Deborah Hopkinson - What Is the Women’s Rights Movement?

On March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams picked up a quill pen to write to her husband, John. It was a dangerous time. The thirteen colonies in America wanted to separate from England to form their own country.

John Adams was often away at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. John was there to help write the Declaration of Independence and discuss how the government of the new United States of America would work. Abigail stayed home in Massachusetts to care for their children and farm.

Still, Abigail had a keen interest in plans for the new nation. And she often shared her ideas with John. For one thing, Abigail believed slavery was wrong. By 1810, the number of enslaved people in the United Statesalmost all living in the Southtotaled more than a million.

Abigail also spoke out for women. At the time, women in America had few rights. When a woman married, she suffered something called a civil death. This wasnt a real death, of course. But the law didnt recognize her as a separate person anymore. It meant that a married woman couldnt own property. She had to turn any money she earned over to her husband. Divorce was rare. However, if a couple did separate, in most cases fathers gained custody of their children.

Abigail didnt like any of these rules. She hoped John and the other Founders would make different laws for the new nation. And so she wrote, urging John to remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Abigail added, Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.

John wrote back, half joking, Depend on it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. In other words, even loving husbands like John Adams wanted to keep society the way it was.

The Founders were bold men. But perhaps Abigail Adams was bolder. For she also told John she thought women would start a rebellion someday against laws in which we have no voice or representation.

Abigail Adams was right. In 1848, only thirty years after her death, the womens rights movement began. And it was another busy wife and mother who set things in motion.

CHAPTER 2

The Seneca Falls Convention

Elizabeth Cady married Henry Stanton on May 1, 1840. Even as a twenty-four-year-old bride, Elizabeth was already questioning her role as a woman. She left out the word obey from her wedding vows. She also kept using her name, becoming known as Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Her husband, Henry, was a well-known abolitionist. That means a person working to abolishto endslavery in America. However, even at an abolitionist convention they attended, the men refused to allow women to take part. Elizabeth felt outraged. So did another woman named Lucretia Mott. Shouldnt women be treated as equal partners in the fight against slavery?