Seneca Falls: The Movement Beings
The women’s suffrage movement began — officially — at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a mother from upstate New York, and Lucretia Mott, a well-known speaker, abolitionist and co-organizer of the Philadelphia anti-Slavery Society.
Stanton and Mott met at an abolition convention, but while Mott was active in the anti-slavery cause, Stanton’s philosophy was “more egotistical” (Terborg-Penn). She was committed to the cause of white women’s rights and displayed a lack of understanding of the plights of African Americans, even slaves