Happy Anniversary Of The First Women's Rights Convention!

Happy Anniversary Of The First Women's Rights Convention!
Great in some ways, not so great in others!
Robyn Pennacchia
Jul 19, 2025


Happy weekend!

Today is the 177th anniversary of the first womens’ rights convention. As you probably know, the convention was the brainchild of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who decided it was time for one after they, and several other women, traveled all the way to London for the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 (which appears to have been, at best, about 98 percent white men) and were told “no girls allowed.” (Having organized with male activists before, I am not remotely surprised by this)

Eight years later, they managed to gather 300 people — 260 white women, 39 white men, and one Black man, Frederick Douglass — in Seneca Falls, New York, to have a chat about how perhaps women should have some rights. Less than fun fact, it was really a toss-up as to whether “voting” was even going to make it in there. There were many women, including Mott, who were worried that doing so would scare the menfolk and make them think they were full-on radicals. But they did, and a mere *checks notes* 72 years later, the 19th Amendment was passed and all women across the United States gained the constitutional right to vote. Technically. Maybe not so much in practice. (Sadly, despite having gotten their start in the abolitionist movement, a whole lot of the suffragettes — Stanton in particular — were racist AF)

To celebrate this momentous event, allow me to present you with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) reading the Declaration of Sentiments