WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Okay, let's unpack this. We are diving deep into 00:00:03.419 --> 00:00:06.019 a figure everyone thinks they know, but whose 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:08.900 true complexity, I mean, it often gets buried 00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:12.179 under that one simple label, suffragist. Exactly. 00:00:12.759 --> 00:00:14.660 And that's the key, right? We're talking about 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:16.800 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and our mission today 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:19.820 is to move her far beyond that simple pedestal. 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:22.440 Our source material, and we have a wealth of 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:25.760 it, it forces us to look at ECS, the writer, 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:28.480 the constitutional theorist, the radical critic 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.460 of religion. And an activist whose ideas were 00:00:30.460 --> 00:00:33.159 often way too far out, even for her own movement. 00:00:33.380 --> 00:00:36.229 Yes. We want to get a handle on the surprising, 00:00:36.469 --> 00:00:38.969 often challenging scope of her thought and why 00:00:38.969 --> 00:00:41.750 she was really the absolute intellectual founder 00:00:41.750 --> 00:00:44.170 of American feminism. It's an essential distinction 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:46.729 to make because while the eventual victory of 00:00:46.729 --> 00:00:48.549 the 19th Amendment is what she's remembered for, 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:50.929 Stanton's work was fundamentally revolutionary. 00:00:51.390 --> 00:00:54.969 It set the stage for, well, for every major feminist 00:00:54.969 --> 00:00:56.810 issue that followed. She wasn't just interested 00:00:56.810 --> 00:00:59.549 in the vote. Not at all. She was interested in 00:00:59.549 --> 00:01:02.520 total equality. And that meant taking on property 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:05.340 rights, reforming the deeply conservative institution 00:01:05.340 --> 00:01:08.659 of marriage and divorce, and maybe most dangerously 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:11.760 of all, launching a direct sustained criticism 00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:14.879 of organized religion itself. Right. She was 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:17.209 the philosophical engine. the one who articulated 00:01:17.209 --> 00:01:19.709 why women were oppressed, even if her famous 00:01:19.709 --> 00:01:22.129 partner, Susan B. Anthony, was often the one 00:01:22.129 --> 00:01:24.349 managing the logistics of the fight. And to really 00:01:24.349 --> 00:01:27.129 grasp that relentless intellectual drive, that 00:01:27.129 --> 00:01:29.709 root of her rebellion, we have to start at this 00:01:29.709 --> 00:01:32.129 defining moment of her childhood. It's a key 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:35.109 nugget from her memoir, 80 Years and More. She 00:01:35.109 --> 00:01:37.310 was 10 years old. Her last surviving brother, 00:01:37.469 --> 00:01:39.870 Eleazar, died suddenly at age 20, just after 00:01:39.870 --> 00:01:41.950 graduating from Union College. And the catty 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:45.209 household was just steeped in grief. Eleazar 00:01:45.209 --> 00:01:47.540 is the last. last of six sons to die before reaching 00:01:47.540 --> 00:01:50.840 adulthood. The loss was devastating. So Elizabeth 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:53.659 goes to comfort her father, Daniel Cady, a stern 00:01:53.659 --> 00:01:57.099 man but devoted, a high -ranking judge. She tries 00:01:57.099 --> 00:01:59.480 to assure him, tells him she'll study hard, that 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:01.439 she'll try to be everything her brother had been. 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:04.099 And what does her grieving father, this pillar 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:07.359 of the community and the law, say to his exceptional, 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:09.759 devoted daughter? He looks at her and says, Oh, 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.520 my daughter, I wish you were a boy. Wow. And 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:14.460 that moment... Delivered by the most important 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:19.699 man in her young wife, it provided this indelible, 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:23.000 deep psychological motive for her entire lifelong 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.580 rebellion. It had to. The 10 -year -old was made 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:28.639 acutely, painfully aware of the conditional nature 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.419 of her worth. That her ambition, her intellect, 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:34.219 it was somehow diminished simply by her gender. 00:02:34.300 --> 00:02:36.199 It instantly framed her pursuit of equality, 00:02:36.539 --> 00:02:38.919 not just as a political goal for others, but 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:41.740 as a personal existential necessity. She carried 00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.379 that scar and that resolve for her whole life. 00:02:44.620 --> 00:02:46.319 So let's delve further into this background. 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.120 It's privileged, for sure, but also so emotionally 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.939 complex. And it's what ultimately gave her the 00:02:51.939 --> 00:02:54.240 tools to wage that rebellion. Elizabeth Cady 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:56.819 was born in 1815 into one of the most prominent 00:02:56.819 --> 00:02:59.340 wealthy families in Johnstown, New York. Her 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:02.060 father, Daniel Cady, wasn't just a U .S. congressman. 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:04.560 He was a New York Supreme Court justice and one 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:06.520 of the richest landowners in the state. So we're 00:03:06.520 --> 00:03:09.020 talking about a life of immense social standing, 00:03:09.259 --> 00:03:13.340 material comfort. Absolutely. The family mansion 00:03:13.340 --> 00:03:16.180 sat grandly on the town square, and the sources 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:19.719 say they employed up to 12 servants. This reflects 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:22.280 a life completely removed from the common struggle 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:25.919 of 19th century domesticity. That wealth gave 00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:28.419 her an insulation and an access that very few 00:03:28.419 --> 00:03:30.919 women of her era enjoyed. But the home itself 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:34.659 was, it sounds like, a study in contrasts politically 00:03:34.659 --> 00:03:37.699 and temperamentally. Oh, completely. While her 00:03:37.699 --> 00:03:40.479 father was intensely conservative, a Whig who 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:43.300 believed in established order, her mother, Margaret 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:45.759 Cady, was strong -willed, imposing at nearly 00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:49.020 six feet tall, and held significantly more progressive 00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:51.819 views. And that parental divide is crucial. It 00:03:51.819 --> 00:03:54.860 is. Margaret supported the radical, uncompromising 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:56.780 Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement. 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:59.560 She was progressive enough that she even signed 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.219 a women's suffrage petition herself in 1867. 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:04.580 So while Elizabeth is growing up surrounded by 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:06.819 her father's legal conservatives, She's also 00:04:06.819 --> 00:04:09.060 constantly exposed to her mother's passion for 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:11.800 radical, immediate social change. I think it's 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:13.800 important we circle back to the immense grief 00:04:13.800 --> 00:04:16.040 that shadowed this home. You said it before, 00:04:16.199 --> 00:04:19.420 but Elizabeth was the seventh of 11 children. