In July 1848, the women’s suffrage movement began at the Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York. More than 300 men and women, including reformers such as Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, gathered there to “discuss the social, civil, and religious conditions of the rights of Woman.” Only one attendee, however, lived long enough to see women get the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. As a teenager, Charlotte Woodward Pierce had signed the Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls Convention, demanding the right to vote. Unfortunately, by the time that women's suffrage came about more than seven decades later, the elderly Pierce was bedridden and unable to cast her vote.
The long fight for women's rights:
- The Declaration of Sentiments was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. It outlined the injustices that women faced and put forth 11 resolutions needed for women to achieve equality in the United States.
- The most famous was the ninth resolution, which declared that women deserved the right to vote. Sixty-eight people, including Charlotte Woodward Pierce, committed their names to the Declaration of Sentiments, compared to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.
- Social reformer Lucretia Mott argued against including the demand for voting rights. She said that was going too far, but after a protracted debate, the resolution was adopted.