The women in New York had continued to besiege the legislature until, in April 1848, for the first time in any State the common law was changed to allow wives to hold property. Then they devoted themselves to securing equal guardianship of children for mothers and juster divorce laws and to work along many lines leading ultimately to woman suffrage, which was their goal from the beginning. By this time the women in other States were carrying forward the same reforms.
In May 1850, during an anti-slavery con vention in Boston, a few women in attendance decided to call a convention, national in char acter, to discuss exclusively the rights of women, and the time and place were fixed for 23, 24 October in Worcester, Mass. The ar rangements were made principally by Lucy Stone and Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis. Nine States were represented by speakers and among these were Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Foster, Burleigh, Douglass, Charming, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Rose, Abby Kelly, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt and many more of note, and letters were read from Emerson, Alcott, Whittier, Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, Mrs. Swisshelm, Elizur Wright, Mrs. Stanton and others. Mrs. Davis presided. A national committee was formed, under whose management conventions were held annually in various cities, while the ques tion was always thereafter a leading one in Massachusetts.
In May 1851, Miss Susan B. Anthony. who had been teaching in the academy at Canajo harie in eastern New York and had returned to her home in Rochester, met Mrs. Stanton for the first time. It was the commencement of 50 years' continuous friendship and effort under their leadership to obtain equality of rights for women. Their first conventions were held in the interest of temperance but they became convinced almost at once that women must have a vote in order to do effective work. In 1852 a woman's rights convention was held in Syracuse with delegates from eight States and Canada. From this time such conventions took place in various parts of the countrs and the movement for the rights of women had many strong supporters but it had to combat the traditions, customs and prejudices of the ages. Life for the vast majority of people ran in narrow grooves. The Bible was accepted literally as placing women in an inferior posi tion. The Church spoke with much authority and for the most part commanded women to remain in the limited sphere supposed to be fixed for them by divine decree. They had been deprived of education and business ex perience. Women almost as a whole accepted this position without protest. The mass of men could see only disadvantage to themselves in granting more rights to women. Those who
were connected in any way with matters toward which reform movements were directed were bitterly hostile to giving power to women. The political party leaders were as adamant against it. A large class of conservative men were opposed to any change; another class wanted to maintain their authority over women; another feared the effect on the home, the children, the family life; another regarded women as angels, goddesses, queens, to be kept on a cloud, a pedestal or a throne.
Notwithstanding an opposition which in volume and complexity was never faced by any other reform, the movement for woman suf frage was slowly gaining ground when the breaking out of the Civil War banished all other questions from the public thought. After the war was ended and the women again took up their cause they met the vast complication of the rights of the emancipated negroes and were compelled even by those who had been their strongest supporters to yield their claims to those of negro men. The civil. legal and political results of the 14th and 15th Amend ments to the National Constitution tended still further to hinder the effort to obtain the franchise for women.
Before the Civil War women knew of no way except to have the word 'male' taken out of the constitution of every State by consent of a majority of the voters, but these amend ments showed them that there was a speedier and easier way. An Equal Rights Association had been formed to promote the interests of both negroes and white women, but in 1869 the latter were forced to recognize the necessity for a separate organization if they were not to be entirely sacrificed. At the close of a meet ing of this association in New York, women who had come from 19 States to attend it met at the Woman's Bureau in East 23d street where now the Metropolitan Life bnikhne stands, 15 May 1869, and formed a National Woman Suffrage Association, whose object should be to secure a 16th Amendment to the Federal Constitution which would enfranchise women. Mrs. Stanton was made president and Miss Anthony chairman of the executive com mittee. As there was some division of senti ment at this time, a 'Call' was issued by Lacs Stone, Julia Ward Howe and others for a coo vention to meet in Cleveland. Ohio, the fol lowing November, and here the American Woman Suffrage Association was formed, with Henry Ward Beecher, president, and Lucy Stone, chairman of the executive committee. It worked principally to obtain the suffrage through amendments to State constitutions. Both societies held national conventions every year thereafter.