Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897

About this book

Elizabeth Cady Stanton tells the story of her life from her childhood in upstate New York, where she learned from her lawyer father how the law treated married women as property, to old age. In 1848, with Lucretia Mott, she organised the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls and wrote its Declaration of Sentiments, which demanded, among other rights, the vote. She describes her long friendship and partnership with Susan B. Anthony, her work against slavery, her travels, her seven children and her campaigns for women's equality in law, education and religion.

Context and significance

Stanton (1815–1902) published the memoir in 1898; she did not live to see American women win the vote in 1920. It is lively, humorous and full of portraits of the reformers of her century. Compare Emmeline Pankhurst's My Own Story and Mill's The Subjection of Women.

About the author