Form NO. 10-300 (Rev. 10-74)
NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKUNITED ST AILS DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORNATIONALPARKSERVICE

Theme: Social and Humanitariai

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM
SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS_____________TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS______NAMEHISTORICELIZABETH CADY STANTON HOUSE

AND/OR COMMON

Elizabeth Cady Stanton House________LOCATIONSTREET & NUMBER

jz wasningron street_NOT FOR PUBLICATIONCONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTCITY, TOWN

Seneca Falls

33_ VICINITY OF
CODESTATENew York

COUNTYCODE36Seneca 99

HCLASSIFICATIONCATEGORYOWNERSHIPx STATUSPRESENT USE

DISTRICT-J'UBLIC—OCCUPIED—AGRICULTURE_ BUILDING(S)_PRIVATE—UNOCCUPIED—COMMERCIAL_STRUCTURE_BOTH_ WORK IN PROGRESS—EDUCATIONAL—SITE

PUBLIC ACQUISITION—OBJECTACCESSIBLE—MUSEUM
PARK5C—PRIVATE RESIDENCE—ENTERTAINMENT—RELIGIOUS_|N PROCESS—YES: RESTRICTED—GOVERNMENT—SCIENTIFIC—BEING CONSIDERED— YES UNRESTRICTED*NO—INDUSTRIAL—TRANSPORTATION—MILITARY—OTHER.

QOWNER OF PROPERTYNAMEMr.

Ralph Peters

STREET & NUMBER

32 Washington Street

CITY, TOWN

Seneca Falls

STATE

New York

VICINITY OF

LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION
COURTHOUSE,REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC

Seneca County Courthouse

STREET& NUMBER

CITY, TOWN

STATE

Seneca Falls

New York

REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS
TITLE

None
DATE
— FEDERAL_STATE_COUNTY—LOCALDEPOSITORY FORSURVEY RECORDS
CITY, TOWNSTATEDESCRIPTIONCHECK ONECHECK ONE_EXCELLENTCONDITION—DETERIORATED—UNALTERED-^ORIGINAL SITE

_RUINS_UNEXPOSEDX ALTERED_MOVED

_FAIR

DATE.

——————DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Located on a quiet street in a residential section of Seneca Falls, theElizabeth Cady Stanton House is a small, two story L-shaped house witha gable roof. The house is covered with white-painted shingles and has
double hung sash windows. The house is built on rubble stone masonryfoundations, and it has a partially raised basement. A screened-in front
porch is located in the angle of the L.
Aside from a small frame garage located to the southeast of the house, theproperty is kept as a simple lawn.

[1 SIGNIFICANCEPERIOD

AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW—PREHISTORIC_ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC—COMMUNITY PLANNING—LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE— 1400-1499_ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC—CONSERVATION—LAW—SCIENCE— 1500-1599_AGRICULTURE—ECONOMICS—LITERATURE—SCULPTURE
X_SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN—RELIGION_1600-1699_ARCHITECTURE—EDUCATION—MILITARY— 1700-1799_ART—ENGINEERING—MUSIC—THEATERX-1800-1899—COMMERCE—EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT—PHILOSOPHY—TRANSPORTATION— 1900-—COMMUNICATIONS—INDUSTRY—POLITICS/GOVERNMENT—OTHER (SPECIFY)—INVENTIONSPECIFIC DATES(years ofg-t-a

BUILDER/ARCHITECTSTATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as one of the leaders of the 19th century women's rightrv
movement, and the instigator of the suffragette movement in America, was largely
responsible for the successful revolution in women's status in American society.
While living in her simple two story frame house at 32 Washington Street, inSeneca Falls, New York, Mrs. Stanton met with Lucretia Mott and they together
held the nation's first women's rights convention, where Mrs. Stanton first
advocated women's right to vote, in her "Declaration of Sentiment."
From the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, until her death in 1902, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton continued to pursue and amplify her goals for women through both
her writing and her public appearances.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton House in Seneca Falls is a privately-owned residence,and is not open to the public.
BIOGRAPHY

