July 1848Reputable sourceWell documented
The Seneca Falls Convention
On the timeline · around July 1848 ·
What happened
In July 1848, some 300 people gathered at Seneca Falls, New York, for the first women's rights convention in the United States. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, they issued a Declaration of Sentiments modeled on the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming that 'all men and women are created equal' and demanding, most radically, the right to vote.
Why it matters
Seneca Falls launched the organized women's suffrage and rights movement in America — a seventy-year campaign that would culminate in the Nineteenth Amendment and reshape the nation's understanding of equality.