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.360 And all six of the boys died before they could 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:24.839 reach full adulthood. It's just an unimaginable 00:04:24.839 --> 00:04:27.980 tragedy. And the series of losses had a devastating 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:30.620 effect on her mother, Margaret, who became withdrawn 00:04:30.620 --> 00:04:33.589 and often depressed. Right. The emotional environment 00:04:33.589 --> 00:04:36.790 of the house suffered severely. Much of the responsibility 00:04:36.790 --> 00:04:38.889 for raising Elizabeth and her four surviving 00:04:38.889 --> 00:04:41.910 sisters fell to the oldest daughter, Trifina, 00:04:42.089 --> 00:04:44.589 and her husband. So the loss of the male heirs 00:04:44.589 --> 00:04:47.290 didn't just affect her father emotionally. It 00:04:47.290 --> 00:04:50.290 also created this maternal void. It left Elizabeth 00:04:50.290 --> 00:04:52.709 looking outward for purpose. That's a great way 00:04:52.709 --> 00:04:54.889 to put it. And it pushed her toward her education, 00:04:55.189 --> 00:04:57.889 which was, for a woman of that time, truly exceptional. 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:01.370 She attended Johnstown Academy until age 15 and 00:05:01.370 --> 00:05:03.089 she excelled. I mean, she wasn't just taking 00:05:03.089 --> 00:05:05.189 domestic classes. She was in advanced courses 00:05:05.189 --> 00:05:07.750 in math and languages. She won second prize in 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:11.209 Greek, became a skilled debater. This early exposure 00:05:11.209 --> 00:05:14.699 to rigorous academics was transformative. It 00:05:14.699 --> 00:05:17.199 proved to her early on that she was intellectually 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:20.480 equal, if not superior, to her male peers. But 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:22.920 that reality then slams right into the societal 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:25.339 barriers. She wanted to go to Union College, 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:27.959 where her brother had studied. But no colleges 00:05:27.959 --> 00:05:30.439 at that time accepted female students, period. 00:05:30.699 --> 00:05:32.779 So instead, she had to settle for the Troy Female 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:36.360 Seminary run by Emma Willard, which, while it 00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:39.079 was the best female academy of its day, it was 00:05:39.079 --> 00:05:41.939 still a step down. A huge step down from the 00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:44.819 university education she craved. The frustration 00:05:44.819 --> 00:05:47.000 was palpable, and it pushed her back toward her 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:48.879 father. And this is where her legal knowledge 00:05:48.879 --> 00:05:51.660 was forged. Yes. Because she wasn't allowed into 00:05:51.660 --> 00:05:54.120 the professional male sphere, she joined it indirectly. 00:05:54.500 --> 00:05:56.959 Her father's law office became her classroom. 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:00.459 Daniel Cady, though stern, he recognized her 00:06:00.459 --> 00:06:02.600 intellectual curiosity and would bring her law 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:05.240 books to study. So she'd then participate in 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.639 dinner table debates with his law clerks. Exactly, 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:10.329 giving her this deep... foundational and very 00:06:10.329 --> 00:06:12.970 critical understanding of american law i find 00:06:12.970 --> 00:06:15.310 this fascinating she's spending hours in his 00:06:15.310 --> 00:06:18.250 office not just reading law texts but observing 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:21.149 the plight of the women who came seeking legal 00:06:21.149 --> 00:06:23.810 help from her father and she became intimately 00:06:23.810 --> 00:06:26.689 familiar with the doctrine of coverture can you 00:06:26.689 --> 00:06:29.329 just quickly unpack that for us sure it was the 00:06:29.329 --> 00:06:31.509 english common law principle that essentially 00:06:31.509 --> 00:06:34.350 suspended a wife's legal existence during marriage 00:06:34.350 --> 00:06:38.019 a woman was covered by her husband's legal identity 00:06:38.019 --> 00:06:41.339 so she saw firsthand how coverture left women 00:06:41.339 --> 00:06:43.980 without property rights without the ability to 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:46.139 sign contracts without guardianship of their 00:06:46.139 --> 00:06:48.829 own children That legal system wasn't abstract 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:51.329 to her. It was the mechanism of oppression she 00:06:51.329 --> 00:06:53.589 saw operating daily on her father's clients. 00:06:53.870 --> 00:06:55.709 And as if that wasn't enough radical influence, 00:06:55.970 --> 00:06:57.990 she also spent summers away at the home of her 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:00.750 cousin, Garrett Smith. Who was a major, major 00:07:00.750 --> 00:07:03.370 radical abolitionist, famous for being part of 00:07:03.370 --> 00:07:06.230 the Secret Six, the men who financed John Brown's 00:07:06.230 --> 00:07:09.189 raid on Harper's Ferry. So Smith's home was a 00:07:09.189 --> 00:07:12.689 revolutionary hotbed. Totally. It exposed her 00:07:12.689 --> 00:07:15.810 to this powerful counterpoint to her father's 00:07:15.810 --> 00:07:18.829 conservative Whig politics. It showed her that 00:07:18.829 --> 00:07:21.370 radical reform wasn't just an intellectual exercise. 00:07:21.529 --> 00:07:25.120 It was a necessary political weapon. And there's 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:27.519 this one more detail from her memoir about her 00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:30.279 childhood about slavery. Right. The hidden history. 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:33.000 The source material mentioned she had three African 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.079 -American manservants. One of them, Peter Tebowt, 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.019 was likely enslaved until New York State Emancipation 00:07:39.019 --> 00:07:41.980 in 1827. And she recalls attending the Episcopal 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.040 Church with him and her sisters. But they were 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:46.579 forced to sit in the back away from the wealthy 00:07:46.579 --> 00:07:48.560 white families. So you have this young girl. 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:50.779 Already aware of the limitations placed on her 00:07:50.779 --> 00:07:53.519 sex, seeing the even more profound and brutal 00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:56.000 limitations placed on people based on their race. 00:07:56.139 --> 00:07:58.060 It instills an early awareness of systematic 00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:00.800 injustice, which becomes immediately evident 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:02.819 in her personal life. Let's look at her first 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:05.680 major act of personal defiance, her marriage. 00:08:05.899 --> 00:08:09.040 In 1840, she married Henry Brewster Stanton, 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:12.589 a prominent abolitionist agent. Her father vehemently 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:15.149 opposed the match, primarily because Henry had 00:08:15.149 --> 00:08:17.930 limited means, was often traveling, and his politics 00:08:17.930 --> 00:08:20.449 were far too radical. Her choice itself was an 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:22.970 act of independence, but the truly defining feature 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:25.089 of the ceremony was the marriage contract itself. 00:08:25.410 --> 00:08:27.449 She insisted on the omission of one crucial, 00:08:27.689 --> 00:08:31.629 traditional word, obey. She later explained, 00:08:31.810 --> 00:08:34.190 with that characteristic defiance of hers, that 00:08:34.190 --> 00:08:38.049 she... obstinately refused to obey one with whom 00:08:38.049 --> 00:08:40.789 I supposed I was entering into an equal relation. 00:08:41.269 --> 00:08:44.490 This wasn't just symbolic. It was an active rejection 00:08:44.490 --> 00:08:47.690 of coverture applied to her own life. And she 00:08:47.690 --> 00:08:50.330 asserted her identity by consistently signing 00:08:50.330 --> 00:08:53.570 herself Elizabeth Katie Stanton or E. Katie Stanton. 