For the second installment of our month-long collaboration with This Day, we go to western New York in the summer of 1848. This Day’s hosts, Jody Avirgan, Nicole Hemmer, and Kellie Carter Jackson, are joined by Deva Woodly, Kettering research fellow and professor at Brown University, to discuss the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights—the characters who cooked it up over afternoon tea, the Declaration of Sentiments they wrote in the shadow of the Declaration of Independence, and the one resolution that nearly didn’t pass, until Frederick Douglass stood up to speak. Plus: why western New York was the hotbed of basically every radical idea of the 19th century. Deva Woodly is a research fellow at the Kettering Foundation: https://kettering.org/fellow/deva-woodly/ Be sure to check out her book, Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements: https://academic.oup.com/book/39098?login=false Learn more about this special series here: https://kettering.org/america-250-podcast-series-begins-in-september/ If you enjoy this episode, go over to This Day’s feed for two more episodes on each of these historical topics. The Context’s host, Alex Lovit, will be the guest in the third episode each week. Listen to all episodes here: https://www.jodyavirgan.com/political-history-show Attention, Washington, DC-area listeners! Join us on Monday, October 19, 2026, for a live taping of This Day. The Context host, Alex Lovit, will join This Day hosts live on stage. The featured guest is Kettering Senior Fellow Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. They will be in conversation about the moment of democratic realignment we are living through right now. Are we witnessing a fundamental shift in who holds power, who gets left out, and how race and class are reshaping the coalitions that define American politics? And what can history teach us about moments like this one? The event is open to the public, and tickets are available through the Howard Theatre: https://www.unionstagepresents.com/shows/this-day-live-the-next-realignment-presented-by-the-charles-f-kettering-foundation-19-oct
Alex Lovit:
Hello, listeners. This is your host, Alex Lovit. Today, we're bringing you part two of our month-long collaboration with a podcast called This Day. If you missed last week's episode, you don't need to go back and listen to it before listening to today's episode, but we do hope you'll check out the whole series. To recap what this special series is all about, it's a part of Kettering's America 250 initiative, Democracy, Under Construction. For four weeks, we're covering key events in American history that have brought us closer to an inclusive democracy and all the work that remains to be done. We co-produced this series with our friends at This Day Podcast. It's a history show, and they're doing a whole year of episodes about major events that shaped our nation.
So in our feed for the rest of this month, you'll be hearing conversations among This Day's co-hosts and guests about these important moments in American history. And if you enjoy this episode, go over to this day's feed for two more episodes on each of these topics. I'll be the guest on the third episode each week. One last thing before we get to it, we're doing a live show. If you're in the Washington DC area, join us on Monday, October 19th at the Howard Theater for a live taping of This Day. I'll be there along with all three co-hosts, and the featured guest is Kettering Senior Fellow, the Reverend Dr. William Barber II. There's a link in the show notes to buy tickets and to This Day's podcast feed. Okay, here's the episode. Enjoy.
Jody Avrigan:
Hello, and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avrigan. This week in two parts, we go to Western New York, the summer of 1848 and the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights. As you know, listeners, all this year, which is America's 250th birthday, we have been looking at the key stories that shaped America, and all this month, we have been partnering with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation for a series we are calling Democracy, Under Construction. This is our chance to talk about key moments that our democracy has expanded, contrasted, or been contested, and certainly what happened at the Seneca Falls Convention in the summer of 1848 qualifies.
This meeting, as you may know, was convened by women's rights activists to gather leaders and address the question of women's rights in the United States, voting rights, economic rights, a call for cultural and domestic reform. But it was also a moment and a movement that was in conversation with many other efforts to expand and reshape our democracy, abolition, labor reform, temperance. So this week in two parts, the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass breaking into a chapel in order to hold a meeting, the so-called burnt over district. There are so many great stories and characters to get into here. So here as always to discuss are Nicole Hemmer of Vanderbilt and Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.
Nicole Hemmer:
Hello, Jody.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Hey there.
Jody Avrigan:
And throughout this collaboration with the Kettering Foundation, we are going to be joined by a number of their fellows. So our special guest for this episode is Deva Woodly, professor of political science at Brown University. Deva, thank you so much for joining us.
