On July 19, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention opened in Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York — the first women's rights convention in American history, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, attended by approximately 300 people including Frederick Douglass.

Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled deliberately on the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. It listed eighteen specific grievances — the denial of voting rights, property rights, educational rights, divorce rights, the legal status of women as subordinate to their husbands, the exclusion of women from the professions.

The resolution on voting rights was the most controversial. Mott considered it too radical to adopt; she feared it would make the other resolutions seem extreme by association. Stanton insisted. Douglass spoke in its favor. It passed, the only resolution not adopted unanimously.

Sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Within weeks, several signatories removed their names under social pressure. The newspapers mocked the convention extensively. Stanton collected and published the coverage, reasoning that any attention was useful.

Women got the vote 72 years later. Several of the signatories were still alive.