Celebrating Convention Days and the Birth of a Movement
July marks a major milestone in the history of women’s rights in the United States. In Seneca Falls, New York, this anniversary is celebrated as Convention Days—a tribute to the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first organized public meeting to demand equality for women.
It was in the parlor of Mary McClintock’s house in Waterloo, New York, that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, some say divinely inspired, wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. Just days later, she delivered her first public speech, boldly denouncing the degraded status of women and calling for sweeping social change. Together with four courageous allies, Stanton launched a movement that would reverberate for generations.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton of 1848 was nothing short of visionary. She demanded the right to vote and declared with clarity and conviction:
“The right is ours. The question now is, how shall we get possession of what rightfully belongs to us?”
The convention struck a chord. It unleashed a surge of pent-up discontent among women across the Northeast, inspiring decades of organizing, advocacy, and reform.
But history is complex. Stanton’s legacy is not without its shadows. Though she had deep roots in the anti-slavery movement—married to an abolitionist, attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, and a friend to Frederick Douglass—by 1867 her rhetoric had narrowed. As debates over Black male suffrage emerged, Stanton made nativist, racially charged remarks and focused her advocacy on educated white women, abandoning the inclusive ideals that once guided her.
It’s a painful contradiction. One that reminds us that heroes are human, and that movements must evolve.
I first fell in love with the Elizabeth Cady Stanton of 1848—the firebrand who dared to speak truth in a parlor then at a public podium, whose words lit the fuse of a revolution. I’m honored to reenact this version of Stanton, to keep her legacy alive.
Her shining moment helped ignite the women’s rights movement. But the work she began is far from finished.
When domestic violence shelters are no longer needed…
When women make up 51% of elected officials…
When wage parity and equal access to capital are no longer aspirations but realities…
Then I will rejoice for American women.
Until then, let us honor our origin story. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 is worth remembering, worth reflecting on, and definitely worth celebrating.
Happy Convention Days!
P.S. I will be appearing in costume as Elizabeth Cady Stanton on August 23 at the George Washington Carver National Monument near Joplin, Missouri for a storytelling festival, and will share “The Tale of Seneca Falls” Let me know if you know any educators or librarians in the area with whom I can share this news.
