Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-26, 1902) American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement. She married in 1840 with the word promise to obey excluded from the vows. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and woman's suffrage movements in the USA. After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the woman's rights movement when she declined to support passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African-American men while women, black and white, were denied those same rights. Stanton supported divorce rights, employment rights, and property rights for women, issues in which the American Women's Suffrage Association preferred not to become involved.