Seneca Falls Convention

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t some movements bequeath to others as part of the dynamics of social reform and change.
The Seneca Falls convention addressed a broad spectrum of issues, including women’s economic position, legal status, occupational possibilities, educational opportunities, familial roles, and political disenfranchisement. (Barbara Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity, pg. 80-81) After 1848, numerous women’s rights conventions were held in various locations until the Civil War. The conventions disseminated and popularized ideas about women’s rights through the network provided by the abolitionist movement and by the female antislavery societies in particular. At the same time that it facilitated the spread of these ideas, the abolitionist movement inhibited the development of women’s right organizations by providing an existing organizational network. Hence, the abolitionist movement nurtured emergent women’s rights ideology while constricting women’s independent organizational development. (Brownmiller, In our Time, pg. 65-67) As a result, no major women’s rights organizations or associations were formed despite a dozen years of agitation leading up to the Civil War.
This organizational time lag revives the dilemma of defining social movements and thereby dating their origins. If movements are defined on the basis of distinct sentiments, then the women’s movement may be dated from early to mid-1840s. If movements are defined on the basis of networks of people acting on distinct sentiments, then the women’s movement may be dated from the series of women’s rights conventions initiated at Seneca Falls in 1848 and continuing over the next twelve years. If mov...