Seneca Falls Convention speaker. Seems to depict Lucretia Mott.
On July 19, 1848, the first day of the Seneca Falls Convention began in Seneca Falls, NY at Wesleyan Chapel. Elizabeth Cady Stanton would begin the convention with an opening speech that went as follows:
"We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed – to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love; laws test against such unjust laws as these that we are assembled today, and to have them, if possible, forever erased from our statute-books, deeming them as a shame and a disgrace to a Christian republic in the nineteenth century.…" (to listen to full speech, please click the icon in the top right corner.)
Stanton, along with others, would deliver powerful speeches over the course of the next two days in front of over 300 people. Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and social reformer, would attend the convention on day two, as would many other men.
However, it was on day one that Stanton would speak on the Declaration of Sentiments, one of the most important documents regarding women's rights.