LIZZIE STANTON

As a young girl she would sit in a corner of her father’s home office and learn about how unjust the law and how lacking in compassion her father was. He administered the law with no interest in improving it for the sake of women, despite Lizzie’s many complaints. He was cold as stone regarding his three daughters, preferring his four sons who all died in childhood. She excelled in her accomplishments to earn her father’s approval, only to have him say to her at 16, “If only you were a boy.”
This must have hurt her deeply, but also must have severely damaged her father’s credibility.
At the advanced age of 24, her father forbade her marrying because Henry Stanton was an abolitionist, was 10 years older and therefore too old, and could not support her well enough. She acquiesced for a short while, but finally rebelled and eloped so she and Henry could attend the World Abolition Conference in London in 1840.
That event turned out to be pivotal to the rest of her life. She met many women who were also interested in improving women’s lives and became her allies in the battle to improve women’s rights.