From Abolitionist to Suffragist: The 1840 World Anti-Slavery Society Convention and Women’s Suffrage

0:00 Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Bridge from the Past. I’m your host, Mary, and this series is all about using images as a starting point to think about important topics in American history and civics. Today, we’re looking at a painting of the 1840 anti slavery convention. What does this meeting have to do with a women’s right to vote in the United States?

0:21 Let’s jump in and see. Here is our image. It’s entitled The Anti-Slavery Convention 1840. It’s by the artist Benjamin Robert Hayden, and it hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. We’re thinking about the connection between this painting of this event, an anti slavery meeting in 1840 in London,

0:45 England, and the right of a woman to vote in the United States. Before we can do anything, it’s important to just make some observations. If you’re using the handout that goes with the video, pause here and make some of your own observations. Here are a few things that I notice. I can see there are a lot of faces in this gathering. It looks like the people go way back.

1:05 It looks like a lot of people have come to this meeting. This guy up front is pretty front and center. It looks like he’s delivering some speech. He has his hand raised in the air. Like he’s making a point. A nother thing that I noticed is that it’s mostly white men. I see a few faces of color in the audience, and I see a few women, but it’s mostly white men.

1:27 It’s not really clear to me how this painting of this event can connect to a woman’s right to vote. As with any primary source, we’re starting with some questions, but we need to take a step back and think about the bigger picture and have some historical context before we can go any further. The first thing to notice is the date of this event, 1840.

1:48 In 1840, slavery still exists within the United States. The slave trade had been abolished in the United States in 1808, and Parliament, kind of like the Congress of England, had abolished the slave trade in Great Britain as well. But slavery, of course, is still going on in the United States. This anti slavery movement, this abolition movement is a worldwide movement.

2:12 At this event in London in 1840, you had over 300 Delegates, and you can see lots of people here, mostly from the United States and Great Britain, but others as well, came to London to talk about how they were going to end slavery. Of the American attendees, two American women were part of the delegation, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

2:32 When they tried to come into the meeting, they were told that a mixed sex meeting would be improper and they weren’t even allowed in. Some male delegates said, Hey, what the heck? Let them in. But most of the male delegates present said, No, we don’t want them in here. Eventually, the women are accorded to a separate gallery. The gallery is hard to see,

2:53 but it would be off in the distance where they could watch. They could observe, but they couldn’t speak, they couldn’t serve on committees, and they were not allowed to vote on anything. This painting is a little misleading because the artist has placed a few women in the audience, but the American women, they were eventually allowed in, but they weren’t sitting in the thick of it like this painting displays.

3:17 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were deeply affected by their treatment at this meeting, and they vowed that when they got back to the United States, they would hold a meeting to call for women’s rights within the United States. That meeting will take place in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. From that meeting, we will get the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,

3:38 a document that’s modeled on the Declaration of Independence and calls for, among other things, a woman’s right to vote. Calling for the right to vote was actually very controversial and it squeaks by, it just passes with the support of Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. We started by asking about the connection between an anti-slavery meeting in 1840 in London and the fight

4:03 for women’s right to vote in the United States. And we learned that women like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were involved in the abolitionist movement, but their participation was limited because they were female. And this made them realize the reform movement needed to get bigger and call for women’s rights as well. But as always, there’s so much more

4:24 to the story of the women’s rights movement, of the abolitionist movement. We’ve just scratched the surface. Now I turn it over to you. What do you want to know more about? What’s the next question in our discussion? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Be sure to like this video if you learned something, and subscribe to our channel to be in the know about other resources

4:45 and events and contests to help you throughout the school year and beyond. I’ll be back soon with another image to help us think about important events in American history. Until then, everybody, take care. Well, I’m done studying. That video filled in all the blanks for me. Well, just in case you need more help, the Bill of Rights Institute’s YouTube

5:06 channel has tons of videos on American history, government, and civics. From primary source document breakdowns to historical image analysis, whether you’re studying for a test or just interested in more, they’ve got something for you. And they put out more videos all the time. Really? Well, in that case, there’s no harm in brushing up on a few more topics.

5:26 Check out another video here and be sure to subscribe here so you are never left out.