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Elizabeth Cady Stanton Biography

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Image

STANTON, Elizabeth Cady (1815–1902). An American reformer and pioneer leader in the woman’s suffrage movement. She was born at Johnstown, N. Y., and married Henry B. Stanton (q.v.), the antislavery reformer. She became interested in the antislavery and other reform movements at an early age, and through acquaintance with Lucretia Mott (q.v.) was led to sign the call for the first woman’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1848. This convention made the first formal demand for the extension of the suffrage to women, and of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association there formed Mrs. Stanton became the first president, retaining that office until 1893. From 1848 she devoted much time to traveling from State to State, addressing political conventions and State Legislatures in behalf of woman’s rights. In 1868 she was a candidate for Congress. She was connected editorially with various reform periodicals, and was joint author with Susan B. Anthony and others of A History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., 1887–1902). For her daughter, also a leader in the woman’s suffrage movement, see Blatch, Harriot Stanton. Consult Mrs. Stanton’s autobiography, Eighty Years and More (New York, 1898).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 451.