Deva Woodly:
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Jody Avrigan:
We're really looking forward to this, and I should mention that your most recent book is called Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements. Your previous book and your work in general is about how social movements grow and spread, and that's obviously a big theme in this story, this movement, but also how it spoke to all the other movements as well. So the perfect guest. We're very excited about this. But the first thing I want to flag is, I said in the intro, Western New York, and I wonder if we had listeners who were like, "Wait a minute, is that upstate New York, Western New York?" I don't know, maybe I'm the only one obsessed with this. It's like where does upstate New York start? Where does Western New York start? But we are talking about the-
Kellie Carter Jackson:
North of the Bronx.
Jody Avrigan:
North of the Bronx.
Nicole Hemmer:
Westchester, right?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
White Plains.
Jody Avrigan:
Yeah. So that's controversial. Now how about the be upstate New York, but there's that panhandly section of New York over by the Great Lakes, and that is where, and we'll talk in a minute about why that area was so full of these interesting social movements, but that is where Seneca Falls is, very beautiful part of the country for what it's worth. But yeah, maybe we can start there with just a tapestry Kellie of the women's rights movement in this moment and this area, but also all the other movements that are bubbling around.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah. This is the perfect moment for a Venn diagram because you would have the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement, the women's movement. They all have a lot in common. I would put at the core liberation or freedom is at the center of all of that. Everyone wants freedom from oppression, the oppression that comes from patriarchy, the oppression that comes from slavery. And even I would say the oppression that comes from addiction or the abuse of alcohol, women are most vulnerable, most susceptible to the effects of alcohol in the household. So if men are depressed or struggling or unemployed or you have these stories in which women are having to navigate really the violence of being in a marriage in which they're getting all of the blows. And so a lot of these ideas are feeding into each other about what it means to be free from something, what it means to be liberated from something, but also what does it mean to be empowered?
What does it mean to be able to have a say? What does it mean to have control over your physical autonomy, your political autonomy? And so all of these movements really make for, I would say interesting bedfellows in the way that you have all of this crossover so that people who are abolitionists could sort of easily be convinced about the problematic nature of alcohol or what have you. And religion is also feeding all of this as well. So there's so many factors that go in to making this a movement that has partners, like instant partners with people who are wanting to push these ideas. I think women are looking at the institution of slavery and they're saying, "Well, I may not be enslaved, but I have no control over my finances. I have no control over my household. I have no control over my children." And so trying to reconcile that is a good way for them to understand how these ideas connect to one another.
Nicole Hemmer:
The other fascinating thing about this era is this is known as the age of democracy, but the way that people normally talk about that is that this is the era of universal white manhood suffrage. This is where you have all these movements flourishing that are talking about democracy, talking about a different kind of inclusion, but the only place you're really getting it is they're removing property qualifications so that all white men can vote with the exception of Rhode Island, which we've talked about with Dorr Rebellion. But as that is happening, it is coming at the cost of the ability for some Black men and some women even to be able to vote that as the franchise expands for white men, those groups are pushed out. So it's an age of democracy for some and an age of advocating for democracy for others.
Jody Avrigan:
And we'll talk a bunch about how the question of the right to vote is at the heart of so much of this and also sort of creates some fault lines as well. But, Deva, as a historian of social movements, is the mid 19th century Western New York a genuine hotspot in your opinion?
Deva Woodly:
I mean, yes. And just to be clear, I'm not a historian of social movements.
Jody Avrigan:
Oh, sorry.
Deva Woodly:
I mostly study contemporary social movements, but historical social movements have a lot to tell us about contemporary social movements and how they form and also what tactics allow them over time. It also tells us a lot about the duration, the normal duration of social movements. Oftentimes in contemporary politics, things are tied to election cycles. If it doesn't happen in two years or four years, then it's not a success. But we know from historical social movements that social movements duray are very long, right?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yes.
Deva Woodly:
We measure this-
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Decades.
Deva Woodly:
We measure them in decades and that does not diminish their significance. Indeed, it cements their significance. So all of that to say that yes, this is a firmament moment. The late 1840s is a huge time for the abolitionist movement. And I don't think that we should only say that these movements were related to each other. They often have the same people in them.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yes, yes, yes.
Deva Woodly:
They were the same people or people came up in movements. So for example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was mentored by one of the Grimké sisters who were key abolitionists who are also feminists, but they came up in the generation before. And so you just have a lot of cross-pollination between these movements where people are actually fighting for all of them. So Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met at an abolitionist conference where they were barred from speaking on the floor because they were women. So intersectionality rears its head. And so I think that's also a really important thing to note.
