Elizabeth Cady Stanton became aware of the different opportunities for boys and girls by spending time in her father’s law office. She spent hours studying law books, talking with law clerks, and hearing the plight of widows who faced losing all their property (including what they brought into the marriage).

Stanton’s eyes were opened to the world of reform in the home of her cousin, Gerrit Smith, an antislavery reformer. There she met Henry Stanton, in 1839, and the couple travelled to the World Anti-Slavery Convention on their honeymoon in 1840. Stanton saw the treatment of women at the convention as unfair, and turned her anger into her life-long work for the cause of women’s rights.