00:08:53.690 --> 00:08:56.289 She was never Mrs. Henry B. Stanton. So for the 00:08:56.289 --> 00:08:59.370 next few years, between 1843 and 1847, they lived 00:08:59.370 --> 00:09:01.750 near Boston, which was at that time the vibrant 00:09:01.750 --> 00:09:04.090 hub of American intellectual and abolitionist 00:09:04.090 --> 00:09:06.610 thought. And she thrived. The Stantons connected 00:09:06.610 --> 00:09:08.809 with the major figures of the era, Frederick 00:09:08.809 --> 00:09:11.049 Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo 00:09:11.049 --> 00:09:13.450 Emerson. This environment let her sharpen her 00:09:13.450 --> 00:09:15.389 political and rhetorical skills. But then the 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:17.990 reality of domestic life dragged her back. Right. 00:09:18.230 --> 00:09:21.309 In 1847, the family moved to Seneca Falls, New 00:09:21.309 --> 00:09:23.850 York, into a large house her father bought for 00:09:23.850 --> 00:09:26.990 them. An ironic twist, really. Her conservative 00:09:26.990 --> 00:09:29.809 father's wealth enabling her later radicalism. 00:09:29.929 --> 00:09:32.610 By now, she's a mother to seven children. We're 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:35.250 on her way to having seven. And while she cherished 00:09:35.250 --> 00:09:37.450 motherhood, she quickly found herself isolated 00:09:37.450 --> 00:09:40.309 and deeply dissatisfied. And this is a critical 00:09:40.309 --> 00:09:43.110 humanizing point. She'd tasted high intellectual 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:46.149 society, only to be trapped in this new, often 00:09:46.149 --> 00:09:48.669 frustrating domestic routine. Henry's career 00:09:48.669 --> 00:09:50.690 as a lawyer and politician meant he was frequently 00:09:50.690 --> 00:09:53.769 absent, sometimes for 10 months a year. So she's 00:09:53.769 --> 00:09:56.110 left in Seneca Falls managing a large household 00:09:56.110 --> 00:09:58.429 and seven young children without the intellectual 00:09:58.429 --> 00:10:00.970 companionship she needed. The sources describe 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:03.870 her role as the stultifying role of women as 00:10:03.870 --> 00:10:06.809 wives and housekeepers. She was at a loss. How 00:10:06.809 --> 00:10:08.590 do you reengage with social reform when you're 00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:11.409 so completely tied to the home? This personal 00:10:11.409 --> 00:10:14.299 isolation, the sense of wasted potential. It 00:10:14.299 --> 00:10:16.299 was the kindling. The catalyst was about to arrive. 00:10:16.580 --> 00:10:18.840 And that catalyst arrived years before Seneca 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:21.039 Falls, actually, during her honeymoon in 1840. 00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:23.879 She and Henry attended the World Anti -Slavery 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.779 Convention in London. The irony is just overwhelming. 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:29.740 You have these abolitionists, men gathered to 00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:31.980 fight for freedom and human rights, and they 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:35.139 vote overwhelmingly to exclude all women delegates. 00:10:35.500 --> 00:10:37.519 Even those who were duly appointed by their own 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:40.379 anti -slavery societies. They forced the women, 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:42.740 including American delegates like Lucretia Mott, 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:46.220 to sit in a separate, segregated gallery hidden 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:48.879 from the main floor by heavy curtains. And Stanton, 00:10:49.139 --> 00:10:51.840 a young bride on her honeymoon, was just appalled 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:55.279 by this blatant, sickening hypocrisy. She realized 00:10:55.279 --> 00:10:57.720 instantly that the fight for universal human 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.899 rights was incomplete if it ignored the subjugation 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:03.330 of women. It was at this convention that she 00:11:03.330 --> 00:11:05.549 met and quickly bonded with Lucretia Mott, the 00:11:05.549 --> 00:11:07.610 Quaker minister and abolitionist who was much 00:11:07.610 --> 00:11:10.289 older and far more experienced. Mott became an 00:11:10.289 --> 00:11:13.190 immediate mentor. Absolutely. Stanton had never 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:15.549 even heard a woman speak publicly before. She 00:11:15.549 --> 00:11:17.909 was profoundly moved when Mott delivered a sermon 00:11:17.909 --> 00:11:20.830 in a local Unitarian chapel. Stanton credited 00:11:20.830 --> 00:11:23.389 this convention with focusing her interest squarely 00:11:23.389 --> 00:11:25.509 on women's rights. It was a moment of political 00:11:25.509 --> 00:11:28.840 epiphany born of personal insult. And the cumulative 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:31.759 effect of these experiences just reaches this 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.159 critical mass in the summer of 1848, eight years 00:11:35.159 --> 00:11:38.159 after London, a year after moving to Seneca Falls. 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:41.659 Lucretia Mott was visiting a nearby friend and 00:11:41.659 --> 00:11:45.460 Stanton just vents her long accumulating discontent, 00:11:45.460 --> 00:11:47.740 her deep frustration with the domestic isolation, 00:11:48.059 --> 00:11:50.720 legal powerlessness, intellectual stagnation 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.259 to Mott and three other progressive Quaker women. 00:11:53.549 --> 00:11:56.409 Her outburst was so charged that, as she described 00:11:56.409 --> 00:11:58.590 it, she stirred herself and the rest of the party 00:11:58.590 --> 00:12:02.090 to do and dare anything. And they agreed, on 00:12:02.090 --> 00:12:04.850 just 10 days' notice, to organize a women's rights 00:12:04.850 --> 00:12:07.929 convention in Seneca Falls, which, given the 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:09.710 short time frame and the radical nature of the 00:12:09.710 --> 00:12:11.909 concept, is astonishing they pulled it off at 00:12:11.909 --> 00:12:14.129 all. Stanton took the lead as the primary author 00:12:14.129 --> 00:12:16.570 of the convention's foundational document. the 00:12:16.570 --> 00:12:18.570 Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. And she 00:12:18.570 --> 00:12:20.509 didn't write it from scratch. She modeled it 00:12:20.509 --> 00:12:23.269 directly, phrase by phrase, on the U .S. Declaration 00:12:23.269 --> 00:12:25.490 of Independence. Which was a brilliant political 00:12:25.490 --> 00:12:29.289 move. Absolutely. By adopting the exact language 00:12:29.289 --> 00:12:32.149 of the nation's founding document, when in the 00:12:32.149 --> 00:12:35.269 course of human events, and then inserting all 00:12:35.269 --> 00:12:38.169 men and women are created equal, she was grafting 00:12:38.169 --> 00:12:40.950 the demand for women's rights onto the very foundational 00:12:40.950 --> 00:12:44.179 principles of American democracy. It listed 18 00:12:44.179 --> 00:12:46.679 grievances that women suffered under patriarchy. 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.019 While most of the grievances dealt with property 00:12:49.019 --> 00:12:52.539 rights, marriage, education, her most controversial 00:12:52.539 --> 00:12:55.159 resolution was the demand for women's right to 00:12:55.159 --> 00:12:58.419 vote, the elective franchise. And this demand 00:12:58.419 --> 00:13:00.539 was so revolutionary it almost torpedoed the 00:13:00.539 --> 00:13:03.159 convention. When Henry Stanton saw it, he told 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:04.960 his wife she was making the proceedings into 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.740 a farce. Even Lucretia Mott was initially disturbed 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:10.179 by it. Right. She argued it was too radical, 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:12.580 too far ahead of its time, and would ultimately 00:13:12.580 --> 00:13:14.840 undermine the legitimacy of their other, more 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.480 achievable demands. And yet this demand became 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.200 the defining revolutionary hallmark of the convention. 00:13:20.539 --> 00:13:23.200 And it only passed after strong vocal support 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:25.460 from abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:28.169 who attended. His presence and his articulate 00:13:28.169 --> 00:13:31.789 defense helped legitimize the idea for many attendees 00:13:31.789 --> 00:13:34.809 who were skeptical. And the declaration of sentiments 00:13:34.809 --> 00:13:38.190 became the single most important factor in spreading 00:13:38.190 --> 00:13:40.590 news of the movement, largely because of the 00:13:40.590 --> 00:13:42.450 controversy surrounding the ballot resolution. 