Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an social activist and a leading figure of the early Woman Rights Movement. She was born in November 12, 1815 in Johnstown, New York, She was the eighth child of 11 children. Elizabeth Cady was the daughter of Daniel Cady, a lawyer and politician. She studied law under her father, who later became a New York Supreme Court judge. During this period she became a strong advocate of women's rights.

In 1840 Elizabeth married the lawyer, Henry Bewster Stanton. Later that year, Stanton and Lucretia Mott, travelled to London to the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Both women were furious when they were refused permission to speak at the meeting. Stanton later recalled: "We resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women." Stanton and Lucretia Mott organised the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. It was the first Women Rights Convention. Stanton's recalled that it was "the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise" was passed. This became the focus of the group's campaign over the next few years.

In 1866 Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone established the American Equal Rights Association. A year after the organisation became active in Kansas where Negro suffrage and woman suffrage were to be decided by popular vote but both ideas were rejected. A new organisation was formed called the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). This organisation condemned the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. The NWSA also advocated easier divorce and an end to discrimination in employment and pay.

Another group, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), was also active in the campaign for women's rights and by the 1880s. After several years of negotiations, both groups merged in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton was elected as NAWSA first president but was replaced by Susan B. Anthony in 1892. Elizabeth died in New York, on 26th October, 1902.

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