Jody Avrigan:
So we'll get to know a couple those key characters a little bit more in a second, but I do want to pause just because I'm so fascinated by this area and this time. And we've talked about it a number of times on the show and touched on it, but we've referenced the second great awakening, which is the sort of religious fervor that's going through this part of the country. I don't know if people know the term the burnt over district, but that was kind of what was referred to. And I think that phrase comes from Charles Grandison Finney, who in 1876 wrote an autobiography and basically talked about in this region, in this part of New York, it felt as if the ground and the land was so thoroughly worked over by fervor, religious revivals, new ideas that basically they'd burned through all of the possible ideas.
And so it was the burnt over district. And I will say that it's interesting, later analysis, statistical analysis sort of showed, well, people here weren't necessarily more religious than other parts of the country, but there was just something in the air or something in the water. And we've mentioned a few of these things, but it's also worth pointing out, this is where you get the origin of Mormonism. The Latter Day Saint movement starts with Joseph Smith. He starts in Western New York before he then moves out to Utah. We have the Millerites who are a religious sect. The Fox sisters are the ones who started the whole sort of seance movement. It was a scam. They were tapping on the bottom of the table, but they had a whole thing where they were like... Oh, Nikki, did I just spoil the Fox sisters seances for you? I'm so sorry.
Nicole Hemmer:
Everyone comes to the spiritual world in different ways.
Jody Avrigan:
The shakers were kicking around. There was the Oneida Society, which is sort of utopian free love movement. So just all these things are happening around the same time. And some of them are a little more seance-y and some of them are a little more women should have the right to vote, but it all kind of connects. And I guess one question I have is why Western New York? Do any of you have a thought about why?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
It's a good question. Maybe, and this is just a guess, I think it's outside geographically of an urban center, like we would think of New York City or Philly or something like that. And I think in some ways it gets people to think about, I don't know, what the sort of environment that they want to live in that is different or opposed to an urban populous center maybe. They have a little bit more leeway to think about things and the flexibility of laws or rules or ideas when you're not on top of everyone. I don't know if that's a lame idea, but-
Jody Avrigan:
No, I buy that.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
There's something about being on the edge and the border or distant from certain things that gives you maybe a little more.
Jody Avrigan:
I mean, this is sort of still frontier territory in a sense as well, right?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah, that's what I would imagine.
Nicole Hemmer:
And yet it's not cut off, right?
Jody Avrigan:
No.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah.
Nicole Hemmer:
This is where the idea of improvements is really underway in this period. The Erie Canal, that whole area is changing at the same time too. More people are coming in and that kind of ferment of a sort of early industrialization and changing populations. It's right before, right around the time of a new wave of migration coming into the United States. And sometimes I think that it's the contingency of history and the sliding doors' phenomenon of once you have a critical mass, then things can take off and why it happens in Western New York versus Southern Pennsylvania. I mean, there are movements happening there too. It's just that all of these historically contingent things happen in this space and that becomes the home for all of this change.
Deva Woodly:
I also think that it's because it's not only Western New York, it's also Central New York where this is happening. I think it's because these are retreats from people from the cities. So people are coming up to Western New York and Central New York to sanatoriums and retreats where they work in the city, Boston or New York or even Philadelphia most of the time. But then this work is also quite strenuous. And a lot of these people are radicals in the true sense and they get exhausted. William Lloyd Garrison was going up to central New York all the time for baths.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
The retreat of it all, the escape of it all.
Deva Woodly:
So I think this was the time where they had the space to discuss and explore these ideas.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah. Without the burdens of the city. Yeah.
Jody Avrigan:
Yeah. That kind of space to dream or that space to think about possibilities is really key. I'm mentioning this because the three of you will appreciate that. I actually remember something from one of my undergrad history courses, but I want to give a shout-out to... I took a class called Colonialism and its Consequences, and we read a book there that was more about the colonial era, but about this sort of region. And the main thing I walked away from it was thinking of it as sort of like this, well, to use the term that I learned in that class, sort of liminal space in which there were a bunch of different cultures mixing. And I mean, I do think, I know we're talking about the 1850s here, but certainly there's Native American cultures in that area. We're talking about the border with Canada.
