The World Shaken by Revolution.-Such was the quickening of women's minds in 1848when the world was startled once more by a revolution in France which spread to Germany,Poland,Austria,Hungary,and Italy.Once more the people of the earth began to explore the principles of democracy and expound human rights.Women,now better educated and more "advanced"in their ideas,played a r?le of still greater importance in that revolution.They led in agitations and uprisings.They suffered from reaction and persecution.From their prison in France,two of them who had been jailed for too much insistence on women's rights exchanged greetings with American women who were rais-ing the same issue here.By this time the women had more supporters among the men.Horace Greeley,editor of the New York Tribune,though he afterwards recanted,used his powerful pen in their behalf.Anti-slavery leaders welcomed their aid and repaid them by urging the enfranchisement of women.
The Woman's Rights Convention of 1848.-The forces,moral and intellec-tual,which had been stirring among women,crystallized a few months after the outbreak of the European revolution in the first Woman's Rights Convention in the history of America.It met at Seneca Falls,New York,in 1848,on the call of Lucretia Mott,Martha Wright,Elizabeth Cady Stanton,and Mary Ann McClin-tock,three of them Quakers.Accustomed to take part in church meetings with men,the Quakers naturally suggested that men as well as women be invited to attend the convention.Indeed,a man presided over the conference,for that posi-tion seemed too presumptuous even for such stout advocates of woman's rights.
The deliberations of the Seneca Falls convention resulted in a Declaration of Rights modeled after the Declaration of Independence.For example,thepreamble began:"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied...."So also it closed:"Such has been the patient suffering of women under this government and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled."Then followed the list of grievances,the same number which had been exhibited to George III in 1776.Especially did they assail the disabilities imposed upon them by the English common law imported into America-the law which denied married women their property,their wages,and their legal existence as separate persons.All these grievances they recited to "a candid world."The remedies for the evils which they endured were then set forth in detail.They demanded "equal rights"in the colleges,trades,and professions;equal suffrage;the right to share in all political offices,honors,and emoluments;the right to complete equality in marriage,including equal guardianship of the children;and for married women the right to own property,to keep wages,to make contracts,to transact business,and to testify in the courts of justice.In short,they declared women to be persons as men are persons and entitled to all the rights and privileges of human beings.Such was the clarion call which went forth to the world in 1848-to an amused and contemptuous world,it must be admitted-but to a world fated to heed and obey.
The First Gains in Civil Liberty.-The convention of 1848did not make po-litical enfranchisement the leading issue.Rather did it emphasize the civil dis-abilities of women which were most seriously under discussion at the time.In-deed,the New York legislature of that very year,as the result of a twelve years'agitation,passed the Married Woman's Property Act setting aside the general principles of the English common law as applied to women and giving them many of the "rights of man."California and Wisconsin followed in 1850;Massa-chusetts in 1854;and Kansas in 1859.Other states soon fell into line.Women's earnings and inheritances were at last their own in some states at least.In a little while laws were passed granting women rights as equal guardians of their children and permitting them to divorce their husbands on the grounds of cru-elty and drunkenness.
By degrees other steps were taken.The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania was founded in 1850,and the Philadelphia School of Design for Women three years later.In 1852the American Women's Educational Association was formed to initiate an agitation for enlarged educational opportunities for women.Other colleges soon emulated the example of Oberlin:the University of Utah in 1850;Hillsdale College in Michigan in 1855;BakerUniversity in Kansas in 1858;and the University of Iowa in 1860.New trades and professions were opened to women and old prejudices against their activities and demands slowly gave way.
