Spanish

Before women had gained the right to vote, their husbands would have all rights over them. They could not have any participation in political parties, a say in choosing how many children to have, they could not own property, or even file a lawsuit under their name. The struggle that women had to go through in order to achieve that so wanted right to suffrage, instead of weakening them, it madethem fight harder and longer until they succeeded.
Abigail Adams was the one of the first women to have political influence without being in her husband’s shadows. Adams, Mercy Warren and Hannah Winthrop were selected by the Massachusetts Colony General Court to question Massachusetts women who were accused of remaining loyal to Britain and opposing the independence movement. "…you are now apolitician and now elected into an important office, that of judges of Tory ladies, which will give you, naturally, an influence with your sex," her husband wrote her in response to the appointment. This was the first instance of a First Lady who held any quasi-official government position.” (The National First Ladies' Library, 2009). Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband in 1776 telling him:[Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands….If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies [sic] we are determined to foment a Rebellion.] (Nash, 1998, 7)
Her request fell on deaf ears, for her husband John Adams ignored it and wrote to James Sullivan that women should not beallowed to vote. Seventy-two years after the letter that foretold the women’s rights movement, the battle for the women’s right to vote officially began in Seneca Falls Women’s Right Convention.
Over three hundred men and women were in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, listening to all sorts of speeches about the rights for women and what they deserved to get as well. “After a series of discussions,the Seneca Falls group passed a Declaration of Sentiments on Friday, July 20, 1848” (Monroe, 1998, 7). This Declaration of Sentiments was created by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary Ann McClintock and Martha C. Wright. It modified the Declaration of Independence “as a statement of women’s rights” (Nash, 1998, 11). Stanton listed complaints that provided the history ofinjustice that men had towards women. This document was considered the first women’s public protest in the United States against their political, economic, and social inferiority.
In 1850, another convention was held in Akron, Ohio to pressure the state constitutional convention to deal with the women’s political equality issue. Another convention held later that year in Worcester, Massachusettsattracted eight feminists. Together they “set up a coordinating committee, a plan for women’s right to vote campaigns in their states, and committees to report on the educational, industrial, legal, and social status of women.” (Nash, 1998, 13)
Amelia Bloomer, from Seneca, started a monthly women’s temperance newspaper called The Lily. There she would express her views on making alcohol illegal.Stanton saw her newspaper as an opportunity to promote women’s rights and immediately sold Amelia her idea. “The Lily became the only publication I the country to spread accurate news about the women’s rights movement.” (Nash, 1998, 13)
A former teacher, mostly known in history as “The Battle’s First General”, Susan Brownell Anthony, left her job once she had become dissatisfied. She joined theCanajoharie Daughters of Temperance. On her quest in organizing efforts and speeches, she became aware of the injustices that were happening. “She reflected on her mother’s life, and soon began to reflect on women’s lives in general.” (Nash, 1998, 16). Anthony wanted to meet Stanton, and once they met, they complemented each other. “Their intellectual and emotional compatibility charged both women....