The early women's rights movement built on the principles and experiences of other efforts to promote social justice and to improve the human condition. Collectively, these efforts were known as reform. Chief among these were the anti-slavery Abolition movement and the Temperance movement, both heavily influenced by Quaker activists. The personal and historical relationships that came together, and at times split apart the movement for women's rights existed before 1848, and have progressed over the subsequent century and a half. This page atempts to trace the major historical influences and events to the contemporary organizations that maintain and carry forward the legacies of the past.
Abolition Movement |
The Women's Rights Movement |
Temperance Movement |
| The Life of Frederick Douglass Timeline | One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage (Timeline) | History of Efforts to Prevent Alcohol Problems Timeline |
| 1840 Elizabeth Cady meets Henry Stanton in the home of her cousin, philanthropist and reformer Gerrit Smith. Stanton meets Lucretia Mott on "honeymoon" at World Anti-Slavery Convention, they jointly found Philadelphia Women's Anti-Slavery Society | 1840s Early advocates for women's rights share ideas and information. Mott (of Philadelphia) frequently discusses idea for a women's rights convention with Stanton in Boston. In 1847 Stanton moves to Seneca Falls. | 1847 Maine adopts first state law prohibiting sale of alcohol |
1848
Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, other social reformers
present at Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions, Report of the Seneca
Falls Convention printed at Douglass' office in Rochester. |
||
| 1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery | 1849 Amelia Bloomer begins publication of The Lily, originally a Temperance paper. | |
| 1851 Sojourner Truth gives "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at Akron. Women's Rights Convention. Gerrit Smith, Samuel J. May and others free a fugitive slave in federal custody during NYS Liberty Party convention in Syracuse. | 1850 National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Mass attractsover 1000 persons | 1851 Bloomer introduces Stanton to fellow Temperance worker Susan B. Anthony |
| 1852 Frederick Douglass named Vice Presidential candidate of Liberal Party | 1852 Matilda Joslyn Gage makes her first public speech at third national women's rights convention in Syracuse | 1852 Stanton & Anthony found NYS Women's Temperance Society |
| 1854 Douglass writes a second autobiography: My Bondage and My Freedom | 1853 Stanton Appeals to NYS Legislature for State Prohibition (The "Maine Law") as well as Divorce and other Civil reforms | 1854 Gerrit Smith advocates the Temperance cause as the only Abolitionist Member of Congress |
| 1859 John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Douglass escapes to Canada, Gerrit Smith hospitalized, neither indicted. | 1860 Stanton and Anthony work successfully to amend Married Woman's Property Law in NY, allowing property ownership, suits in court, shared child custody, and the keeping of earnings and inheritance. | |
| 1869 Women's Rights movement splits over "precedence" of suffrage for black men over women. Stanton, Anthony and Gage form National Woman Suffrage Association. American Woman Suffrage Association, along with Douglass and Gerrit Smith support suffrage for Blacks, then women. | 1869 National Prohibition Party organized 1874 WCTU Founded |
|
| 1877 Douglass appointed US Marshall for District of Columbia | 1877 Woman's suffrage amendment first introduced into US Congress. 1879 Drafts of A History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Stanton, Gage and Anthony are printed in Gage's newspaper prior to book form. | 1879 Frances Willard becomes President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, advocates suffrage as a means to social agenda of conservative Christians. |
| 1920 19th Amendment ratified, women's right
to vote finally secured. 1923 National Women's Party Proposes Equal Rights Amendment. Ratification fails in 1982, three states short of needed number |
1920 National Prohibition Effective. 1933 Prohibition Repealed |
|