00:13:42.809 --> 00:13:45.470 It put women's suffrage squarely on the national 00:13:45.470 --> 00:13:48.149 map. For better or for worse, yes. What's fascinating 00:13:48.149 --> 00:13:50.490 is that while she championed these radical ideas, 00:13:50.889 --> 00:13:53.990 Stanton still struggled with, you know, the logistics 00:13:53.990 --> 00:13:57.070 of radical implementation. She later spoke against 00:13:57.070 --> 00:13:59.250 the election of Abigail Bush as chair of the 00:13:59.250 --> 00:14:01.330 subsequent Rochester Women's Rights Convention. 00:14:01.610 --> 00:14:03.629 Yes, it shows that even the most radical thinkers 00:14:03.629 --> 00:14:06.049 are not immune to issues of class or control. 00:14:06.549 --> 00:14:09.029 It was a historic first for a woman to chair 00:14:09.029 --> 00:14:11.570 such a meeting, and Stanton briefly lapsed into 00:14:11.570 --> 00:14:14.409 a more traditional... perhaps hierarchical view 00:14:14.409 --> 00:14:16.289 of leadership. To her credit, though, she quickly 00:14:16.289 --> 00:14:18.929 acknowledged her error. She did. She apologized 00:14:18.929 --> 00:14:21.649 publicly for her mistake, proving her commitment 00:14:21.649 --> 00:14:24.490 to learning and growth. Moving into the 1850s, 00:14:24.509 --> 00:14:27.789 Stanton's focus was intensely practical, driven 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:29.909 by what she'd seen in her father's law office. 00:14:30.570 --> 00:14:33.830 Let's dive deeper into curvature. How did this 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:36.070 system practically intersect with her father's 00:14:36.070 --> 00:14:38.590 wealth? Was his support for property law reform 00:14:38.590 --> 00:14:41.629 truly progressive, or was it purely financial 00:14:41.629 --> 00:14:44.039 self -interest? That's a brilliant question, 00:14:44.179 --> 00:14:47.379 because it reveals the pragmatic, self -interested 00:14:47.379 --> 00:14:51.100 side of reform. Under common law coverture, the 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:54.200 husband owned the wife's property. If her husband 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:57.440 incurred debt, her property, if she had any, 00:14:57.539 --> 00:15:00.059 could be seized by his creditors. So even though 00:15:00.059 --> 00:15:02.500 Daniel Cady was conservative, the New York legislature 00:15:02.500 --> 00:15:04.500 began addressing this with the Married Women's 00:15:04.500 --> 00:15:07.960 Property Act of 1848. This law allowed wives 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:10.419 to retain property acquired before or during 00:15:10.419 --> 00:15:12.629 the marriage. And her father's support was almost 00:15:12.629 --> 00:15:15.009 certainly financial self -interest disguised 00:15:15.009 --> 00:15:18.250 as benevolence. Having lost all six sons, he 00:15:18.250 --> 00:15:20.129 wanted to ensure that his considerable wealth, 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.210 when inherited by his four surviving daughters, 00:15:22.409 --> 00:15:24.350 would be protected from the potential financial 00:15:24.350 --> 00:15:26.350 mismanagement or debts of their husbands. It 00:15:26.350 --> 00:15:28.250 was estate planning through political lobbying. 00:15:28.490 --> 00:15:30.870 Exactly. But Stanton and Anthony took that small, 00:15:31.090 --> 00:15:33.809 self -serving gain and weaponized it for true 00:15:33.809 --> 00:15:37.059 equality. Anthony organized massive petition 00:15:37.059 --> 00:15:39.919 campaigns, and Stanton successfully lobbied for 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:43.559 an improved law in 1860. The 1860 law was comprehensive. 00:15:44.159 --> 00:15:46.080 It guaranteed married women the right to their 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.799 own earnings, to sign contracts, to sue and be 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:51.179 sued, and to be joint guardians of their children. 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.120 And Stanton argued forcefully that women needed 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:56.559 the vote not just for symbolic reasons, but for 00:15:56.559 --> 00:15:59.399 concrete legal protection. Without the ballot, 00:15:59.620 --> 00:16:02.159 these property gains were perpetually vulnerable. 00:16:02.500 --> 00:16:04.919 She masterfully highlighted the similarity between 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:06.960 the legal status of women and enslaved people. 00:16:07.220 --> 00:16:09.740 She did. She then championed temperance and divorce 00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:12.470 reform, which were deeply intertwined. For Stanton, 00:16:12.610 --> 00:16:14.370 temperance wasn't about moral purity. It was 00:16:14.370 --> 00:16:17.309 about survival. Under existing laws, women had 00:16:17.309 --> 00:16:19.610 no recourse against drunken, abusive husbands 00:16:19.610 --> 00:16:21.690 who could leave their families destitute. So 00:16:21.690 --> 00:16:24.450 in 1852, as president of the Women's State Temperance 00:16:24.450 --> 00:16:27.070 Society, she delivered a keynote address calling 00:16:27.070 --> 00:16:29.090 for drunkenness to be legal grounds for divorce. 00:16:29.490 --> 00:16:31.870 Which immediately outraged religious conservatives 00:16:31.870 --> 00:16:34.610 who viewed marriage as an unbreakable covenant 00:16:34.610 --> 00:16:36.850 no matter what. And she urged women to seize 00:16:36.850 --> 00:16:39.730 control, famously saying, let no woman remain 00:16:39.730 --> 00:16:42.299 in relation of wife with the confirmed drunkard. 00:16:42.419 --> 00:16:45.419 This stance was so revolutionary that it led 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:47.779 directly to her being voted out as president 00:16:47.779 --> 00:16:50.240 the following year. It shows you the political 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.120 cost of her comprehensive vision. But her conviction 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.179 didn't waver. Later on the lecture circuit, she 00:16:56.179 --> 00:16:59.159 may divorce her perennial hot topic, defining 00:16:59.159 --> 00:17:01.539 it purely as a civil contract that should be 00:17:01.539 --> 00:17:03.500 dissolvable if it failed to produce happiness. 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:07.220 It's a very secular, modern viewpoint. And finally, 00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.759 we have to mention the visual defiance. Dress 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:12.980 reform. In 1851, following her cousin and with 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:15.779 Amelia Bloomer, Stanton adopted the bloomer dress, 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:18.500 pantaloons under a knee -length dress. She wore 00:17:18.500 --> 00:17:21.240 them for two years. A purely pragmatic choice, 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:23.359 she said, made it easier to climb stairs with 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.920 a baby in a candle. But the societal reaction 00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:29.119 was overwhelming. It was met with intense ridicule. 00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:31.599 Traditionalists saw it as a profound threat to 00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:34.140 the social order. And Stanton ultimately made 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:37.769 a pragmatic choice and abandoned the style. She 00:17:37.769 --> 00:17:39.829 reasoned that the constant controversy over her 00:17:39.829 --> 00:17:42.230 clothing was distracting from the primary women's 00:17:42.230 --> 00:17:44.670 rights campaign. She learned early that you have 00:17:44.670 --> 00:17:47.109 to choose your battles. Even if you are Elizabeth 00:17:47.109 --> 00:17:49.849 Cady Stanton. So the movement truly finds its 00:17:49.849 --> 00:17:52.569 organizational voice in the 1850s thanks entirely 00:17:52.569 --> 00:17:56.910 to this dynamic duo. Susan B. Anthony meets Stanton 00:17:56.910 --> 00:18:00.089 in Seneca Falls in 1851. And this meeting was 00:18:00.089 --> 00:18:02.670 the single most important turning point for both 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:04.930 their careers and for the trajectory of American 00:18:04.930 --> 00:18:07.029 feminism. It was a decade's long partnership 00:18:07.029 --> 00:18:09.789 built on perfectly complementary skills. Absolutely. 00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:12.329 Stanton was the intellectual engine, the thinker, 00:18:12.329 --> 00:18:15.609 the writer, as she put it. I forged the thunderbolts. 