This week marks the 174th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the origin of the women's suffrage movement and a landmark event in our historical journey to realize the promises of the Declaration of Independence.
What made the convention such a pivotal moment in American history? A brief tour detour from eight years prior will shed light on its significance.
Two humiliated women walked arm-in-arm through London on a warm summer night in 1840. Mere hours earlier, these women – Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – faced the wrath of many of their male abolitionist counterparts who denied them from participating at London’s World Anti-Slavery Convention.
While some abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison believed that female abolitionists deserved an equal chance to participate, many viewed women like Mott and Stanton as agitators. And although many women served as zealous abolitionists throughout the United States, these men believed that giving women a voice at the convention might weaken the abolitionist cause.
