Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Woman’s Rights

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2018

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

170 years ago one woman launched the beginning of the modern women’s rights movement in America. New Generation Thinker Joanna Cohen of Queen Mary University of London looks back at her story and what lessons it has for politics now.

In the small town of Seneca Falls in upstate New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote The Declaration of Sentiments, a manifesto that took one of the nation’s most revered founding documents, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, and turned its condemnation of British tyranny into a blistering attack on the tyranny of American men. But why did Stanton choose to rebrand her claim for rights with the power of sentiment?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.1	This is the BBC.
0:34.7	Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.
0:36.4	Welcome to Broadcasters of the Future on those we have forgotten, but really shouldn't have.
0:42.0	A series of the essay program recorded for BBC Radio 3 in front of an audience at the York Festival of Ideas.
0:49.2	Joanna Cohen works at Queen Mary University of London where she researches American history. Her book, Luxurious Citizens,
0:55.9	The Politics of Consumption in 19th Century America,
0:59.6	came out last year.
1:01.0	Jo's going to take us across the Atlantic
1:02.7	to find out about Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1:05.6	and the power of passion.
1:15.2	Thank you. of passion. About 15 years ago, I went on a road trip from Philadelphia to Toronto. It's not the most
1:21.1	exciting drive. But I was really looking forward to it because along the way, I persuaded
1:26.5	my partner to stop off at Seneca Falls.
1:30.3	Seneca Falls are now forgotten way stop along the Erie Canal in upstate New York has got very little to recommend it.
1:37.3	It's true.
1:38.3	But I was determined to go because this tiny town is the birthplace of American feminism. It was in Seneca Falls in July
1:48.7	1848 in a church that a group of women led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote and delivered the first
1:56.1	manifesto of women's rights the nation had ever seen. I'd only just learned about it in graduate school,
2:02.5	and I can't tell you how excited I was when we arrived in town. I was going to see the place
	...

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