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Unit 6 – Assignment
Kelly Combs
Kaplan University
SS 310 Section 25
Professor Boris Nikolov
November 27, 2012
Women’s Movement
America’s women’s movement got off to a very slow start. The pursuit of liberty and equality during the time of the revolution did not include women rights. In accordance with author, Harrison, (2008), in 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams during the Second Continental Congress meeting; expressing her advocacy of women’s voice and representation to be heard. Not until the 1830’s antislavery movement, did women’s realization of oppression as second class citizens become more vivid even among progressive minded colleagues.
July 20, 1848, the first women’s rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY. There Elizabeth Stanton among other first women’s activists drafted the Declaration of Sentiments asserting that all men and women were created equal. Within the Declaration they outlined grievances and set the agenda for the women’s rights movement including reform to marriage and divorce, expanding property rights to women, dress reform and securing the right to vote. (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).
Women’s suffrage was a central focus of the women’s rights platform led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who turned over control to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869; with the primary goal of the organization to achieve voting rights for women by means of a congressional amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). Seventy-two years later from the date of the first women’s rights convention, more specifically, August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote was signed into law by Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby. (Infoplease, 2000-2007).
Following achieving the right to vote, feminists continued to lead the movement focusing on obtaining additional equal rights for women. “Leaders advocated women’s rights to control...