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Anne Hutchinson is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy.
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The Salem Witch Trials are held in Salem, Massachusetts.
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New Jersey grants women the vote in its state constitution.
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Abigail Adams makes plea to her husband: "Remember the ladies" in the new Constitution.
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Sarah Pierce establishes first institution in America for higher education of women, in Litchfield, Connecticut.
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Susan B. Anthony's birthday
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Kentucky widows with children in school are granted "school suffrage," the right to vote in school board elections.
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Maria Mitchell discovers a new comet, wins a medal from the King of Denmark.
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Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Ann McClintock are invited to tea at the home of Jane Hunt in Waterloo, New York. They decide to call a two-day meeting of women at the Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Seneca Falls to discuss women's rights.
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Three hundred people attend the first convention held to discuss women's rights, in Seneca Falls, New York; 68 women and 32 men sign the "Declaration of Sentiments," including the first formal demand made in the United States for women's right to vote: "...it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise."
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In Salem, Ohio, women take complete control of their women's rights convention, refusing men any form of participation apart from attendance
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First National Woman's Rights Convention is held in Worcester, Massachusetts. It draws 1,000 people, and women's movement leaders gain national attention. Annual national conferences continue to be held through 1860 (except in 1857).
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The "Bloomer costume" is adopted to urge dress reform for women.
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Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first meet on a street corner in Seneca Falls, New York.
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Sojourner Truth's spontaneous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech electrifies the woman's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.