00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:18.170 Anthony was the hands -on organizer, the tireless 00:18:18.170 --> 00:18:20.730 campaigner, the logistics expert. She was the 00:18:20.730 --> 00:18:23.730 one who, in Stanton's words, fired them. Before 00:18:23.730 --> 00:18:25.609 we move on, I want to linger on that personal 00:18:25.609 --> 00:18:28.150 dynamic because this is where the human element 00:18:28.150 --> 00:18:30.910 of political organizing becomes so visible. She 00:18:30.910 --> 00:18:33.390 was a mother dealing with massive isolation and 00:18:33.390 --> 00:18:36.349 seven children. How much of her radical focus 00:18:36.349 --> 00:18:39.089 on issues like divorce was rooted in that personal, 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:42.369 isolated frustration? Oh, it was absolutely central. 00:18:42.990 --> 00:18:45.569 Anthony, who was unmarried and free to travel, 00:18:45.690 --> 00:18:48.269 essentially became a co -parent. She would stay 00:18:48.269 --> 00:18:50.549 at the Stanton home, supervising the children, 00:18:50.769 --> 00:18:53.269 keeping the household running, while Stanton 00:18:53.269 --> 00:18:55.970 was sequestered in her study, writing the powerful 00:18:55.970 --> 00:18:58.349 speeches Anthony would then deliver across the 00:18:58.349 --> 00:19:01.619 state. Anthony became, as biographers note, almost 00:19:01.619 --> 00:19:04.400 another mother to Mrs. Stanton's children. That 00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:06.859 symbiosis is remarkable. Stanton created the 00:19:06.859 --> 00:19:09.599 intellectual blueprint. Anthony ensured the message 00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:12.059 was physically delivered. And their shared political 00:19:12.059 --> 00:19:14.299 muscle first manifested nationally during the 00:19:14.299 --> 00:19:17.160 Civil War. They paused their specific focus on 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:20.079 women's suffrage, recognizing the immediate necessity 00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:23.549 of abolition. In 1863, they organized the Women's 00:19:23.549 --> 00:19:26.109 Loyal National League, the first national women's 00:19:26.109 --> 00:19:28.509 political organization in the U .S., with Stanton 00:19:28.509 --> 00:19:31.369 as president. Their goal was abolition, specifically 00:19:31.369 --> 00:19:34.269 campaigning for the 13th Amendment. But their 00:19:34.269 --> 00:19:37.230 method demonstrated sheer organizational force. 00:19:37.529 --> 00:19:40.690 The League collected nearly 400 ,000 signatures 00:19:40.690 --> 00:19:43.619 in a petition drive. That's an enormous feat, 00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:46.859 representing about one in every 24 adults in 00:19:46.859 --> 00:19:49.299 the northern states. It was the largest petition 00:19:49.299 --> 00:19:52.019 drive in U .S. history up to that time. And the 00:19:52.019 --> 00:19:55.329 league served a dual purpose. It did. While assisting 00:19:55.329 --> 00:19:57.910 abolition, Stanton ensured they passed resolutions 00:19:57.910 --> 00:20:01.109 calling for equal rights for all citizens, regardless 00:20:01.109 --> 00:20:04.710 of race or sex. She masterfully used the League 00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:06.609 to remind the public that petitioning was the 00:20:06.609 --> 00:20:09.369 only political tool legally available to women, 00:20:09.509 --> 00:20:12.089 establishing their national political reputations. 00:20:12.329 --> 00:20:15.029 After the war, that powerful alliance faced the 00:20:15.029 --> 00:20:17.190 single greatest constitutional crisis of the 00:20:17.190 --> 00:20:19.569 19th century, which led directly to the great 00:20:19.569 --> 00:20:21.710 rift that fractured the movement. The proposed 00:20:21.710 --> 00:20:25.000 14th Amendment. which granted citizenship to 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.779 African Americans, and this is the key, it introduced 00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:30.329 the word male. into the Constitution for the 00:20:30.329 --> 00:20:32.230 first time in connection with voting rights. 00:20:32.349 --> 00:20:35.430 This was terrifying for them. It constitutionally 00:20:35.430 --> 00:20:38.269 entrenched sex discrimination. Stanton was prophetic, 00:20:38.650 --> 00:20:41.230 fearing it would take a century at least to get 00:20:41.230 --> 00:20:43.990 it out. And she was nearly correct. They immediately 00:20:43.990 --> 00:20:46.230 organized the American Equal Rights Association, 00:20:46.450 --> 00:20:51.829 or AERA, in 1866 to campaign for universal suffrage 00:20:51.829 --> 00:20:54.539 for all citizens. regardless of race or sex. 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:56.940 But they met immense resistance from their former 00:20:56.940 --> 00:21:00.059 allies. This is the moment of the Negro's hour. 00:21:00.220 --> 00:21:02.799 Right. Men like Horace Greeley urged them to 00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:05.220 abandon the women's cause temporarily and focus 00:21:05.220 --> 00:21:08.480 only on black male suffrage. He said, I conjure 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:10.579 you to remember that this is the Negro's hour. 00:21:11.299 --> 00:21:13.400 abolitionist leaders demanded women's rights 00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:16.380 stand aside. And Stanton and Anthony flatly refused. 00:21:16.779 --> 00:21:19.400 This strategic refusal led to financial desperation. 00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:22.599 During the 1867 Kansas campaign for universal 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:25.079 suffrage, when expected abolitionist funding 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:27.279 was blocked, they made a highly controversial 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:29.640 decision. They accepted financial help from the 00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:32.079 wealthy businessman George Francis Train. Who 00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:34.740 was a political disaster. He openly disparaged 00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:36.460 African -Americans and attacked the Republican 00:21:36.460 --> 00:21:39.660 Party. So why would Stanton, a lifelong abolitionist, 00:21:39.740 --> 00:21:42.680 accept support from such a divisive figure? It 00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.579 was ruthless pragmatism. Stanton defended the 00:21:45.579 --> 00:21:47.740 move by arguing that they'd been abandoned by 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:50.519 their moral allies. She famously said she would 00:21:50.519 --> 00:21:53.299 accept support from the devil himself if he supported 00:21:53.299 --> 00:21:56.380 women's suffrage. The ends justified the means 00:21:56.380 --> 00:22:00.009 for her. But this alliance profoundly alienated 00:22:00.009 --> 00:22:02.490 old friends and supporters. And the final split 00:22:02.490 --> 00:22:04.750 occurred over the 15th Amendment, which proposed 00:22:04.750 --> 00:22:07.930 to enfranchise black men by prohibiting the denial 00:22:07.930 --> 00:22:11.150 of suffrage based on race. Stanton and Anthony 00:22:11.150 --> 00:22:14.089 vehemently opposed it, demanding universal suffrage 00:22:14.089 --> 00:22:16.539 for all be achieved simultaneously. Stanton argued 00:22:16.539 --> 00:22:18.740 powerfully that this amendment would create an 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:22.180 aristocracy of sex. By constitutionally elevating 00:22:22.180 --> 00:22:24.759 all men, including poor, illiterate, or formerly 00:22:24.759 --> 00:22:27.319 enslaved men over all women, regardless of their 00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:30.220 own class or education, it formalized a new form 00:22:30.220 --> 00:22:32.720 of male dominance. But the rhetoric she employed 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:35.700 during this bitter debate was, well, it was deeply 00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:38.279 regrettable, rooted in class elitism and prejudice. 00:22:38.579 --> 00:22:40.339 Her language, published in their newspaper The 00:22:40.339 --> 00:22:43.420 Revolution, quickly devolved into racially condescending 00:22:43.420 --> 00:22:46.779 terms. She used elitist arguments, saying she 00:22:46.779 --> 00:22:49.279 would oppose laws being made for educated women 00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.799 by the votes of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and 00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:55.779 Yangtung. That quote reveals a profound intersection 00:22:55.779 --> 00:22:58.720 of her anxieties. She feared the domination of 00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:01.279 educated women by ignorant men, whether they 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:04.660 were Irish, black, German or Chinese immigrants. 