Trailblazer: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), an abolitionist and suffragist who was a major figure in the earliest days of the women’s suffrage movement, lived in Tenafly from 1868 to 1887.

It from in Tenafly that Stanton attempted to vote in 1880.

Stanton took a position of all-or-nothing when it came to voting rights for women, while other leaders of the suffrage movement were willing to accept some incremental changes.  She also backed the temperance movement of the late 1800s, a position that put her at odds with other civil rights leaders who wanted their focus entirely of gaining the right of women to vote.

She was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 to 1892.

Her Bergen County home was declared a National Historical Landmark in 1975.