Seneca Falls 1848: Women Demand their Rights Quiz

Answer: Quakers

Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia, a Quaker, was planning to be in Seneca Falls, and the meeting was planned around her visit, because she was known as a good orator -- something unusual for a woman in those days. The most radical Quakers, the Progressive Friends, gave women an equal voice with men, and even the less radical branches of the religion accepted women's influence more than most others.

Answer: Frederick Douglass

Douglass helped publicize the convention in his "North Star" newspaper, and was friends with many of the women, having been in anti-slavery societies or attended anti-slavery meetings with them. He especially encouraged women to enter the political sphere.

Answer: the men were told they could attend but not speak or participate

Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had gone to London for the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, assuming the motion to let women speak would be controversial but hoped it would pass. After a long debate, women were allowed to listen but not speak or vote. Stanton and Mott told the same thing to the men who assumed they would be welcomed at a women's convention. Men were welcome at the later sessions of the convention, as had always been promised, and nobody really minded the few mothers who brought their young boys along with their female children to the first session, but the adult women wanted to work out their Declaration of Sentiments themselves, on the first day.

Answer: the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Sentiments began "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man ..." and was meant to be a parallel to the Declaration of Independence, a document that the women felt most Americans would agree with. By showing their grievances were similar and equally justified, they felt they could produce a document just as historic.

Answer: women were prevented from following certain careers

Two of the grievances noted in the declaration applied to the subject of work and careers: "He [mankind in general] has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she [womankind] is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration," and the following one, "He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself.

As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known." Amelia Bloomer was at the convention and she along with some of the other women would indeed show their disdain for traditional female clothing by creating the more practical reform dress or "Bloomer costume" as it came to be known, but none of that was in the Declaration of Sentiments.

Answer: men could get away with immoral behavior while condemning women for the same thing

The declaration included: "He [mankind] has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man." The underlying implication seemed to be that men could have mistresses on the side, but it's unclear if women wanted the right to have mistresses too or if they wanted the men to stop doing it. Either way, the point was clear: men should behave the same as women and be treated the same, for better or worse, not claiming that "boys will be boys" to justify their actions, while shaming women for the same thing. And of course other things applied, too: a man could go out for a night of drinking and gambling and be considered a jolly fellow, while a woman doing the same thing would be considered dissipated and shocking.

Answer: men took away women's confidence in themselves

The declaration included the complaint: "He [mankind] has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her [women's] confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life." The idea of giving women confidence in their own abilities still resonates tday, as society struggles with how to get more female scientists, mathematicians or engineers.

Although Frederick Douglass was present, the issue of black women's rights didn't come up much. New York had some free blacks, but the women's rights movement at this time was mostly about whites. Black women's rights were framed as an anti-slavery issue, not an equality issue.

There was concern that if white women demanded black women be treated equally, it would hurt the cause of white women's rights among racist men (and women), and the concern continued long after the Civil War, when the Jim Crow era was strong.

Answer: he was strongly for it, and said if he could vote, women should vote

Frederick Douglass spoke briefly but eloquently about the importance of women voting, to secure further rights for themselves, and said that if he as a black man could vote, a white woman should be allowed to vote. His speech turned the tide in favor of the resolution, which passed despite some of the women's objections. One subject seemed to be glossed over: if women could vote, did that mean free black women would be allowed to vote also? The question never seemed to be asked directly and surely each person at the convention pictured the answer. New York had a property ownership requirement for black men but not white men, and had strongly voted to uphold it two years before.

Some other northern states allowed black men to vote the same as whites, while others didn't allow black men to vote at all. No state allowed women to vote, black or white.

Answer: yes, in the north at least; various meetings were held in different states over the next few years, and some laws were changed

Another convention was held in Rochester, NY two weeks later. Over the following two years, conventions were held in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The movement also gained successes in state legislatures, in the area of divorce and women's rights to money they brought into marriage or earned or inherited during a marriage.

The Civil War and the Constitutional Amendment freeing slaves both helped and hurt the movement. They ushered in an era where people were given rights they never had before, which should carry over into women getting rights also.

But the backlash and fear of Jim Crow laws made white women hesitant to include the equality of black women as one of their planks in their platform. Eventually, though, some western states granted the vote to women and finally women received the nationwide vote in 1919, a huge step forward in political equality. Social equality continued more slowly, surely at a pace that would have frustrated the women of 1848, but they wanted everything right then, a pace that even they realized was hopeful but impractical.

Answer: yes, at least one voted

Rhoda Palmer (1816-1919) legally voted when her home state, New York, allowed women to vote in 1918. She was the only signer who actually got to vote. But it's complicated. Several western territories allowed women to vote while many of the attendees were still alive -- Wyoming in 1869, Utah in 1870 -- but none of the women were citizens of those territories (or states as they gained statehood), so they heard of women voting but could not vote. According to the National Park Service's website for the Women's Rights National Historical Park in New York, another signer, Charlotte Woodward Pierce (c.1830-1921) was ill on the first federal election day that women could vote in 1920, and she was home-bound with poor eyesight in 1921.

The NPS quotes her as saying "I'm too old. I'm afraid I'll never vote," and says she never did.