On 19 and 20 July 1848 some three hundred people attended the Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights, led by Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia. This convention was the beginning of an organized women's reform movement that extended across the States. 'The immediate matrix of organized feminism was the anti-slavery movement.' Early gains for women were made in the area of education where several colleges were opened to women. However, women made no great gains in the area of politics during this period. The 14th and the 15th ammendments were a crushing blow to the feminist movement. In 1869 the feminists at last formed national organizations - the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association. Pennsylvania's development of feminist organizations paralleled the national trend as local suffrage groups developed. The culmination of the early women's reform movement in Pennsylvania occurred with the Constitutional Convention of 1872-73. This convention voted down a proposal to refer the question of women's suffrage to a popular referendum. Although the feminist movement made some headway between 1848 and 1873, it did not succeed in the area of politics until 1920. [Marsha J. McBaine]
