner Truth also
tried to vote in 1872
presidential election, but
was turned away at the
polling place in
Michigan.
Woman’s Bible
•  Stanton, in later life,
criticized sexism in
Christianity. Wrote a
feminist version of the
Bible (further antagonized
conservative, Christian
members of the AWSA)
•  Continued to champion
broader rights, including
interracial marriage
•  Letter to Frederick
Douglass
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Died 1902
(Before ever seeing passage of
19th Amendment)