Born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York, Elizabeth apparently owed
her education more to a friendly Presbyterian minister than to her parents. Itwas he who stimulated her desire to learn, causing her to study Greek, Latin,and mathematics in a boy's academy in Johnstown, where she won the second prizein Greek. Following that schooling, she attended the academy operated by Emma
Willard in Troy and was graduated in 1832.
Although but seventeen when she left Emma Willard, Elizabeth had alreadyexperienced the inequities of being a female and her ire had been aroused.
And it continued to be so as she matured. As a young girl, Elizabeth had
discovered the inequality of the sexes when following her brother's deathher father had frequently lamented that she had not been a boy. Moreover, allof her efforts to take her brother's place had been rejected by her father.
After she had begun to read and to understand more of the world, she contemplated
the injustice meted out to women as they sought aid in her father's law office
and were told the law had no help for them. Tken at Emma Willard, she experienced
the stringent separation of the sexes, which had come to seem senseless andhypocritical.
When twenty-five, Elizabeth experienced two decisive events. She married
Henry Brewster Stanton on May 10, 1840, having had the word "obey" deleted fromthe marriage ceremony, and in him acquired the perfect companion apropos of her(continued)

MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Katherine Anthony t Susan B. Anthony (New York, 1954).
Constance Burnett ; Five for Freedom (New York, 1953).
Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, the Woman's Rights Movements in the UnitedStates (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).
Alma Lutz 3 Created Equal, A Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (New York, 1940)

3GEOGRAPHICAL DATAACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY

less than one acre

UTM REFERENCES^^3c __| 1 1 , i 1 1 1 I , I , [ 1 , |A|l,8|
ZONE| 3|5 ,4 [0 I 2 t°l|4,7I5f 2[EASTINGNORTHING, 1 i iPi • | I 1 , 1 , , I 1 , 1 , I 1 1
M , I , , | t

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VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton House National' Historic Landmark boundaries are thoseof the lot upon which the house stands and are coterminous with Tax Parcel 13-1-3 on
the Seneca Falls Tax Map (attached). The west boundary measures 90' from north to south
along the east curb of Washington St., and the north and south boundaries extend east for230', and the eastern boundary runs south between them parallel to the westernboundary for 90'..
———————LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES
STATE

CODE

COUNTY

CODE

STATE

CODE

COUNTYCODE

FORM PREPARED BY
NAME/TITLEORGANIZATIONDATESTREET & NUMBERTELEPHONE

CITY OR TOWNSTATE

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATIONTHE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS:
NATIONAL__STATE___LOCAL___As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I
hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to thecriteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.
FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVE SIGNATUREDATE(NATIONAL HISTORIC
LAfiDMARKSfc .

Form No. 10-300a(Rev 10-74)

UNIThDSTATLSDhPARlML Nl Ol THL IMhklOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICEFOR NFS USE ONLYRECEIVEDNATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM

COISm^UATSQiSi £HEET E ' C ' Stanton House ITEM NUMBER

DATE ENTERED

8PAGE

2_____________________

future dedication to woman's rights. Understanding and sympathetic, he aided
her throughout her long years of battle. Then immediately after her marriage,
she sailed with Henry to London, where he was to attend a world anti-slavery
convention. The convention's refusal to seat female delegates further aroused
Elizabeth, but even more significantly, she met the then most eminent crusader
for women's rights in America, Lucretia Mott. Lucretia had already assumed aradical role for herself, and her experience and personality infused Elizabeth
with a determination to wage the fight for female equality. As a result of their
meeting, Lucretia and Elizabeth both agreed that a woman's rights convention shouldbe held in America upon their return.
The rights convention was to be delayed, but Elizabeth's contempt for maledomination increased. An experience in 1842 with a doctor, who said that
Elizabeth's improvement of a bandage on her first born was due to a mother'sinstinct, which was better than man's reason, led her to write subsequently:
I trusted neither men nor books absolutely after
this, either in regard to the heavens above or theearth beneath, but continued to use my 'mother's
instinct' if reason is-^too dignified a term to apply
to a woman's thoughts.
In 1846, Elizabeth and her family moved to Seneca Falls, New York which
unsuspecting small rural community was soon to play host to the nation's
first woman's rights convention. Stanton's vigorous wife quickly became boredwith the uneventful life in her village home, and when she re-met Lucretia
Mott in 1848, in a neighboring town, the two acted on their earlier scheme
to call a woman's rights convention. They issued a call for a meeting inSeneca Falls for July 19-20, 1848, and drafted a Declaration of Sentiments,
following the style of the Declaration of Independence. At Elizabeth's insistence,
the Declaration noted that women lacked the vote and a resolution was written
advocating the ballot for women. She had insisted on those statements concerning
voting as she had decided that the best way of achieving equality was throughthe ballot. The convention was carried off successfully, as was a second one in
Rochester, New York in August, 1848, and they alerted women over the country to
the fledgling woman's rights movements. The convention also attracted maleattention and as few men viewed the development with alarm, newspapers, such as
the Philadelphia Public Leader, treated the crusaders jocularly:(continued)
Quoted in Alma Lutz. Created Equal, A Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton(New York, 1940), pp. 36-37.

