Growing Up

Life in Seneca Falls

Elizabeth Cady was born in Johnstown, New 

York on November 12, 1815, the daughter of 

Daniel Cady, a lawyer, a judge, and land speculator, and Margaret Livingston Cady. Elizabeth 

was educated at a local boys school and graduated from the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, 

New York in 1832. 

She met Henry Brewster Stanton in Peterboro, 

New York, at the home of her cousin, philanthropist Gerrit Smith. Henry was a popular 

abolitionist speaker and frequently stopped 

at the Smith home in the course of his lecture 

circuit. Against her family’s wishes, she married 

Henry on May 1, 1840, in a ceremony that omitted the vow “to obey.” Their honeymoon was 

a trip to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 

London, where Henry was a delegate representing the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

At the 1840 Convention, elected women delegates were refused admission because of their 

sex. After a prolonged debate, it was decided 

that the women would sit at the rear of the hall, 

but not participate. Lucretia Mott, the Quaker 

reformer, was among the group sent from the 

floor. In the women’s section she met Elizabeth 

Cady Stanton, who shared her indignation at 

this treatment of women. Stanton and Mott 

became friends, and vowed to hold a convention, immediately upon returning to the United 

States, to discuss the injustices against women.

When the Stantons finished with their London 

trip, they returned to Johnstown, where Henry 

studied law with Judge Cady. After Henry 

passed the bar exam, they set up housekeeping 

and started a family in Albany and then moved 

to Boston. Henry joined a law practice and 

they both became active in reform circles. They 

moved to Seneca Falls in 1847, as Henry was 

in poor health and needed a change. Elizabeth 

Cady Stanton’s father invited her and her family 

to live in a house he owned at 32 Washington 

Street. In June 1847, Daniel Cady transfered the 

deed to the property to his daughter.

In Seneca Falls Elizabeth Cady Stanton first 

experienced the difficulties facing a wife and 

mother in an isolated 19th-century household. 

She lacked the intellectual and cultural stimulation she had enjoyed in Boston and found herself overwhelmed by childcare and housework. 

Women’s Rights

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

Women’s Rights

National Historical Park

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Life in Seneca Falls

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her growing family lived in Seneca Falls from 1847 to 

1862. During that time Stanton helped organize the 1848 First Woman’s Rights 

Convention and launched the reform movement for women’s rights to which she 

dedicated the rest of her life. 

She later wrote in her autobiography: “The 

general discontent I felt with women’s portion as wife, mother, housekeeper, physician, 

and spiritual guide, the chaotic conditions into 

which everything fell without constant 

supervision, impressed me with a strange feeling that some active measures should be taken 

to remedy the wrongs...of women.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

(center) with her sons 

Daniel (right) and Henry 

(left) in 1848.

Henry B. Stanton 

in 1840.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

with her second daugher 

Harriot in 1856. The 

Stanton family nearly 

doubled in size while in 

Seneca Falls. The three 

brothers who arrived in 

1847 were joined by 

another in 1851, then 

two sisters in 1852 

and 1856, then another 

brother in 1859.
The First Woman’s 

Rights Convention

Alongside 

Susan B. Anthony:

I forged the 

thunderbolts 

and she fired them

After Seneca Falls

This newfound understanding of women’s 

“proper sphere” led Stanton to complain vehe-

mently to four other women friends about its 

injustice at a gathering held July 9, 1848, at the 

home of Jane and Richard Hunt. These four 

women (Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M’Clintock, 

Martha Wright, and Jane Hunt – all wives and 

mothers) understood Stanton’s frustrations. 

Also, as active anti-slavery and temperance 

reformers, they had experienced discrimina-

tion by male coworkers. Together they decided 

to call a woman’s rights convention to publicly 

discuss these injustices against women. Lucretia 

Mott later reminded Stanton, “Remember, the 

first convention originated with thee.” 

For Elizabeth Cady Stanton, actually taking the 

first step to change her unhappy state made 

all the difference. She began to write, recruit, 

strategize, network, and organize for the cause 

of women’s rights. By 1859 her family respon-

sibilities kept her at home with her husband 

and seven children to look after. Stanton man-

aged to combine her public and private lives by 

opening her home to those who were free to 

travel and speak about advocating equal rights 

for women. She called her home “The Center 

of the Rebellion.” 

In May 1851, Amelia Bloomer introduced 

Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

Thus began a friendship which lasted over fifty 

years. As a single woman, Anthony was free of 

many of the domestic duties that tied Stanton 

to her home, which allowed Anthony to travel 

and make speeches promoting women’s rights. 

To give Stanton time to write those speeches, 

Anthony visited Seneca Falls and helped care 

for the growing Stanton family. She then took 

the speeches and writings produced by Stanton 

and traveled the countryside campaigning for 

women’s rights.

...we took turns on the domestic watchtowers, 

directing amusements, settling disputes, protecting 

the weak against the strong, and trying to secure 

equal rights to all in the home as well as the 

nation. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1898.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a determined 

advocate and unwavering voice for full rights 

of citizenship for women and nothing less. In 

1862, the Stanton family moved to New York 

City, where Stanton continued to work for 

the women’s rights movement in the U.S. and 

abroad. She believed that the movement should 

work for a broad platform of change for wom-

en’s citizenship, including: woman suffrage, 

dress reform, girls’ sports, equal employment, 

property rights, equal wages, divorce and cus-

tody law reform, collective households, coedu-

cation, and religious reform. 

After her children were grown Stanton wrote 

and lectured on all aspects of women’s rights 

and on many other current topics as well. She 

began to travel the county, and her talks on 

women’s issues were popular and well received. 

She also co-authored the three volume History 

of Woman Suffrage, before publishing her auto-

biography and the controversial Woman’s Bible. 

Though ill health prevented her from traveling 

much in later life, she continued to write on 

women’s rights until her death in 1902.

E X P E R I E N C E Y O U R A M E R I C A

Lucretia Coffin Mott 

around 1850.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

around 1865.

Susan B. Anthony 

around 1865.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

and Susan B. Anthony 

around 1890.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 

around 1890.