On July 19 1848 the first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Three hundred people attended. In the Declaration of Sentiments, drafted by organizer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first public demand for women's suffrage was made. The declaration read in part, "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her." At the time, women couldn't vote, they couldn't serve on juries, they were barred from most professions, were excluded from higher education, and were represented by their husbands in almost every way.
Women did not get the right to vote until 1920, 72 years after the convention.
From the July 19, 2010, Writers’ Almanac, Garrison Keillor
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her children, in 1848
