Page 10 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2019

FEATURE
Judge Susan C. Del Pesco
Quieting the Sentiments
170 years after Seneca Falls, the fight for equal rights continues.
One hundred seventy years ago, in 1848, a group of women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, to address the injustices experienced by American women. What became known as the Seneca Falls Convention produced a Declaration of Sentiments.
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It reads, in part: “The history of man- kind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward
woman, having in direct object the estab- lishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”1
The “facts” include, inter alia, the denial of the right to vote and denial of representation in the halls of legislation; inequality in divorce and child guardian- ship; denial of right in property, including the wages she earns; denial of access to profitable employment; denial of liberty; denial of access to education in theology, medicine or law; and man’s endeavors “in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her lead a de- pendent and abject life.”2
The Right to Vote
Susan B. Anthony was born on Febru-
ary 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. Her Quaker family had a long tradition of social activism. Anthony, along with other Quaker women, was a leader at Sen- eca Falls and remained heavily involved in the women’s rights movement for the rest of her life. She became the face of the suffrage effort as leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), serving as its President from 1892-1900. She appeared before every Congress from 1869 to 1906, the year of her death, to ask for passage of a suffrage amendment.3
Early successes of the women’s move- ment included the enactment of state laws that allowed married women to own property, keep their own wages and have custody of their children.4 These Married Women’s Property Acts became state law starting in 1839. As of 1860, 14 states had passed some version of the statutes, and