00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:06.799 And she specifically asked whether they should 00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:09.420 stand aside and let Sambo walk into the kingdom 00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:12.789 first. This elitism drew a powerful rebuke from 00:23:12.789 --> 00:23:15.430 her old friend Frederick Douglass. Douglass strongly 00:23:15.430 --> 00:23:18.029 supported women's suffrage, but insisted that 00:23:18.029 --> 00:23:20.269 suffrage for African -American men was a matter 00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:23.130 of immediate urgency, calling it literally a 00:23:23.130 --> 00:23:25.349 matter of life and death in the post -Civil War 00:23:25.349 --> 00:23:28.190 South. He argued that white women, regardless 00:23:28.190 --> 00:23:30.690 of their lack of the ballot, still held significant 00:23:30.690 --> 00:23:33.170 influence through their male relatives, a privilege 00:23:33.170 --> 00:23:35.869 not afforded to black men. However, the complexity 00:23:35.869 --> 00:23:39.470 remains. Sojourner Truth, herself an abolitionist 00:23:39.470 --> 00:23:42.069 and former slave, actually supported Stanton's 00:23:42.069 --> 00:23:44.309 fear that if colored men gained rights and colored 00:23:44.309 --> 00:23:46.930 women did not, the men would simply become masters 00:23:46.930 --> 00:23:49.589 over the women. Regardless of the nuance, the 00:23:49.589 --> 00:23:52.150 combination of the controversial strategy and 00:23:52.150 --> 00:23:54.789 the inflammatory rhetoric led to the dissolution 00:23:54.789 --> 00:23:58.910 of the EERA in 1869. This fractured the unified 00:23:58.910 --> 00:24:02.589 reform front, turning allies into rivals. Stanton 00:24:02.589 --> 00:24:04.869 and Anthony, however, they just doubled down. 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:07.920 Out of the rubble of that AERA split, Stanton 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:10.000 and Anthony immediately focused on establishing 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:13.039 their own institutional infrastructure. This 00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.700 began in 1868 with the launch of their weekly 00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:18.660 newspaper, The Revolution. Stanton was co -editor, 00:24:18.779 --> 00:24:21.700 focusing on the powerful editorial content while 00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:23.680 Anthony managed the immense business aspects, 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.079 including securing that initial controversial 00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:28.579 funding from George Francis Train. And Stanton 00:24:28.579 --> 00:24:31.000 specifically chose the paper's radical name. 00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:33.400 She did. She reportedly declined funding offers 00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:35.380 that were contingent on changing it to something 00:24:35.380 --> 00:24:37.960 more palatable. The paper's motto encapsulated 00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:40.839 their comprehensive vision. Men, their rights 00:24:40.839 --> 00:24:43.819 and nothing more. Women, their rights and nothing 00:24:43.819 --> 00:24:46.359 less. The revolution covered far more than just 00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:49.140 suffrage. It tackled politics, the labor movement, 00:24:49.339 --> 00:24:52.140 finance. They dreamed of growing it into a daily 00:24:52.140 --> 00:24:55.640 paper owned and operated entirely by women. But 00:24:55.640 --> 00:24:58.119 that dream was short -lived. Train's financial 00:24:58.119 --> 00:25:01.259 support vanished quickly, and after only 29 months, 00:25:01.380 --> 00:25:03.240 the mounting debts forced them to transfer the 00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:05.160 paper. And this is where the profound contrast 00:25:05.160 --> 00:25:07.799 between their dedication to the cause and their 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:11.140 personal constraints emerges sharply. The paper 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:14.980 had a $10 ,000 debt. And Stanton, citing her 00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:17.099 seven children and the necessity of focusing 00:25:17.099 --> 00:25:19.619 on her family, refused to take on responsibility 00:25:19.619 --> 00:25:22.089 for it. So Anthony took it on herself. That's 00:25:22.089 --> 00:25:25.109 right. Anthony viewed the debt as a moral obligation 00:25:25.109 --> 00:25:28.089 to the movement. She spent the next six years 00:25:28.089 --> 00:25:30.529 repaying the entire amount through extensive, 00:25:30.809 --> 00:25:34.390 grueling paid speaking tours. This act solidified 00:25:34.390 --> 00:25:37.109 her reputation as the uncompromising organizational 00:25:37.109 --> 00:25:40.190 martyr. Their organization was then quickly formalized. 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:43.500 In May 1869, two days after the 80 -year race 00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:45.940 split, they formed the National Woman Suffrage 00:25:45.940 --> 00:25:48.900 Association, or NWSA. With Stanton as president. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:51.940 And this created a direct rival to the AWSA, 00:25:52.140 --> 00:25:54.980 led by their former ally, Lucy Stone. And it's 00:25:54.980 --> 00:25:56.740 important to understand the strategic difference 00:25:56.740 --> 00:26:00.440 here. Absolutely. The NWSA, reflecting Stanton's 00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.160 radicalism, was politically independent. focused 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:06.160 on a national constitutional amendment and concerned 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:09.000 itself with a wide range of social issues divorce 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:12.700 equal pay religious criticism while the rival 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:15.440 awsa was more conservative aimed for ties with 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:17.779 the republican party and focused solely on the 00:26:17.779 --> 00:26:19.960 achievable goal of a state -by -state suffrage 00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:23.240 strategy the nwsa's revolutionary zeal drove 00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:25.740 their initial legal tactic the new departure 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:29.160 strategy adopted around 1871 This legal theory 00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:31.579 argued that the newly ratified 14th Amendment 00:26:31.579 --> 00:26:34.539 implicitly enfranchised women by guaranteeing 00:26:34.539 --> 00:26:37.000 the privileges and immunities of citizens. So 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:39.779 the NWSA adopted this, encouraging hundreds of 00:26:39.779 --> 00:26:42.279 women across the country to attempt to vote and 00:26:42.279 --> 00:26:44.640 file lawsuits if they were denied. This resulted 00:26:44.640 --> 00:26:47.579 in Susan B. Anthony famously voting in the 1872 00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:50.059 election, leading to her arrest and highly publicized 00:26:50.059 --> 00:26:52.799 trial. Stanton even attempted to vote in 1880. 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:55.880 But the strategy ultimately failed in 1875 when 00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.059 the Supreme Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett. 00:26:58.359 --> 00:27:00.519 Can you unpack that ruling? It's a crucial legal 00:27:00.519 --> 00:27:03.299 point. The court actually agreed that women were 00:27:03.299 --> 00:27:05.680 citizens of the United States. However, they 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:08.259 ruled that the Constitution does not define voting 00:27:08.259 --> 00:27:11.160 as a privilege of national citizenship. Essentially, 00:27:11.299 --> 00:27:13.579 the court said the 14th Amendment granted citizenship, 00:27:13.700 --> 00:27:16.700 but not the right to vote. Voting rights remained 00:27:16.700 --> 00:27:18.619 under the jurisdiction of the individual states. 00:27:19.220 --> 00:27:21.440 So it completely shattered the new departure 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:24.779 approach. It did. But undaunted, they shifted 00:27:24.779 --> 00:27:28.619 strategy. In 1878, Stanton and Anthony convinced 00:27:28.619 --> 00:27:31.740 Senator Aaron A. Sargent to introduce the specific 00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:34.420 constitutional amendment into Congress that would, 00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:37.720 40 years later, become the 19th Amendment. They 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:40.220 literally drafted the text. Simultaneously, they 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:42.180 recognized the need to control their narrative. 00:27:42.380 --> 00:27:45.180 Beginning in 1876, they undertook this immense, 00:27:45.259 --> 00:27:47.980 biased project, the history of women's suffrage. 