Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two early activists in the Abolition movement, took place along their husbands as delegates to the World Anti-Slavery convention — and were infuriated when the convention forbade them, and other women to speak. What was good enough for slaves, apparently was not good enough for women, and Mott and Stanton resolved to create their own movement for women’s rights. The first local one, hastily put together, took place at the Stanton residence in Seneca Falls, New York, but they always aimed for a broader, national scope.

On this day, October 23, in 1850, the first national woman’s rights convention was organized in Worcester, Massachusetts, with the aim of securing “political, legal, and social equality with man.”

Over 900 participants showed up, with the majority being men. But Lucretia Mott and Stanton both participated, as did Frederick Douglass, who also gave the keynote address in Seneca Falls. They resolved to hold meetings every year, and in between work to raise funds, they’d gather facts to lobby the state legislatures for rights. Lucy Stone, who was the inspiration of both Stanton and Mott, gave the final speech, urging participants to make women’s rights a political issue. “We want to be something more than the appendages of Society,” she said. “We want that Woman should be the coequal and help-meet of Man in all the interest and perils and enjoyments of human life.”