Declaration of Sentiments

One of the most important figures in American history, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, a manifesto of the liberation of women that helped launch the women’s rights movement. In later decades she worked closely with Susan B. Anthony to abolish slavery, advance women’s rights, and win the vote for women and African Americans.

Born to the wealthy landowning Cady family of New York, Stanton was a bright child. She studied Greek, math, and law, and won debate contests at school. As a teen, Stanton became fearful of religious damnation, so her father brought her books by rationalist philosophers that tempered her fears. In 1840, at age 24, she met abolitionist activist and budding lawyer Henry Stanton, and they married. Theirs was a much more egalitarian relationship than was common at the time.

During their honeymoon in Europe, Stanton attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in England, where she found that women delegates were sidelined. There, she met Lucretia Mott, who became a close friend and inspired Stanton to take an interest in women’s rights.

For a time, Henry studied law under Stanton’s father. The Stantons then moved to Boston, where Henry joined a law practice and Stanton met prominent abolitionists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.