Surely the new republic would benefit from having its women play more active roles throughout society. Stanton’s friends agreed with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and carry out a specific, large-scale program. The convention was convened as planned, and over the two-days of discussion, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received unanimous endorsement, one by one, with a few amendments. The only resolution that did not pass unanimously was the call for women’s enfranchisement. That women should be allowed to vote in elections was almost inconceivable to many.
In the early twentieth-century, a group of British women launched a campaign to get women the right to vote. They called themselves the Suffragettes and their leader was Emmeline Pankhurst. Emmeline believed in ‘deeds not words’ and her militant tactics meant that she was no stranger to a prison cell. However even imprisoned, Pankhurst found ways to rebel and inspired fellow inmates to join her in hunger strike. Her campaign finally succeeded in 1928 (when all British women over the age of 21 were finally granted the vote). The victory however was bitter-sweet as Pankhurst herself had died just 2 weeks before.