Form No. 10-300a(Rev 10-74)

UNITLDSTAThSDLPARlMt N 1 Ol THh IMhRlOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICENATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY « NOMINATION FORM

COISm NUAT3QN SHEETE. C. Stanton

ITEM NUMBER

PAGEHouse
A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty
girl is equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is,
next to God, all powerful. . . The ladies of Philadelphia,
therefore, under the influence of the most serious sober
second thoughts are resolved to maintain their rights
as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as
Women.
But it was not too long before the righteous male became more scurrilous andvehement, especially, perhaps, when he learned that in 1849 men had been
forbidden to speak at a women's convention held in Salem, Ohio.
Although interested in woman's rights in general, Elizabeth concentrated onfighting for the vote. At the various woman's meetings, she always tried tokeep that as the main issue. When the Civil War came, she and other female
agitators loyally supported the Union, even helping to'collect some 400,000
signatures in support of the Thirteenth Amendment. Having supported theabolitionists before 1861 and their subsequent efforts to secure complete
equality for the Negro, Elizabeth and her fellow workers suffered bitter
disappointment when the former abolitionists refused to support their crusade
for the vote after 1865. This convinced the feminists that men could not be
relied on for support, and when Elizabeth helped to found the National WomanSuffrage Association in 1869, it was decided that no men should hold office or
influence the group's policies, Elizabeth served as president for most of theperiod between 1869 and 1890, and she became president of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association when that organization was formed out of the National
Woman Suffrage Association and another female suffrage group.
Despite her emphasizing the fight for the ballot, Elizabeth spoke boldly on
numerous matters after 1865. While editor of the militant woman's periodical,Revolution, in 1868-69, Elizabeth wrote in defense of women unjustly treated indivorce actions, declaimed against discrimination in employment and job opportunity, and attacked the "derogatory concept of women fostered by establishedreligion." 3 She also began to lecture, and between 1869-81, she travelled from
October to June throughout the country, talking to women on the position of the(continued)

2Quoted in Lutz, Created Equal, p. 197.
3 Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, The Woman's Rights Movement in the UnitedStates (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 151.

Form No. 10-300a(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED S TAILS DLFAR 1 ML N 1 Ol THh 1M l-.RIOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICEFOR NPS USE ONiYRECEIVEDNATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM

CONTINUATION SHEET__E. C. Stanton
House

ITEM NUMBER

8____PAGE____4_______________""" """"""""" "~~female. Her most applauded talk was entitled, "Our Girls," which called forthe training of young women, so that they could compete on a basis of equality
with men. She frequently encountered hostility on the lecture platform, but herquickness and sense of humor usually turned such situations to her advantage.
Once, when speaking at the Nebraska Constitutional Convention in 1875 and urging
the convention to give women in the state the vote, she was interrupted by aman who asked if it were not best for women to bear and raise children, hiswife having had eight. Elizabeth glanced at him, and quickly replied,
I have met few men worth repeating eight times 4
Twleve years after becoming president of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association which position she held until 1892, Elizabeth died. Yet her influence
remained, and the results of her work are still apparent today.

Quoted in Lutz, Created Equal, p. 197.