At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, a
woman’s rights convention—the first ever held in the
United States—convened with almost 200 women in
attendance.

The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at
the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the
convention floor, and the common indignation that
this aroused in both of them was the impetus for
their founding of the women’s rights movement in
the United States.