Suffragists and women's rights in New York State

It began at a tea party in Waterloo, New York, on July 13, 1848.

Jane Hunt, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Mary Ann M’Clintock, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided that the changes they desired for women would only come to fruition if they fought for them. Six days later, on July 19, 1848, 200 women (and 42 men, including the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass) packed into the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls to signal to the entire world the birth of the women’s rights movement. In 1917—more than 65 years after that small tea party in Waterloo—New York became one of the first states to grant women the right to vote. This act helped usher in the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted the right for citizens to vote, regardless of gender. Today, visitors to New York State can step into the past to recapture the spirit of the early suffragists who raised their voices and ignited change and see their legacy taken up by women who made their mark in politics, the arts, and more.