The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848: American Women Join the Civil Rights Movement (1) In the summer of 1848, around two hundred women and men met in Seneca Falls, New York, for the country’s first national women’s rights convention (Levine 277). (2) Many people preferred to watch the waterfall instead of the debates at the Seneca Falls Convention. (3) Women’s suffrage, or the right to vote, was the focus of debate at the convention. (4) However, the participants also drafted demands for other rights, such as property rights and equal education opportunities (Stansell 139). (5) The Seneca Falls Convention was very important. (6) The planning began with a coincidence and took eight years to complete. (7) Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met at an anti-slavery meeting in London. (8) Stanton was a young newlywed at the time, but she was already known to speak her mind on issues of human rights. (9) Mott was a middle-aged Quaker preacher. (10) Stanton and Mott were both upset