It just feels like there's other ideas floating around and other things sort of intersecting. And as we see, we'll talk a lot more about this with you, Deva, but these are the places where movements arise, it seems like, where there's just a clash and an intermingling of different ideas and it expands that vision for people. Do we want to talk a little bit about some of the characters at the heart of all this? We've mentioned a few folks. I think obviously the main person is Elizabeth Cady Stanton. So what do we need to know about her?
Nicole Hemmer:
So as Deva mentioned, Elizabeth Katie or Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott first met in London at this abolitionist conference, and they're radicalized by it because here they've come to talk about these ideas of freedom and they're not free to speak at this conference because they're women. This is a repeated story you hear in social movements. This happens in the 1960s when women in the New Left movement are being treated horribly by the men in the movement. And so they move into the feminist movement where Black women are not given any opportunities within the white feminist movement. And so they break off into new groups.
It's an experience of both participating in progressive social movements, but then realizing they're not quite as progressive as you need them to be for you to be fully included in them. And this was the experience for Stanton and Mott. They're really interesting women. Stanton comes from a family, her mother was from a family that was active in the American Revolution, and so she was constantly surrounded by these ideas of equality and self-government and wondering about how these ideas apply to women as well as men. And so Stanton grows up in this environment and is constantly frustrated by her experience of hearing about the promise of equality and then not experiencing it.
Jody Avrigan:
In part because she marries young and has a number of kids pretty early. I think it just feels constricted by domestic life a little bit.
Nicole Hemmer:
Very much so. And of course it would be. I mean, especially domestic life in the 18 teens and 20s and 30s, even though it is wrapped in this idea of Republican motherhood, this is the best way for you to be a citizen is you're raising future citizens to either be future Republican mothers or to be men with actual power. That's the promise of it, but the reality of it is you don't have rights, you don't have access to money, and in fact, you become a legal fiction when you get married. She was stripped of her legal personhood when she became married because of this legal philosophy you know as coverture. She has been in this environment for a long time. Her father gave her a house in Seneca Falls, and when she is there, she begins to connect with other women who see themselves in her experience. We'll talk about her evolution over time. I think she starts a little more radical than she ends, and that cramping of her vision is pretty fascinating.
I think we see that with some other activists as well, but she is definitely the err figure in that sort of retreat from progressivism, although she never loses her commitment to white women's equality. And then Lucretia Mott comes, I find this fascinating, she comes from a Quaker family on Nantucket. And as folks know, I was in Nantucket a few weeks ago for part of the summer, and just imagining what it would have been like in the early 19th century to be on Nantucket, which is still kind of isolated in 2026, what that must have been like to have grown up in that environment. But I think it matters that she's a Quaker. You will find Quakers all over these movements because this is a religion with a series of radical commitments and a commitment to living out those ideas and that ethos in every aspect of their lives. So Mott also, she works with other abolitionists and she founds the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. And again, you can hear that in the name of we're committed abolitionists and we too would like to have a voice in politics.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah. I also think being from Nantucket is instrumental because Nantucket and even Martha's Vineyard to some extent was known for having these women that were entrepreneurs, that were savvy, their husbands were gone, they were out to sea, they were sailors. And so they had to really run the town while these men were gone. And so you had Petticoat Row and you had an example and models of what it looked like to see women economically empowered. To be able to have that as a place in which she grew up, I think is informative in terms of what she thought was possible for herself.
Nicole Hemmer:
I mean, the most liberated women in this time period are widows and women whose husbands are away for a long time. And I think men should think about the incentives that that creates.
Jody Avrigan:
Take a long trip.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
We need some space.
Jody Avrigan:
This is how I spent my valuable research time. There were six people born last year who were given the name Lucretia.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Wow. Six.
Jody Avrigan:
Not that popular anymore. Yeah. You think six is surprisingly a lot?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, that does sound high.
Jody Avrigan:
Yeah. It peaked in the '60s and '70s, maybe because of some sort of first, second wave feminism looking back to Lucrecia Mott, but the name is not very popular as it once was.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Also sounds like a Black name to me.
Nicole Hemmer:
It does.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing. I was like, "I bet those are all Black children."
Kellie Carter Jackson:
When you go look at a picture of Lucrecia Mott, she is not a Black woman.
Deva Woodly:
No.
