The movement for women's rights traces its origin to the first half of the nineteenth century. The Seneca Falls Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York in July of 1848, is commonly regarded as the beginning of the women's rights movement in the United States. This conference was preceded by a series of ground-breaking events that made possible this seminal milestone in the history of American women.

The idea for the convention emerged during the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, a conference that precluded its female delegates from participation in discussions. Lucretia Mott, a famous women's rights activist, wrote in her diary that calling the 1840 convention a "world" convention "was a mere poetical license." She had accompanied her husband to London but had to sit behind a partition with other women activists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who later became one of the main forces behind the Seneca Falls Convention.

During the early 1840s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton composed the Declaration of Sentiments, a document modeled after the Declaration of Independence, declaring the rights of women. At the time of its composition, the Declaration of Sentiments was so bold that when Elizabeth Stanton showed the draft to her husband, he stated that if she read it at the Seneca Falls Convention, he would have to leave town. The Declaration contained several new resolutions. It proclaimed that all men and women are born equal and stated that no man could withhold a woman's rights, take her property, or preclude her from the right to vote. This Declaration also became the foundation for the Seneca Falls Convention.

On July 19-20, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention brought together 240 delegates between ages 22 and 60, including forty men, who spent the two days at the conference debating, refining and voting on the Declaration of Sentiments. Most of the declaration's resolutions received unanimous support and were officially endorsed. Later in 1848, the Seneca Falls convention was followed by an even larger meeting in Rochester, New York. Thereafter, national women's conventions were held annually, contributing to the growing momentum in the movement for women's rights.