Main Facts

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on November 12^th 1815. She became a prominent figure of the women’s right movement in the 19^th century. She was a close partner of Susan B. Anthony. Her Declaration of Sentiments is her most famous work.

Period of Youth

Her birthplace was New York. Her father was an attorney. She learnt about the law and realized that married women were at a very disadvantaged position in comparison to their spouses. This triggered her social and legal activism. Stanton enjoyed good education at a time when this was a quite rare privilege for women. She attended the Johnstown Academy and subsequently the Troy Female Seminary, from which she graduated in 1832.

Marriage and Early Involvement

She met her reformer husband, Henry Stanton, through her participation in the abolitionist and temperance movements. They got married in 1840 and immediately went to the World’s Antislavery Convention; there, she joined other women who protested against their exclusion from the assembly. The couple returned to the U.S. and had seven children; the Stantons finally found a permanent home in Seneca Falls, New York.

Unabated Work

In July 1848, she was one of the women who set up the Seneca Falls Convention, where she read her Declaration of Sentiments, which supported the equality of the sexes and female suffrage. Soon after this, she was invited to speak at another women’s convention in Rochester, New York, and this strengthened her status as a reformer and activist. In 1851, she met Susan B. Anthony, who would become her lifelong partner in the women’s suffrage movement. Stanton would write many of Anthony’s speeches. Their friendship lasted for fifty years, until Stanton’s death. In 1868, she and Anthony cooperated to issue the weekly Revolution, which was a combative paper. Her role was crucial in promoting women’s voting rights in New York, Missouri, Kansas, and Michigan.

Presidency and Later Life

The duo founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Stanton became the Association’s first president and held this position until 1890. Then, it was united with another suffrage group, and as a result of this, the National American Woman Suffrage Association came into existence. Stanton was also the president of this new Association for two years. In 1892, in her final speech before members of the U.S. Congress, she called for a new understanding of women’s role in society. She died of heart failure on October 26^th, 1902.

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