1. Education

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Reminiscences

Part 1: Introduction

More of this Feature
• Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Our First Meeting
Part 3: Pronunciamentoes
Part 4: Tableau of Mother and Susan
Part 5: How Mrs. Worden Voted
Part 6: A Dinner Party
Part 7: Mobs from Buffalo to Albany
Part 8: A Fugitive Mother and Child
Part 9: The Bloomer Costume
Original pagination

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Votes for Women: 1850-1920

from Chapter XIII, "Reminiscences," The History of Woman Suffrage (ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton), Vol. 1 (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1881).
This web edition © Jone Johnson Lewis, all rights reserved. Licensed to About Women's History.

by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N. Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement-Susan B. Anthony, who for her courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry Channing, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk.

"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called "The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been given to the enfranchisement of woman.

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Summary: A section of the original text by Elizabeth Cady Stanton about the early days of the woman suffrage movement, including the meeting of Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, their early struggles for women's rights, opposition to their work and the experiment with fashion innovation called the Bloomer Costume.

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