The “Signatures to the Declaration of Sentiments” is a document signed by 100 of the attendees (68 women and 32 men) of the convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the principal author of the document, owned this copy of the document.

Immediate Reactions to Convention There was a large public response to this convention in the newspapers. Most newspapers did ridicule the convention, as it was a new idea to give women rights, and seemed outrageous. However, even the negative reactions were beneficial as the made woman’s rights a public issue.

The Declaration of Sentiments was the Seneca Falls Convention’s manifesto that described women’s grievances and demands. Written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it called on women to fight for their Constitutionally guaranteed right to equality as U.S. citizens.

As one of the first statements of the political and social repression of American women, the Declaration of Sentiments met with significant hostility upon its publication and, with the Seneca Falls Convention, marked the start of the women’s rights movement in the United States.

The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Based on the American Declaration of Independence, the Sentiments demanded equality with men before the law, in education and employment.

The nation’s transition to a more participatory democracy was achieved by expanding suffrage from a system based on property ownership to one based on voting by all adult white men, and it was accompanied by the growth of political parties.

I. The nation’s transformation to a more participatory democracy was accompanied by continued debates over federal power, the relationship between the federal government and the states, the authority of different branches of the federal government, and the rights and responsibilities of individual citizens.

They found ways to defy their bondage through harvesting personal gardens, creating culturally diverse foods, practicing religion, expressing themselves through music, creating strong family bonds and even through their ideas of freedom.

How did enslaved Africans keep their culture alive? They made drums, banjos, and other instruments similar to the ones they knew from Africa. How did enslaved people try to resist slavery? They tried to trick the owners by working slowly, breaking tools, or pretending to be sick.