Reformers: An Early Voice for Equality - PDF

# An Early Voice for Equality ## Lucretia Mott - Lucretia Coffin was born 1793 in Massachusetts. Studied at a Quaker school and became a teacher. - Married James Mott in 1811. They lived in Philadelphia where she became a Quaker Minister in 1821 - They helped start an anti-slavery society in 183...

# An Early Voice for Equality ## Lucretia Mott - Lucretia Coffin was born 1793 in Massachusetts. Studied at a Quaker school and became a teacher. - Married James Mott in 1811. They lived in Philadelphia where she became a Quaker Minister in 1821 - They helped start an anti-slavery society in 1833, Lucretia was a leader. **Quote:** *"We can express our morality in the Free Produce Effort: No buying cotton or sugar made by enslaved people!"* - Lucretia and other women were not allowed to talk at an anti-slavery event in London in 1840. **Quote:** *"Women are unfit for the serious debates of this public meeting! Their role is at home!"* - * Lucretia became friends with Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the London event. - On the issue of speaking in public, she told Elizabeth Cady Stanton *"You have the same right to think for yourself that Luther, Calvin, or any man has - the same right to be guided by your own thoughts and beliefs!"* - *A few weeks ago, 5 out of 84 delegates in the Liberty party wanted me to run as Vice President on their ticket!! I have no taste for elections, but I have great faith in Elizabeth’s plans.* ## Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Born 1815 in Upstate New York and received a good education, but found few choices for women. - *Quote:* *"Wait - we women get almost no property rights?!? "* - Learned by reading her father's law books. - *Quote:* *"All I hear is no, no, no."* - Met Henry Stanton at anti-slavery meetings. They married in 1840. - On their honeymoon, Elizabeth was shocked when female delegates were not allowed to speak at an anti-slavery conference in London. - Became friends with Lucretia Mott at the London event. - Started reading Wollstonecraft and Fran Wright. - *Quote:* *"I’m not here to just make pudding and do good fine stitchery Henry."* - *Quote:* *"The men are crushing our pride! This is humiliating."* - They moved to Seneca Falls, New York, where she felt it was too quiet. - *Quote:* *"I am suffering from mental hunger."* - *Quote:* *"Man’s intellectual superiority can’t be decided until women have had a fair chance first!"* - Said to Henry at the Seneca Falls Convention *"Let’s hold a conference in America to call for women’s rights to be legally recognized!!" * - When Lucretia visited her, Elizabeth begged her to help host a public meeting. *Quote:* *"It is remarkable that men who feel so keenly the wrongs done to slaves are so fogged to wrongs done to their own mothers, wives, and sisters!"* ## Frederick Douglass - Born about 1818 to a woman enslaved on a plantation in Maryland. - Sent to Baltimore to be a house servant when his mother died. - Learned by copying his master's notebook in secret. - *Quote:* *"I can learn as much Tommy by copying his notebook secretly!"* - Married Anna Murray and they chose a new name, Douglass. - Became a famous speaker and in 1843, he left on a six month tour to speak against slavery. - *Quote:* *"An Indiana mob attacks him and breaks his hand!"* - Published his autobiography in 1845, it was a best seller. - Quote:* *"I have escaped from a den of hungry lions."* - Said *"It’s too popular, I need to visit England to be safe from slave catchers"* - *Quote : *$700 - No more! We've brought your legal freedom!* - Returned to the US in 1847 and started an anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester, New York - *Quote:* *"Right is of no one sex, truth is of no one color, God is father of us all."* - *Quote:* *"It is common sense that those who suffer injustice must have the voice to fight it! It is time for women to fight the dens of villany that they must face every day."* # Seneca Falls Convention - As with most years, the Declaration of Independence was read on July 4th, 1848. - *Quote:* *"All men are created equal!"* - On July 11th, an ad in a newspaper in Seneca County announced a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. It would be held in the Wesleyan Chapel on July 19th and 20th. - 300 people, mostly from Seneca Falls, attended the convention. - *Quote:* *"Most of the 300 people who show up are from the Seneca Falls area."* - *Quote:* *"And men force us to submit to laws that we had no voice in forming!!" * - Lucretia Mott spoke a few times on day one and Elizabeth Cady Stanton read the *"Declaration of Sentiments."* - Frederick Douglass spoke on Day two of the convention. - *Quote:* *"The demand for voting rights goes too far."* - Quote:* *"Lizzie you may make the whole event a joke!"* - *Quote:* *"That demand is so strange in 1848 that Stanton’s husband skips town during the event to avoid any angry outcry."* - *Quote:* *"It is grossly insulting to have men who are fools or horseracing rowdies able to vote while women are thrust out of all the rights that belong to an American citizen! The right to vote must be ours. Use it we will!! Our pens, our tongues, and our fortunes must be given to win this!"* - Quote:* *"All that marks man as smart is equally true of woman. If government is best with consent of those who are governed, then there is no reason to deny women the vote on our government!"* - *Quote:* *"Both are convincing: 100 of the 300 people there sign the Declaration - which includes the demand for voting rights!"* # Sojourner Truth - Isabella Bomfree was born in 1797 into slavery in Poughkeepsie, New York. - *Quote:* *"Traveling for equality."* - She was bought and sold four times. - She was forced to do hard labor and had her first of five children as a teenager. - She escaped to freedom in 1827. - *Quote:* *"God calls me to travel, speaking as "Sojourner Truth"!"* - She worked as a helper for the poor in New York City for 15 years. - *Quote:* *"She does not go to he Women's Rights meet at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848."* - *Quote:* *"But my friend Fred Douglass goes!"* - *Quote:* *"The people who hate slavery and support women's rights are fighting harder these days." * - Quote:* *"Now what?!" - *Quote:* *"Sojourner goes to a women's rights conference in Akron Ohio in 1851."* - *Quote:* *"When a man says women cannot be equal to men because women are weaker, she replies: *"I have as much muscle as any man! I can do as much work as you. I have plowed, reaped, and husked, chopped and mowed. I can carry as much as any man and eat as much too - and Ain’t I a Woman?!"* - *Quote:* *"She combined the two most hated elements: she was black, and a woman, and all of the insults that could be cast on color and sex were hurled at her. But she stood, calm and dignified, a grand, wise woman who couldn’t read or write and yet could penetrate the very soul of the universe."*