Full Name:
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Birth Date:
- November 12, 1815
Birth Location:
- Johnstown, New York
Parents:
- Daniel Cady and Margaret Livingston Cady
Education:
- Johnstown Academy
- Troy Female Seminary
Occupation:
- homemaker
- women’s suffragist
Career Summary:
- organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention
- president of the National Woman Suffrage Association
- co-author of the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States
- co-author of the History of Woman Suffrage
- president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
- co-author of The Woman’s Bible
- author of Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
Spouse:
- Henry Brewster Stanton
Place of Death:
- New York City, U.S.
Date of Death:
- October 26, 1902
Place of Burial:
- Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City
Significance:
- Elizabeth Cady was the eighth of Daniel and Margaret Livingston Cady’s eleven children.
- Daniel Stanton was a prominent attorney who represented New York’s 14th District in the 14th U.S. Congress (March 4, 1815–March 3, 1817) and who later served as justice of the New York Supreme Court (June 7, 1847–January 1, 1855).
- Margaret Stanton was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
- Elizabeth Cady attended Johnstown Academy where she excelled as a student.
- Elizabeth Cady graduated from Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary (now known as Emma Willard School), graduating in 1832.
- As a young woman, Cady became active in the temperance and anti-slavery movements.
- Elizabeth Cady married Henry Brewster Stanton on May 1, 1840. Their marriage produced seven children.
- At Elizabeth Cady’s request, the minister omitted the traditional “promise to obey” her husband from their wedding vows.
- In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott, a leading American female abolitionist of the time.
- In 1847, Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked with Martha Coffin Wright, Mary Ann M’Clintock, Lucretia Mott, and Jane Hunt to organize the Seneca Falls Convention, (also known as the First Woman’s Rights Convention) held on July 19–20, 1847.
- On July 19, 1847, at the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the “Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances,” a treatise she drafted modeled upon the Declaration of Independence.
- In 1851, a mutual friend introduced Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony in Seneca Falls. The introduction marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship and a milestone in the history of the women’s rights movement.
- For over sixty years, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony politicked for numerous social causes including abolition, temperance, female suffrage, and equal rights for women.
- In 1852, Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped found the Woman’s New York State Temperance Society.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first president of the Woman’s New York State Temperance Society.
- In 1863, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony united to form the Women’s Loyal National League, focusing on passage of a thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States.
- In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony helped found the American Equal Rights Association (AERA).
- In 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony left the American Equal Rights Association and founded the exclusively female National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA).
- As president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton authored and edited articles in the association’s weekly newsletter, The Revolution, enhancing her reputation as a vocal champion of women’s suffrage.
- Following ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Elizabeth Cady Stanton publicly embraced the contention of Victoria Claflin Woodhull (another famous women’s rights advocate) that the changes to the Constitution actually did enfranchise American women.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton unsuccessfully attempted to vote in the election of 1880.
- With the help of Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton authored the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States.
- During the late 1870s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage began collaborating to write the History of Woman Suffrage, a prolific work that chronicled the annals of the women’s suffrage movement.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 to 1892.
- In 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Revising Committee” published the first of a two-volume work entitled The Woman’s Bible, a commentary describing how male theologians used Christian theology and Biblical dogma to relegate women to second-class status.
- In 1898, Elizabeth Cady Stanton published her autobiography entitled Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897.
- By the 1890s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s struggles with blindness and poor health, coupled with her estrangement from NAWSA conservatives, diminished her role in the women’s suffrage movement.
- On October 26, 1902, Stanton succumbed to heart failure at her daughter Margaret’s home in New York City, just a few weeks before her eighty-seventh birthday.