Jody Avrigan:
But, Deva, to your point about this being an area where people would escape the city, the idea for this conference basically starts because I think Maude is kind of vacationing or traveling through the area, decides to just sort of visit her friend, Elizabeth, and they kind of get together at her home and over the course of afternoon tea start griping and then hatch an idea. But again, a testament to when you're sort of in that semi-vacation mode, all of a sudden big ideas creep in.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. I also do want to point out something though that's also easy to miss is that these movements, in addition to being intersectional while also separate and fractured on some of these lines, were also transnational. They're in London, right? And they meet Frederick Douglass who's also in the UK traveling. And this is a time when the only way to get there is a boat.
Nicole Hemmer:
You're committed.
Deva Woodly:
Yes. And yet so many of these activists and organizers were transnational. They made stops in Europe and in the Caribbean to learn and grow. I just want to point that out because that's also something as a social movement scholar who focuses on American social movements that I hadn't paid attention enough to in my research is that both historical and contemporary social movements are always transnational in a way that's often invisible.
Jody Avrigan:
Well, especially around abolition in this era, right? I mean, that's where a lot of the abolitionist ideas were coming from, right?
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah, we definitely had that international connections for sure. I mean, Douglass is going all around Europe, giving lectures and speeches and trying to expand the movement.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. But then the fracturing is also normal because the abolitionist movement in the United States fractures on the question of women. It fractures specifically on the question of should women be active participants or auxiliary participants in the abolitionist movement? And the folks in Boston with William Lloyd Garrison say, "Yeah, we're about all equality. We're super radical." And the folks in New York are like, "I don't think so. These ladies should have auxiliary societies and we've got to keep it moderate."
Nicole Hemmer:
And they make respectability arguments about it, that we will be seen as unrespectable if women are allowed to speak because we're breaching decorum in that sense. And so you see that split between the radicals and the sort of respectable movement leaders in this period.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. A note for contemporary movements.
Nicole Hemmer:
I know. I know.
Jody Avrigan:
Which we would definitely want to get back to because I think there's so many incredible contemporary resonances here. So just to give people a roadmap for the rest of this episode, we'll talk a little bit about how the conference came together and then some of the political battle lines that emerge. And then in the second episode, we'll talk about what I think is one of the more fascinating things, which is how the story of Seneca Falls becomes powerful and what it reveals about all the sort of fractures that we were just discussing. But Stanton and Mott are sitting around. They have this conversation. It's early July. Stanton would write in her autobiography that basically for hours, she just sort of started talking about all her feelings and all her ideas and all her frustrations and they hatch up this idea, "Well, we should just have a convention." And one of the most remarkable things here is that it all comes together in literally a week and a half, a couple weeks.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Days.
Jody Avrigan:
They're just like, "Let's do it." And so by July 14th, they've put an announcement into the paper that says we want to have a, quote, "convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. And it will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls." And they put the word out. And as we said, this is by the 19th, now it's on the 14th. On the 19th is when the convention kicks off and a few hundred people show up, which to me is pretty impressive to round up that many people. But I think it shows that things were really primed, that this was just more like capturing a moment than it was creating a new movement, right?
Nicole Hemmer:
Absolutely. I mean, all of those people were around as well. I mean in that passage where Stanton is writing about pouring all of her feelings out and I was so overtaken by the moment. Then she talks about, and I was talking with Ralph Waldo Emerson down the street. So your people are there. And so it makes it a little easier to convene everyone. But I think you're right. It's this idea of the burnt over district, this is a spark and it immediately catches because everyone is, I think, primed to have these conversations.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yeah. Douglass is there too. And I'm sure this is a moment where people are like, "Who's all going to be there? Oh, okay. I will be there. I will show up. I will come through. Will there be food? I will be there."
Jody Avrigan:
So they say that the first day is going to be a sort of little closed session and it'll be exclusively for women who are earnestly invited to attend. And then the second day there's going to be a more public session in which everyone is invited. And yeah, about 200, 300 women convene at the Wesleyan Chapel. By all accounts, the doors were locked and so they convinced Lucretia's nephew to shimmy through the window and break it open and let them in. I just love the sort of ragtag nature of all of this.
Nicole Hemmer:
Like somebody forgot to get their permit.
Jody Avrigan:
Yes. They didn't get a permit. That's right. And I also read somewhere that, I don't know if it was on the first day or the second day, but actually they roped in one of their husbands to be the master of ceremonies because they didn't think that an event, even though it was organized by women, that an event emceed by a woman in the moment would win people over. And so an interesting dynamic there.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
I just don't think we can get our heads around the fact that women were publicly scorned for speaking in public. They had tomatoes and fruit and all kinds of things thrown at them if they tried to speak to say, "Hello, welcome." People were incensed by just seeing a woman address a public audience. And I think that's just an important sort of note to have a top of mind when you realize how radical it is, not just the meeting, but the fact that they're speaking and coming up with these ideas and having a convention and leading it. And it's so much more than our contemporary minds can sort of perceive.
