Elizabeth Cady Stanton played a leadership role in the women’s rights movement. She was the daughter of a lawyer, and she showed early her desire to excel in intellectual and other ‘male’ spheres. In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton married a reformer Henry Stanton, and they went at once to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where she joined other women in objecting to the fact that they were not allowed into the assembly.
Elizabeth was for many years the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies and documents. Along with other women, she took the lead in proposing that women be granted the right to vote. She continued to write and lecture on women’s rights and other reforms of the day, including the right to divorce.
During the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton concentrated her efforts on abolishing slavery, but afterwards, she became even more outspoken in promoting the right to vote for women. She travelled widely to give lectures and speeches. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died on October 26th, 1902, and was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable individuals in American history.
