Editing Declaration of Sentiments (section)

== Background ==

=== Early activism and the reform movements ===
{{See also|Feminism in the United States|Women's suffrage in the United States}}In the early 1800s, women were largely relegated to domestic roles as mothers and homemakers, and were discouraged from participating in public life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Vietto |first=Angela |title=Women and Authorship in Revolutionary America |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |edition=1st |location=London, UK}}</ref>  While they exercised a degree of economic independence in the colonial era, they were increasingly barred from meaningfully participating in the workforce and relegated to domestic and service roles near the turn of the 19th century.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The American Yawp |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2019 |editor-last=Locke |editor-first=Joseph |chapter=Religion and Reform |editor-last2=Wight |editor-first2=Ben |chapter-url=https://www.americanyawp.com/text/10-religion-and-reform/}}</ref> [[Coverture|Coverture laws]] also meant that women remained legally subordinated under their husbands.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoff |first=Joan |title=Law, Gender and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women |publisher=New York University Press |year=1991 |location=New York, NY |pages=87–88 |language=}}</ref>

The decades leading up to the Seneca Falls Convention and the signing of the Declaration saw a small but steadily-growing movement pushing for women’s rights.  Egalitarian ideas within the U.S. had already seen limited circulation in the years following the [[American Revolution]], in the works of writers including [[James Otis Jr|James Otis]] and [[Charles Brockden Brown]].<ref name=":0" />  These sentiments began to emerge more widely with the advent of the [[Second Great Awakening]], a period of [[Protestantism|Protestant]] revival and debate in the first half of the 19th century that led to widespread optimism and the development of various [[Reform movement#United States: 1840s%E2%80%931930s|American reform movements]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Garvey |first=T. Gregory |title=Creating the Culture of Reform in Antebellum America |publisher=The University of Georgia Press |year=2006 |location=Athens, GA}}</ref>

The first advocates for women’s rights, including [[Frances Wright]] and [[Ernestine Rose]], were focused on improving economic conditions and marriage laws for women.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=DuBois |first=Ellen Carol |title=Woman Suffrage and Womens Rights |publisher=New York University Press |year=1998 |location=New York, NY |pages=83–84}}</ref>  However, the growth of political reform movements, most notably the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] movement, provided female activists with a platform from which they could effectively push for greater political rights and suffrage.<ref name=":2" />  The involvement of women such as [[Angelina Grimké|Angelina Grimke]] and her sister [[Sarah Moore Grimké|Sarah Moore]] in the anti-slavery campaigns attracted substantial controversy and divided abolitionists, but also laid the groundwork for active female participation in public affairs.<ref name=":1" />  

A major catalyst for the women’s rights movement would come at the 1840 [[World Anti-Slavery Convention]] in [[London]].  With a majority vote from the male attendees, American female delegates were barred from fully partaking in the proceedings.  This experience, a vivid illustration of women’s status as second-class citizens, was what motivated prominent activists [[Lucretia Mott]] and [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] to begin advocating for women’s rights.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McMillen |first=Sally Gregory |title=Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2008 |location=New York, NY |pages=72–77}}</ref>  

By the time of the Seneca Falls Convention, the early women’s rights movement had already achieved several major political and legal successes.  Marital legislative reforms and the repeal of coverture in several state jurisdictions such as [[New York (state)|New York]] was achieved through the introduction of [[Married Women's Property Acts in the United States|Married Woman's Property Acts]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoff |first=Joan |title=Law, Gender and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women |publisher=New York University Press |year=1991 |location=New York, NY |pages=121–124}}</ref> Women’s rights and [[Women's suffrage|suffrage]] also gained exposure when they were included in the 1848 platform of [[Liberty Party (United States, 1840)|Liberty Party]] U.S. presidential candidate [[Gerrit Smith]], the first cousin of Elizabeth Stanton.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wellman |first=Judith |title=The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2004 |location=Chicago, IL |pages=176|isbn=0252029046}}</ref>

=== The Seneca Falls Convention ===
{{See also|Seneca Falls Convention}}The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 was the first women’s rights conference in the United States.  Held at the [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (Seneca Falls, New York)|Wesleyan Methodist Church]] in [[Seneca Falls (CDP), New York|Seneca Falls]], New York, it was predominantly organised by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the assistance of Lucretia Mott and local female [[Quakers]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wellman |first=Judith |title=The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2004 |location=Chicago, IL |pages=184–191}}</ref>  Despite the relative inexperience of the organisers, the event attracted approximately 300 attendees, including around 40 men.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wellman |first=Judith |title=The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2004 |location=Chicago, IL |pages=192–196}}</ref>  Among the dignitaries was the legendary slavery abolitionist [[Frederick Douglass]], who argued eloquently for the inclusion of suffrage in the convention’s agenda.<blockquote>''“Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.”''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2012 |editor-last=McKivigan |editor-first=John R |location=Ithaca, NY |editor-last2=Kaufman |editor-first2=Heather L}}</ref></blockquote>Over two days, the attendees heard addresses from speakers including Stanton and Mott, voted on a number of resolutions and deliberated on the text of the Declaration.  At the conclusion of the convention, the completed Declaration was signed by over 100 attendees, including 68 women and 32 men.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wellman |first=Judith |title=The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2004 |location=Chicago, IL |pages=196–202}}</ref><!--EDIT BELOW THIS LINE-->