Three Contemporary Newspaper Reports of the Seneca Falls and Rochester Women s Rights Conventions of 1848, and the Ohio Women s Convention at Salem in 1850 [Published in: The New York Organ and Temperance Safeguard; Newburyport Herald; and New-York Weekly Tribune]

Date d'édition : 1848

A propos de cet article

A gathering of three contemporary newspapers reporting on the first three American women s rights conventions. The first two were held in New York: at Seneca Falls (July 19th and 20th, 1848), and just two weeks later at nearby Rochester (August 2nd, 1848); the third was held at Salem, Ohio (April 19th and 20th, 1850). All three newspapers are complete as published, in very good or better condition overall. The first report, published in the conservative New York Organ and Temperance Safeguard (August 5, 1848) on the recent "Woman s Rights" convention at Seneca Falls, is written in the form of an editorial which can be interpreted either as derisive or supportive in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The second report, published in the Massachusetts Newburyport Herald (August 18, 1848) under the headline: "Women s Rights Convention. Insurrection of the Ladies against the Lords of Creaiion [sic], " combines commentary on the proceedings at Seneca Falls and Rochester, with a long report on the just concluded follow-up convention at Rochester, the home of many reform activists. Both Lucretia Mott and Frederick Douglass, who led the proceedings at Seneca Falls, agreed to stay in the area long enough to participate in the Rochester convention, which elected Abigail Bush as its presiding officer, making it the first U.S. public meeting of both sexes to be presided by a woman. Special attention is given to Mott and Douglass: "After the election of officers … Mr. William C. Nell read an eloquent essay on the rights of women," in which he added lavish praise of women while at the same time "denouncing man as a tyrant," to which "Lucrecia Mott took some exceptions … She said that man was not by nature a tyrant, but had been made tyrannical by the power which had by general consent been conferred upon him. She merely wished that woman might be entitled to equal rights, and acknowledged as the equal of man, not his superior … ." Also "Frederick Douglass, of this city, followed in an eloquent and argumentative appeal for woman and woman s rights, replying to the gentleman who had spoken on the other side." The third report: "The Rights of Woman. Great Convention of Women in Ohio," was published in the liberal New-York Weekly Tribune (May 4, 1850). It prints an extensive five-and-a-half-column front-page report by a correspondent including: the Convention s 22 resolutions printed in full, a description of its leaders, and a strongly worded statement focused on women s lack of human rights under the law (written by Convention President Betsey Mix Cowles). Also published are letters written by prominent activists unable to attend: Lydia Jane Pierson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sarah Pugh, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy Stone. "The call of a Convention to frame a new Constitution for the State of Ohio has aroused the Buckeye women to an effort to secure for themselves equal rights with men in making and administering the laws by which they are to be governed … ." Unlike the first two conventions in New York, at Ohio: "Men took no part whatever in the proceedings, but attended in great numbers as spectators … ." A scarce, surviving cache of three well-preserved newspapers, containing historically important contemporary accounts of the first three landmark Woman s Rights conventions in the United States. A more detailed description of all three newspapers is available.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Three Contemporary Newspaper Reports of the Seneca Falls and Rochester Women s Rights Conventions of 1848, and the Ohio Women s Convention at Salem in 1850 [Published in: The New York Organ and Temperance Safeguard; Newburyport Herald; and New-York Weekly Tribune]
• Date de parution: 1848
• État de l'article: Very Good