Sisterhood is Powerful: Suffragism, Seneca Falls, & Women’s Writing
Mid 1800s, (black & white) women had
- No vote, and held no public offices
- Restricted rights to inheritance, property, wage assurance
- Little legal protection from abuse, adultery, child-napping
- No legal say in reproductive rights
- Often to work outside, but still maintain, the home
Women’s Suffrage (vote) Movement & Abolition Movement arise together
1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton (& Lucretia Mott), “The Seneca Falls Declaration” for (white) women’s freedom [online reading]
Continued arguing around relation of slaves’ rights and women’s rights: 1851 Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” [online reading]
(later) Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” [online reading]