Happy 159th Anniversary!

On July 14, 1848, this announcement appeared in the Seneca County Courier:

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION!

"A Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of woman, will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, current; commencing at 10 o'clock, A.M."

During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia, and others, ladies and gentlemen will address the convention."

And five days later (159 years ago today) the Seneca Falls Convention was held, "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote up the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, and listed "eighteen 'injuries and usurpations' -the same number of charges leveled against the King of England-'on the part of man toward woman.'"

Seventy two years later women finally won the legal right to vote.

Sometimes it only seems like things are getting worse. Change takes time. More time than it should, but we've had lots of practice being patient.