Nicole Hemmer:
Right. And for women to speak publicly, particularly about politics, because in one of the resolutions that they vote on, the call is for, "Well, if you are going to treat women who speak about politics like this, then you need to treat every woman who sings on stage, who dances on stage, who performs in the circus." All of those women you're happy to have appear in public and entertain you. So if you're going to treat us like that, you have to treat them like that.
Jody Avrigan:
So what ends up coming out of this are two key documents. There's a declaration and then there's a series of resolutions. And the declaration, we mentioned this when we did our episode about the Declaration of Independence, but they write a document called the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances, and it is exactly modeled on the Declaration of Independence. And it starts with, instead of all men are created equal, it says all men and women are created equal. But we did this when we did our episode from our live show in Boston, but any thoughts here about just the persistence of the Declaration of Independence as an organizing document and why they would turn to that as the thing to remix in this moment?
Nicole Hemmer:
It's the most radical document of the era that has popular and public familiarity. [inaudible 00:27:56]
Kellie Carter Jackson:
And legitimacy.
Nicole Hemmer:
But yes, legitimacy as well. And it's packed with so many promises. It's that idea of it being a promissory note that isn't actually paid out. It's something that people can return to again and again. And as you're saying, I worked as a consultant on the 250th exhibition at the Newark Public Library. And one of the things that they did was they just showed all of the other iterations of the Declaration of Independence from Seneca Falls to Ho Chi Minh taking it and revising it for the people of Vietnam. It's used across history and not even just within the boundaries of the United States because the radical promise of equality within it creates so many possibilities while as Kellie said, having that legitimacy behind it.
Deva Woodly:
I think that it's a document that practices something that I call politics of futurity. So it is really a future forming document. It is a document that says by our speech and acclimation, we call into being a future that is not yet. And it is super unique as a political document in that way. I think that's why it has so much resonance across cultures and across time. I mean, the Black Panthers use it as a blueprint. And it's because it's this document that we consider legitimate and real politics, and it is not a utopian document either. It's not a document that's like, "We would think it would be nice if all of these things came." It is a thing that says, "We are calling into being based on these truths, this political reality, and let's go." And I think that is such a powerful thing.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
It's unequivocal in its dance. It's not maybe, it's-
Deva Woodly:
No. It's like we're doing this thing. It's already done, which is amazing.
Nicole Hemmer:
Yeah. Also, it has a list of grievances And I think that's the most fun part. Everybody's like, "Actually, you know what? I've got some things I need to say."
Jody Avrigan:
That's the beauty of the document that lets it get repurposed is that all movements are based on a bunch of grievances and then a bunch of big ideas. And that document just has both. And so yes, they start with, we talked about how a lot of this was cooked up over Stanton pouring her heart out and about all the things on her mind. And it starts with this declaration of sentiments. And just even to play out the rhetorical game here, instead of all the grievances against the king, it's all framed as grievances against man. And so he has not ever permitted her to exercise her alienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit laws in the formation of which she has no vice. He has withheld her from rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men, both natives and foreigners.
There's a lot to unpack there, but you see that sort of framing. And then it does turn to this series of resolutions. And there are 12 resolutions, 11 are passed unanimously, and we'll talk about the one that is not because I think that's often the one that's most focused on, but they all kind of have, as we discussed, very specific calls for equal rights. And I do think it is worth noting that yeah, they run across all the different spheres. It's not just the right to vote, which I think is the story that is often told about this moment. But it's about domestic politics, it's about social politics, it's about race and religion and all-
Kellie Carter Jackson:
It's about wages, earning and keeping your wages. I mean, the idea that if a woman made money, she wasn't allowed to keep that money. She had to give that money to her husband. And even when she got that money, that money was still diminished because they weren't paying women the amount that they were paying men. And I mean, there's so much in here that is really big and still present, unfortunately, in a lot of ways that we think about how women are subjugated or how women are treated and how women don't have political agency and protection that is needed for them to be full citizens that I think sometimes, and not to diminish the vote, the vote is important, but there are a lot of conversations to be had about how patriarchies wreaked havoc in women's lives.
