Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was born in Johnstown, New York, and graduated from the Troy Female Seminary (now the Emma Willard School). She became interested in women's rights and in abolition during the 1830's. She and Henry B. Stanton, an abolitionist leader, were married in 1840. That same year, they went to London for the World Anti-Slavery Convention. But the delegates voted to exclude women.

During the 1850's and the Civil War (1861-1865), Stanton worked for women's rights and for abolition. After slavery was abolished in 1865, she broke with abolitionists who favored voting rights for blacks but not for women. In 1869, Stanton and the women's rights leader Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton was its president until 1890.

In 1878, Stanton persuaded Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California to sponsor a woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This amendment was reintroduced every year until 1919, when Congress finally approved it. In 1920, it became the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Excerpt adapted from the "Elizabeth Cady Stanton" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999