During the month of March, in honor of Women's History Month, RLS Media will be highlighting influential women in New Jersey History.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, best known for organizing the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention, lived in Tenafly, New Jersey and was a prominent advocate for Women's Rights in the 1800s.
Stanton was born to a wealthy family and was very well educated. In 1840 she married Henry Stanton who was an abolitionist and subsequently began working in the abolition movement herself.
After meeting abolitionist Lucretia Mott at a convention in London, the two planned to create their own Woman's Rights Convention. In 1848 the very first Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, which receive national news coverage.
Later Stanton published The Declaration of Sentiments which called for social and legal changes that help achieve women's equality.
Throughout her life, Staton worked alongside other woman's rights activists, including Susan B. Anthony. She and Anthoney founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 to advocate for women's right to vote.
She spoke on topics such as divorce, women's property rights and suffrage. In fact, Stanton and Anthoney opposed the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution when the amendments did not give black women the right to vote as they did black men.
In the years before she died Stanton focused her time on writing and published a number of books including the History of Woman Sufferage and Woman's Bible as well as her autobiography.
Stanton died at 86 years old in 1902, just 18 years before the ratification of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote.
Information and Image Credit: njwomenshistory.org and womenshistory.org