Nicole Hemmer:
That's what's so interesting about, I think both the statement of sentiment, the declaration of sentiments, and then also the different resolutions is they could be broadly classed as political rights of which Lucretia Mott is very clear that the first right is the right to vote and all the other political grievances fall after that. Women not having a voice means they're subject to laws that are not fair to them. But then a good chunk of them are economic rights. This is very much a document about women understanding that their independence is tied to those two poles, their right to be full citizens politically and their right to be full citizens economically.
Jody Avrigan:
So I mentioned that 11 of these resolutions are passed unanimously and there is one that leads to a little bit of a debate. And that is the one that is phrased as, it's the ninth resolution. It's phrased as, quote, "It is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." And that is the only one that meets some opposition. And I'm curious if you have a thought about why that one is the most contentious.
Deva Woodly:
The folks there made an argument that that proposition was so radical that it would make the convention a laughingstock. It would make the movement a laughingstock because that was obviously too far beyond the pale to acclaim a right to vote in elective office, which I just think is so instructive. Truly, since I'm not a historian, since I do contemporary social movements, the reason I go back to these historical movements is to one, find out what they did, what their tactics were, but also the arguments about what is possible and what's too far to push and what's too radical are so. The parallels are so strong. And that was basically it. You had people who, they were there.
So they were already in this circle of folks who knew that there needed to be political and economic change, but this one was a bridge too far. And that's actually why Douglass gets up to speak. Douglass is the one who gets that passed at all because he goes up and he gives a speech like, "Let's not be ridiculous here. This is a matter of simple dignity. No matter how radical you think it is, the end of slavery is also radical, but that day has to come. Women should also have the right to vote." And so that's why it passes. But there are people there who still believe, "Well, that's a bridge too far. No one will take us seriously if we do this."
Kellie Carter Jackson:
It should be noted that Douglass is the only Black person.
Deva Woodly:
The only one. Yes.
Nicole Hemmer:
The other just small note to make is that in addition to the folks who thought that it was too radical, which was by far the biggest part of the no contingent, as with all social movements, there were also people who thought it wasn't radical enough who were like, "Well, if we get the vote, then we are complicit in the system that also upholds enslavement and all these other inequalities. There's always that person in the room whenever you're in a social movement."
Deva Woodly:
That's true.
Nicole Hemmer:
That is so true.
Jody Avrigan:
I think that some of the more contemporary history around this moment is sort of adding that layer of complexity. I think these were Garrisonians who kind of followed Garrison and sort of thought, "Well, we don't want to play this broken game anyway, so why are we going to prioritize the fight for the vote?" To add even more texture to this, we didn't mention this in our character sketch, but by all accounts, and this will certainly emerge later in her life, but Stanton thought highly of herself and was a bit of a maybe, I don't know, what am I trying to say? Maybe snob a little bit.
Nicole Hemmer:
A snob. She was totally a bob.
Deva Woodly:
Elitist. [inaudible 00:36:05]
Jody Avrigan:
A little bit of an elitist. And I think she was obviously very well-read and had brilliant ideas and a good organizer. But I point this out to say that by all accounts, Douglass was one of the few people in the room who she kind of felt was a moral and intellectual equal. And so obviously it's Frederick Douglass, but the fact that it's Douglass who stands up and makes the push for this, it just makes me think, Deva, I'm sure you encounter this all the time, that so many of these moments are also contingent on just the interpersonal, small little moments that could go break one way or another. And it redounds to just kind of like, "Does this person respect this person and what's their existing relationship? And did they say the exact right thing in the exact right moment?" And then boom, it flips.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. I think the messenger and these relationships really matter. I mean, that was the thing about Douglass. He wasn't the only gifted abolitionist orator in that time. There was a whole contingent of them going all around the country. But he had these critical relationships across what became the abolitionist divide and then also across gender, which was also an organizing divide too. He was friends with Maria Weston Chapman, who was another wealthy lady who was in Boston, who funded a lot of abolitionist activity there. So he was just a really critical connector in terms of across the divides of these movements. And I think that's why he had special credibility.
