On 23 October 1850 the first National Women's Rights Convention in the US took place in Massachusetts.
The first motion defined their mission statement to “to secure for [woman] political, legal, and social equality with man”.
The speakers included women’s rights and anti-slavery activists like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. Other organisers of the conference also included abolitionist feminists, like Abby Kelley Foster and Lucy Stone. Over 1000 delegates from 11 states, including the recently-formed California, attended.
Media coverage of the event was largely critical, with the New York Herald describing the convention as an “Awful combination of socialism, abolitionism and infidelity.” It went on to claim that the convention organisers aimed to:
“abolish the Bible, abolish the constitution and the laws of the land, reorganize society upon a social platform of perfect equality in all things, of sexes and colors, establish the most free and miscellaneous amalgamation of sexes and colors, cut throats ad libitum, [and] abolish the gallows”.
The conference inspired women around the world, for example in the UK. Subsequent conventions would be held regularly until 1869, at which point the US movement for women’s suffrage split into two main camps: one led by individuals like Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who opposed Black men being given the right to vote, and another including Stone, which supported Black men’s suffrage.
First National Women's Rights Convention - WCH | Stories
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