00:27:48.180 --> 00:27:50.539 Originally envisioned as a small book, it swelled 00:27:50.539 --> 00:27:54.339 over 41 years into a six -volume, 5 ,700 -page 00:27:54.339 --> 00:27:57.039 opus. Stanton wrote most of the first three volumes, 00:27:57.319 --> 00:28:00.299 an undertaking of epic scale. And it served a 00:28:00.299 --> 00:28:02.940 dual purpose, preserving documentation and shaping 00:28:02.940 --> 00:28:05.079 the historical record to favor their own organization. 00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:08.700 Oh, the bias is undeniable. While it preserved 00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:10.720 an enormous amount of historical material that 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:13.299 might otherwise have been lost, it consistently 00:28:13.299 --> 00:28:16.059 overstated the role of Stanton and Anthony and 00:28:16.059 --> 00:28:18.859 intentionally marginalized or ignored their rivals, 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:22.839 particularly Lucy Stone and the AWSA wing. It 00:28:22.839 --> 00:28:24.960 was a preemptive strike to ensure their radical 00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:27.259 perspective was the dominant historical record. 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:29.799 And it took the intervention of Stanton's daughter, 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:32.599 Harriet Stanton Blatch, to force some necessary 00:28:32.599 --> 00:28:35.539 balance. Right. Harriet wrote a 120 -page chapter 00:28:35.539 --> 00:28:39.000 on Stone and the AWSA to lend credibility to 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:41.779 the massive history, suggesting even those closest 00:28:41.779 --> 00:28:43.859 to Stanton recognized the project's political 00:28:43.859 --> 00:28:46.500 slant. So how did Stanton support all this effort? 00:28:46.619 --> 00:28:49.240 While raising a family and campaigning? From 00:28:49.240 --> 00:28:53.160 late 1869 until 1879, she became a professional 00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:55.579 activist on the Red Path Lyceum lecture circuit. 00:28:55.920 --> 00:28:58.140 traveling eight months of the year, often speaking 00:28:58.140 --> 00:29:00.339 in small, distant communities. This provided 00:29:00.339 --> 00:29:02.160 her with necessary welcome financial independence. 00:29:02.539 --> 00:29:04.940 Her earnings were remarkable for the era. She 00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:07.599 reported clearing $2 ,000 above expenses in her 00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:10.059 first three months on the road. Which our sources 00:29:10.059 --> 00:29:13.220 estimate is equivalent to about $65 ,200 today. 00:29:13.690 --> 00:29:16.109 Since her husband's income was erratic, this 00:29:16.109 --> 00:29:18.029 money was crucial for supporting their seven 00:29:18.029 --> 00:29:20.869 children. More than just income, the Lyceum Circuit 00:29:20.869 --> 00:29:23.890 provided a powerful platform for the mass dissemination 00:29:23.890 --> 00:29:26.569 of her radical ideas. Her most popular lecture 00:29:26.569 --> 00:29:29.410 was Our Girls, urging young women toward financial 00:29:29.410 --> 00:29:32.230 independence and self -fulfillment. But she also 00:29:32.230 --> 00:29:35.410 lectured on deeply challenging topics like the 00:29:35.410 --> 00:29:39.269 antagonism of sex, co -education, and her perennial 00:29:39.269 --> 00:29:41.789 lightning rod, marriage and divorce. And she 00:29:41.789 --> 00:29:43.789 often reserved Sundays for her most controversial 00:29:43.789 --> 00:29:46.950 topic, the Bible and women's rights, directly 00:29:46.950 --> 00:29:49.369 challenging traditional religious authority and 00:29:49.369 --> 00:29:52.509 foreshadowing her final explosive act of defiance. 00:29:52.769 --> 00:29:54.849 She was using this vast accessible platform to 00:29:54.849 --> 00:29:56.910 prepare the American public for ideas they weren't 00:29:56.910 --> 00:29:59.069 yet ready to hear. Which brings us to Stanton's 00:29:59.069 --> 00:30:02.109 final radical phase, spanning the 1890s and early 00:30:02.109 --> 00:30:05.549 1900s. In 1890, the two rival suffrage organizations 00:30:05.549 --> 00:30:08.279 finally merged. as the National American Woman 00:30:08.279 --> 00:30:11.720 Suffrage Association, or NASA. And Stanton was 00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:14.279 its first president, largely as an honorary figurehead, 00:30:14.380 --> 00:30:16.519 since she almost immediately left the country 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:18.799 for 18 months to stay at her daughter's home 00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:21.059 in England. When she declined a reelection in 00:30:21.059 --> 00:30:24.039 1892, she delivered what is widely considered 00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:27.640 her finest speech, the solitude of self. She 00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.680 delivered it three times in as many days, twice 00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:32.940 to congressional committees, framing it as a 00:30:32.940 --> 00:30:35.279 political document and once to the nasa convention 00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:38.740 framing it as a philosophical statement and this 00:30:38.740 --> 00:30:41.500 speech rejected the prevailing victorian belief 00:30:41.500 --> 00:30:43.900 that women were defined solely by their relationships 00:30:43.900 --> 00:30:47.619 as daughters wives or mothers her core message 00:30:47.619 --> 00:30:50.119 was profoundly philosophical and utterly modern 00:30:50.119 --> 00:30:53.400 she argued women must acquire inner strength 00:30:53.400 --> 00:30:56.420 education and political rights because no matter 00:30:56.420 --> 00:30:59.099 how much women prefer to lean They must make 00:30:59.099 --> 00:31:01.579 the voyage of life alone. The power of that sentence 00:31:01.579 --> 00:31:03.839 is immense. It's an assertion of self -sovereignty, 00:31:03.940 --> 00:31:06.359 that in moments of crisis, hardship, or death, 00:31:06.579 --> 00:31:09.380 you stand alone. Therefore, women must be fully 00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:12.539 equipped, legally and intellectually, to navigate 00:31:12.539 --> 00:31:15.420 that solitary journey. It was a unifying philosophical 00:31:15.420 --> 00:31:19.059 masterpiece. Unfortunately, that unifying moment 00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:21.339 was followed just three years later by the biggest 00:31:21.339 --> 00:31:24.299 rupture of her career, the woman's Bible controversy. 00:31:24.990 --> 00:31:27.029 Her religious views had been evolving for decades, 00:31:27.329 --> 00:31:30.329 moving toward a Unitarian Transcendentalist belief 00:31:30.329 --> 00:31:32.930 that individuals could determine religious truth 00:31:32.930 --> 00:31:36.490 for themselves, independent of rigid, male -dominated 00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:39.670 authority. She believed God need not be male. 00:31:39.930 --> 00:31:42.970 So in 1895, at the age of 80, she published the 00:31:42.970 --> 00:31:45.269 first part of the Woman's Bible, a critical examination 00:31:45.269 --> 00:31:47.869 of the text that challenged its divine status. 00:31:48.309 --> 00:31:50.670 Stanton wrote most of it herself, employing a 00:31:50.670 --> 00:31:53.890 method known as redaction criticism. meticulously 00:31:53.890 --> 00:31:56.049 scrutinizing passages from a woman's point of 00:31:56.049 --> 00:31:58.650 view, often using sarcasm and sharp analysis 00:31:58.650 --> 00:32:01.430 to critique the text. Her premise was radical 00:32:01.430 --> 00:32:04.569 in the extreme for the era. It was. She argued 00:32:04.569 --> 00:32:06.950 the Bible's attitude toward women reflects prejudice 00:32:06.950 --> 00:32:09.950 from a less civilized age, not the inspired, 00:32:10.130 --> 00:32:12.690 infallible Word of God. She targeted passages 00:32:12.690 --> 00:32:14.890 that subjugated women like the creation narrative 00:32:14.890 --> 00:32:17.450 and the Pauline injunctions demanding women remain 00:32:17.450 --> 00:32:20.640 silent in church. She explicitly denied core 00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:32.259 Christian tenets, stating, And despite the firestorm 00:32:32.259 --> 00:32:34.299 of outrage from conservative clergy and press, 00:32:34.539 --> 00:32:37.200 the book became a phenomenal commercial success, 00:32:37.480 --> 00:32:39.940 going through seven printings in just six months. 00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:42.819 But politically, it was a catastrophe for the 00:32:42.819 --> 00:32:45.240 suffrage movement. The younger generation of 00:32:45.240 --> 00:32:48.019 leaders in Nasa, like Carrie Chapman Catt, saw 00:32:48.019 --> 00:32:50.799 her religious criticism as a monumental political 00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:54.359 liability. They worried intensely about alienating 00:32:54.359 --> 00:32:56.799 conservative, mainstream women who were just 00:32:56.799 --> 00:32:58.920 beginning to join the suffrage cause. For them, 00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:01.579 securing the ballot was paramount, and Stanton's 00:33:01.579 --> 00:33:03.900 attack on the Bible was an unnecessary, damaging 00:33:03.900 --> 00:33:06.880 distraction. The result was profound alienation. 