Nicole Hemmer:
And in part because he represented some of those divides. I mean, he started off as a Garrisonian type who was like, "The constitution is a pact with the devil." And then over time he was like, "Actually, we can use the courts and amendments to the constitution to get some of what we want. So let's do that." He became more pragmatic over time. But so having had that experience of being on the radical side of the ledger, he could speak across that divide.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Douglass is charismatic. And I attributed this to him having been enslaved, he knows how to weave those lines. He knows how to make people feel comfortable. He knows how to bring people in. He knows how to have these conversations that will make everyone feel sort of empowered. He was very good at navigating multiple relationships so that everyone felt valued. I mean, that was his sort of like... everybody liked Douglass. You know what I mean?
Deva Woodly:
Yeah. And he also though a lot of himself.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Yes, yes. Which is why a lot of Black abolitionists are like [inaudible 00:38:31]-
Deva Woodly:
Didn't like him.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Because they felt they understood his performance. They're like, "Douglass, we know what you're doing to these white people. We know what you're saying to these white... we know what you're saying to them."
Deva Woodly:
It's true.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
It's true.
Deva Woodly:
Yeah, no, one of the great failures of our sort of historical media enterprise is that there should be seven million miniseries about the characters from this period because they were so drama and especially Douglass. Douglass was cute. He knew he was cute. He was like this dandy who cultivated. He was the most photographed person in the 19th century. It's like so much drama and we don't know enough about it. Shonda Rhimes would do such a number with this.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
Oh my God.
Jody Avrigan:
Well, you're right up our alley here because we tend to end these episodes with a conversation about what miniseries or movies or TV shows do we want to see coming out of this. So this is perfect.
Nicole Hemmer:
The world is not ready for Frederick Douglass via Shonda Rhimes.
Jody Avrigan:
The messy Frederick Douglass.
Deva Woodly:
I'm ready.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
I'm ready. I got casting ready. Somebody call Anne Hathaway right now.
Jody Avrigan:
As long as the fake spiritualist sisters make an appearance, I'm gay for this.
Deva Woodly:
I'll represent.
Jody Avrigan:
But wait, I want to end this part one with a kind of coming back to this resolution about the vote because one, I want to understand how it happens. Two, I think next episode will trace how much the question of the vote becomes the story of Seneca Falls and how much those get conflated a little bit in part because of Stanton. But you hinted at it a little bit, but Kellie, why is it that Douglass is the one to say, "No, you need to fight for this thing?"
Kellie Carter Jackson:
I think because if Douglass is the only Black person in the room and Douglass is the only Black person that's been enslaved, Douglass knows oppression in the most acute forms and no one can question his stance on what freedom should really entail, what should really be included. So for him to say, "This is not radical, this is basic. And let me tell you how basic this is." Who's going to quibble with that? Who's going to say, "No, Douglass, I think you're going too far." I think he had real credibility in that moment. And I don't think anybody wanted to see themselves on the other side of Douglass in that way.
Jody Avrigan:
All right. Well, we will leave it there for the end of part one of our look at Seneca Falls. Next episode, we will be back with a look at what the real time effect of Seneca Falls was, but also the larger context of the other movements that were happening at the time and then the story of Seneca Falls and how that gets frankly crafted over the decades that would follow. But for now, we leave it there with part one. Nicole Hemmer, thanks to you as always.
Nicole Hemmer:
Thank you, Jodi.
Jody Avrigan:
Kellie Carter Jackson, thanks to you.
Kellie Carter Jackson:
My pleasure.
Jody Avrigan:
And Deva Woodly of Brown and a Kettering fellow. Thank you so much for joining us. And you will be back for part two, but thanks to you.
Deva Woodly:
Thank you.
Alex Lovit:
We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you want to hear more, keep an eye on This Day's feed later this week for part two and part three when Jody Avrigan and I really get into the big themes. And again, we'll be bringing you additional content from our friends at This Day for the rest of this month. And if you live near Washington DC, check the show notes to buy tickets for our live podcast taping on Monday, October 19th. The Context is a production of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Our producers are George Drake Jr. and Emily Vaughn. Melinda Gilmore is our director of communications. The rest of our team includes Jamal Bell, Teo Clyburn, Jasmine O'Lare, and Darla Minnick.
Special thanks to Sarah Murphy for helping to coordinate this partnership. Visit our website, kettering.org, to learn more about the foundation or to sign up for our newsletter. If you have comments for the show, you can reach us at thecontext@kettering.org. If you like the show, leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts or just tell a friend about us. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests. They're not the views and opinions of the Kettering Foundation. The foundation's support of this podcast is not an endorsement of its content.
Speaker 6:
This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.