The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention. It was held in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19–20, 1848. The convention was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other prominent reformers of the time such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Gerrit Smith.
The convention drew up a Declaration of Sentiments which outlined the problems faced by women and called for equal rights for men and women. The Declaration was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and contained an enumeration of grievances against men as well as what should be done about them.
Moreover, the Seneca Falls Convention established an agenda for future meetings which included a Woman’s Rights Convention at Rochester in 1850 and the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in October 1851. A second National Women’s Rights Convention followed in Syracuse in June 1852.
The Seneca Falls Convention was attended by some 300 men and women from 12 states. The Declaration of Sentiments (also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments) that was adopted by the convention stated that “all men and women were created equal” and called for an end to laws based on the idea that one sex or race is superior to another. The convention also introduced a resolution which called for women’s suffrage.
