Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments

Impact

Following its adoption at the Seneca Falls Convention, the Declaration of Sentiments became a flash point for criticism and ridicule of the nascent women's rights movement. The newspapers that reported on the convention derided the document and its signers. The press generally expressed fears that by demanding equal rights, women were stepping out of the role ordained for them not only by society but also by God and nature. The only newspaper that actually applauded the Declaration of Sentiments was Frederick Douglass's North Star, which called it the “grand basis for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women” (July 28, 1848). A second women's rights convention met a few weeks later, on August 2, 1848, in Rochester, New York. This convention was the first to have a female president, Abigail Bush. The participants adopted the Declaration of Sentiments from Seneca Falls. The Rochester convention was also subject to ridicule and derision by the general public. By the time that the first women's rights convention was held west of the Alleghenies, at Salem, Ohio, in 1850, supporters of feminism no longer considered the suffrage clause radical. Indeed, the vote was now seen as an essential element in women's rights reform and eventually became the centerpiece of the movement.

From its introduction in 1848 through the present, the Declaration of Sentiments has been a central part of feminist thought. While the women's movement focused solely on the vote following the Civil War, there were still many feminists who had a broader vision of women's rights. Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, which was founded in 1914 as the Congressional Union, saw beyond the vote to full equality for women, not only in the United States but indeed worldwide. The revitalized feminist movement in the 1960s was more in the spirit of the Declaration of Sentiments, demanding full participation in society. In 1998, at the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the National Organization for Women issued its own Declaration of Sentiments modeled on the Seneca Falls document. The demands expressed generations ago still have relevance for men and women seeking justice for all in the contemporary world.