Supporting Seneca Falls as the creation of women's rights
The American National Biography Online (ANBO) supports that the Seneca Falls Convention was not only the birthplace of women’s rights, but also the start of how women met and fought for those rights. After the Seneca Falls Convention, a second event was held that gathered more support and continued the progress for change. The ANBO points out that after these conventions “Women elsewhere took note of events in New York. Petitions for property rights and suffrage circulated in several states, and beginning in the spring of 1850 conventions of women's rights advocates became commonplace from Indiana to New England.” (http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html) The Seneca Falls Convention also stamped Elizabeth Cady Stanton as one of the women’s rights leaders.
The wildfire effect continued when the Elizabeth Stanton met Susan B. Anthony in 1851. The ANBO put emphasis on their collaborations stating that "Yearly until the Civil War Stanton and Anthony renewed their pressure on the legislature, extracting favorable reports in some years and mockery in others.” (http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html)
The wildfire effect continued when the Elizabeth Stanton met Susan B. Anthony in 1851. The ANBO put emphasis on their collaborations stating that "Yearly until the Civil War Stanton and Anthony renewed their pressure on the legislature, extracting favorable reports in some years and mockery in others.” (http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html)
More Support for Seneca Falls
According to the National Women’s History Museum, the Seneca Falls Convention began the women’s suffrage movement which was a staple at the turn of the century nearly 50 years after it began. Its main supporters, including Seneca Falls organizer Elizabeth Stanton, “circulated petitions and lobbied Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment to enfranchise women.” (http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/suffrage.html) Women used these tactics and the need to vote to form movements and organizations that helped the women’s rights cause.
Not Quite Convinced
Not everyone is convinced that Seneca Falls created the women’s rights movement. Stephen Railton at the University of Virginia believes that “The American Woman's Rights movement grew out of abolitionism in direct but complex ways.” (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/wmhp.html) Although he mentions the Seneca Falls convention as the first women’s rights convention he uses text from The History of Women’s Suffrage by Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Gage to point out other starting points of the movement. Railton points out, “In a passage from this book included in the articles section of the archive, Uncle Tom's Cabin is cited as one reason for the early strength of the Woman's Movement in Ohio, but Stowe always rejected its central demand for the vote.” (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/wmhp.html) However, Railton leaves the question of what started the Women’s rights movement open, by stating, “And while Uncle Tom's Cabin is very much about women and slaves, its relation to the premises and project of the Woman's Movement in America is by no means clear.” (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/wmhp.html)
It doesn't start at Seneca Falls
Another argument against the Seneca Falls Convention being the start of the women’s rights movement is a simple timeline from the Women at Work Museum (WAW). The Women’s Rights Timeline does not start in 1848 at the Seneca Falls convention, but as early as 1777. The WAW points out that in 1777 “Abigail Smith Adams, wife of the second president (John Adams) and mother of the sixth president (John Quincy Adams) writes that women "will not hold ourselves bound by any laws which we have no voice." (http://womenatworkmuseum.org/Womens-Rights-timeline.pdf) In fact, there are nine events that the WAW placed before the convention in 1848 showing importance in the women’s rights movement.