00:33:06.980 --> 00:33:10.140 At the 1896 Nasaway Convention, a resolution 00:33:10.140 --> 00:33:12.700 was successfully passed, despite Anthony's strong 00:33:12.700 --> 00:33:15.319 objection. to officially distance the organization 00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:18.480 from Stanton's book. This decision deeply worded 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:20.880 Stanton and led to her growing increasingly alienated 00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:22.779 from the movement she had founded. The Uyghur 00:33:22.779 --> 00:33:24.859 leaders began to actively sideline her. And this 00:33:24.859 --> 00:33:27.759 alienation likely contributed to her final controversial 00:33:27.759 --> 00:33:31.079 political stance. Her increased advocacy for 00:33:32.089 --> 00:33:35.950 In her last year, she began arguing for a constitutional 00:33:35.950 --> 00:33:38.690 amendment requiring an educational qualification, 00:33:39.109 --> 00:33:41.589 saying that everyone who votes should read and 00:33:41.589 --> 00:33:44.160 write the English language intelligently. This 00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:46.960 stance was undeniably rooted in the class elitism 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:49.180 and racial rhetoric she employed during the split 00:33:49.180 --> 00:33:51.799 over the 15th Amendment decades earlier. She 00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:54.039 argued against subjecting educated, virtuous 00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:57.140 women to the behests of such an aristocracy of 00:33:57.140 --> 00:33:59.779 ignorant men, whether foreign or native born. 00:33:59.980 --> 00:34:02.359 Even her own daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch, 00:34:02.559 --> 00:34:05.000 critiqued this view, pointing out the hypocrisy 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:07.380 of disenfranchising intelligent people simply 00:34:07.380 --> 00:34:09.199 because they lacked the opportunity for formal 00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:12.659 education. It was a dark elitist turn for an 00:34:12.659 --> 00:34:14.920 otherwise. revolutionary figure. Interestingly, 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:17.800 she simultaneously explored other forms of political 00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:20.219 radicalism that seemed to contradict this elitism. 00:34:20.380 --> 00:34:23.019 She applauded the populist movement and identified 00:34:23.019 --> 00:34:26.539 with Fabianism. Fabianism is a gradualist form 00:34:26.539 --> 00:34:29.760 of democratic socialism, advocating for social 00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:32.579 reform through incremental changes rather than 00:34:32.579 --> 00:34:34.940 revolution. And you have to ask why she would 00:34:34.940 --> 00:34:37.260 find this appealing. It seems to align with her 00:34:37.260 --> 00:34:39.679 elitism. It provided a framework for societal 00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:42.599 improvement that was rational, organized, and 00:34:42.599 --> 00:34:45.739 guided by a highly educated, competent class. 00:34:46.219 --> 00:34:48.639 A political philosophy that aligned perfectly 00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:51.219 with her belief that the educated should lead 00:34:51.219 --> 00:34:53.840 the ignorant. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 00:34:53.840 --> 00:34:56.619 1902, 18 years before the 19th Amendment was 00:34:56.619 --> 00:35:01.139 ratified. A final detail. Her last wish to donate 00:35:01.139 --> 00:35:03.280 her brain to Cornell University for scientific 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:06.610 study was sadly not carried out. Her death devastated 00:35:06.610 --> 00:35:09.070 her longtime partner. Susan B. Anthony wrote 00:35:09.070 --> 00:35:23.800 to a friend, Wow. That perfectly summarizes that 00:35:23.800 --> 00:35:26.320 even until the end, Stanton remained the movement's 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:28.159 indispensable intellectual and philosophical 00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:31.079 bedrock. Yet immediately after her death, she 00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:33.179 was subjected to a long period of historical 00:35:33.179 --> 00:35:37.019 marginalization. Anti -suffrage foes continue 00:35:37.019 --> 00:35:39.300 to use her radical statements on religion and 00:35:39.300 --> 00:35:42.099 divorce as ammunition against the movement. So 00:35:42.099 --> 00:35:44.599 in a political act of damage control, younger 00:35:44.599 --> 00:35:47.840 suffragists strategically responded by belittling 00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:50.619 her role and glorifying Anthony, who had focused 00:35:50.619 --> 00:35:53.800 far more purely on the single, less controversial 00:35:53.800 --> 00:35:56.320 issue of the ballot. Stanton was sidelined in 00:35:56.320 --> 00:35:59.059 the historical narrative for decades. The erasure 00:35:59.059 --> 00:36:01.980 was so effective that a 1923 ceremony marking 00:36:01.980 --> 00:36:04.860 the 75th anniversary of Seneca Falls made no 00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:06.960 mention of her. the primary force behind the 00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:09.519 event, until her daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch, 00:36:09.639 --> 00:36:12.300 insisted on paying tribute. She only began to 00:36:12.300 --> 00:36:14.719 regain full recognition for her role as the true 00:36:14.719 --> 00:36:17.199 intellectual founder with the rise of the second 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:19.619 wave feminist movement in the 1960s. Exactly. 00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:22.219 So what does this all mean for us today? We've 00:36:22.219 --> 00:36:24.360 taken a deep dive into Elizabeth Cady Stanton 00:36:24.360 --> 00:36:26.739 and discovered a woman who was the true radical 00:36:26.739 --> 00:36:29.920 driving force behind Seneca Falls, the tireless 00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:31.980 writer who crafted the movement's most potent 00:36:31.980 --> 00:36:34.840 documents, and Anthony's indispensable challenging 00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:38.000 partner. Her radicalism on divorce, property, 00:36:38.179 --> 00:36:41.039 and especially religion defined her immense influence, 00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:43.880 but also complicated her relationship with the 00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:46.340 movement that eventually deemed her broad, complex 00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:49.840 vision too politically inconvenient. her most 00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:53.039 profound enduring contribution is perhaps philosophical 00:36:53.039 --> 00:36:56.460 her fight for self -sovereignty best articulated 00:36:56.460 --> 00:36:59.420 in the solitude of self arguing that women must 00:36:59.420 --> 00:37:01.940 be prepared to make the voyage of life alone 00:37:01.940 --> 00:37:04.699 it speaks directly to modern struggles for autonomy 00:37:04.699 --> 00:37:08.150 financial professional and bodily She understood 00:37:08.150 --> 00:37:11.250 deeply that true emancipation required challenging 00:37:11.250 --> 00:37:13.909 not just discriminatory laws, but the deeply 00:37:13.909 --> 00:37:16.769 held religious and social prejudices that underpin 00:37:16.769 --> 00:37:19.030 female subjugation. And it leaves us with a potent 00:37:19.030 --> 00:37:20.969 final thought for you to consider. We've seen 00:37:20.969 --> 00:37:22.590 how Elizabeth Cady Stanton was pushed to the 00:37:22.590 --> 00:37:24.869 margins of history because her radical, comprehensive 00:37:24.869 --> 00:37:27.110 vision was seen as a threat to immediate political 00:37:27.110 --> 00:37:29.989 victory, the ballot. So if a movement demands 00:37:29.989 --> 00:37:33.730 homogeneity, or risks alienating its base? How 00:37:33.730 --> 00:37:35.909 much radical truth is it willing to sacrifice 00:37:35.909 --> 00:37:38.510 for the sake of that immediate, quantifiable 00:37:38.510 --> 00:37:41.090 political goal? What essential parts of the core 00:37:41.090 --> 00:37:43.369 mission, the total revolution of society, get 00:37:43.369 --> 00:37:45.750 left behind in the pursuit of the simple strategic 00:37:45.750 --> 00:37:48.650 win? Something to mull over as you weigh the 00:37:48.650 --> 00:37:50.869 cost of compromise against the price of truth.