Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 12th gradeA+, March 1996

download word file, 7 pages 4.5

good essay written in the first person as Stanton. -

I was once called the most dangerous woman in America because I dared to ask for the unthinkable- the right to vote. I challenged my culture's basic assumptions about men and women, and dedicated my life to the pursuit of equal rights for all women. My name is Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

I was born in Johnstown, New York, on the 12th of November, 1815. My father is the prominent attorney and judge Daniel Cady and my mother is Margaret Livingston Cady. I was born the seventh child and middle daughter. Although my mother gave birth to eleven children- five boys and six girls- six of her children died. Only one of my brothers survived to adulthood, and he died unexpectedly when he was twenty. At ten years old, my childhood was shadowed by my father's grief. I can still recall going into the large darkened parlor to see my brother and finding the casket and my father by his side, pale and immovable.

As he took notice of me, I climbed upon his knee. He sighed and said, ' Oh my daughter, I wish you were a boy!' I threw my arms around his neck and replied that I will try my hardest to be all my brother was.

I was determined to be courageous, to ride horses and play chess, and study such manly subjects as Latin, Greek, mathematics, and philosophy. I devoured the books in my father's extensive law library and debated the fine points of the law with his clerks. It was while reading my father's law books that I first discovered the cruelty of the laws regarding women, and I resolved to get scissors and snip out every unfair law. But my father stopped me, explaining...