Page 31 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

F R ONT I E R P H I L OSOPHY: AMERICAN DISCOURSE

draw women out of the domestic realm, it was in support of a moral
and thus appropriate cause.
Anglo women who engaged in one of the above reform move­
ments learned many lessons. Perhaps the most significant was that when
women ventured outside their homes they lacked tangible power.
Unable to own property, to vote, to hold office, or even to speak in
public without censure, women rapidly became disillusioned by their
own ineffectiveness in achieving reform. As a result, many women
reformers became advocates of yet another kind of reform, that of
women's rights. In 1848, Lucretia Matt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton put
a notice in the Seneca County Courier of July 14 announcing that "a
Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights
of woman" would assemble at Seneca Falls, New York. Matt and Stanton
had been stewing since 1840, when they walked out of the World Anti­
Slavery Convention in London protesting rules that seated them behind
a curtain and prohibited them from speaking and voting. Although the
Seneca Falls meeting was intended for women, it attracted a number of
men as well. This group adopted a "Declaration of Sentiments," based
in form and style on the Declaration of Independence, that demanded
more personal liberty, control of property, and increased participation in
government for women, including the right to vote. Although the dec­
laration stated that "we anticipate no small amount of misconception,
misrepresentation, and 'ridicule," its signers were aghast at the public
derision they faced. According to Stanton and Anthony, the proceed­
ings were "unsparingly ridiculed by the press, and denounced by the
pulpit, much to the surprise and chagrin of the leaders" who were
"wholly unprepared to find themselves the target for the jibes and jeers
of the nation."45
Caustic responses were to plague the women's rights movement
throughout succeeding decades. In 1859, the New Y o rk T i mes reported a
women's rights meeting held in New York City, during which many in
the capacity crowd interrupted with "sneering and scoffing" at such
well-known and respected speakers as Lucretia Mott, Antoinette
Blackwell, Ernestine Rose, and Wendell Phillips. Pleas from chairperson
Susan B. Anthony were of little avail in quieting the crowd, and the
confusion that prevailed seemed, to the T i mes, to be an embarrassment

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