In February 1851 Elizabeth Oakes Smith wrote to Horace Greeley about her interest in founding a women’s rights newspaper. This letter, dated 1 November 1851, is Greeley’s rather abrupt reply. Greeley was the editor for the New York Tribune, a reformer and a politician. Greeley replies to Smith advising her not to start a woman’s newspaper on the grounds that it would be a poor business decision, noting “there are already fifty papers (I think) edited by women.” Greeley attacks Smith’s ideas about reform and refuses to help her financially. Elizabeth Oakes Smith was one of the many women who would become involved in the United States women’s rights movement; one of the antebellum reforms.

The Seneca Falls Convention was held in 1848 and is regarded by many as the first appearance of an organised women’s movement in the United States. The convention was held to discuss the rights of women and was attended by between 200 and 300 people, both men and women. Many of the attendees were abolitionists who were already involved with anti-slavery organisations. The convention focused on suffrage for women and highlighted the current absence of women in the political arena. During the convention the “Declaration of Sentiments” was written listing all forms of discrimination against women. The declaration called for reform regarding marital laws and voting rights for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the principle author for the declaration and based the format on the Declaration of Independence. Stanton’s very public critique of women’s position in society outraged many who still saw a woman’s position as the homemaker and the submissive wife.

Elizabeth Oakes Smith was not a member of the select group at the Seneca Falls Convention but she did attend the National Women’s Rights Convention in October 1850. Smith lectured, wrote and published two novels on the subject of women’s rights. Her ideas for a feminist journal and the newspaper Greeley talks of in this letter were abandoned but women’s rights newspapers did exist; The Lily was the first newspaper in the United States edited by and for women. It was published from 1849 to 1853 by Amelia Bloomer.

After Seneca Falls many other conventions were held and the Women’s Property Act was passed in 1848 in New York State. The act allowed married women to own and control their own property. This letter gives us an insight into the women’s rights movement during the 1850s and the struggles women faced. The women’s rights movement became a very powerful campaign after the Civil War with hundreds of thousands of women petitioning, lobbying and demonstrating for equality and civil rights. It wasn’t until 1920, 69 years after Smith wrote her letter, that the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Nineteenth Amendment granted all American women the right to vote.

View more documents relating to women's history

View more documents relating to reform movements

View more documents relating to journalism