Time trip.

* Not so long ago, women in the United States had very few rights. In the 1800s, women in the United States couldn't vote, and most states had laws limiting a woman's right to own property. Most colleges were closed to women, as were most professions.

* After being denied access to an antislavery convention in England because she was female, New Yorker Elizabeth Cady Stanton had had enough. Along with fellow abolitionist Lucretia Coffin Mott, Stanton organized the first women's rights convention in the United States, named the Seneca Falls Convention, which convened in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in July 1848. Between 100 and 300 people attended, including abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.

* Those who gathered at Seneca Falls drafted the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, the Seneca Falls declaration said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.... The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries ... on the part of man toward woman." The document accused men of wanting "the establishment of an absolute tyranny" over women. The declaration urged that women be granted suffrage, the right to vote--a demand that newspaper editors at the time said was "monstrous," "ridiculous," and "evil." (See cartoon of a woman attempting to vote above.)

* In 1851, Stanton met the outspoken social activist Susan B. Anthony, with whom she would found the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. In 1872, Anthony was arrested and fined for casting a vote in the presidential election. At her trial, Anthony told the judge she hoped to "educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your manmade, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law."

* Women didn't win the right to vote until 1920, when the 19th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution. It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

* Nineteenth Amendment (page 2). An amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women suffrage was first proposed to Congress in 1878, but did not receive enough votes to pass. The amendment came before Congress nearly every year after that, but was defeated each time. Much of the opposition came from people who feared the women would vote for regulation of certain business groups, the liquor industry, for example. Finally, with the support of President Woodrow Wilson, who appreciated the contributions of women during World War I, the Nineteenth amendment was ratified in 1920.

* Frederick Douglass (page 2). Frederick Douglass was a former African American slave who became one of the leading voices in the abolitionist movement wrote The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Born sometime around 1818, Douglass's slave name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave at Holme Hill Farm, Talbot County, Maryland. In 1838, Douglass escaped the South and traveled to New York City. Douglass published his auto-biography in 1845. Among other things, the book chronicled the brutality of slavery. The book became a best-seller, especially in the North and in Europe. However, the author's new-found fame threatened to end his freedom. At the time, federal laws gave his former master the right to find and bring Douglass back to the plantation. Douglass fled to England in the summer of 1845. There, Douglass lectured about the cruel system of slavery. Douglass came back to the United States. With the help of his abolitionist friends, Douglass was able to buy his freedom and on December 5, 1846, his former master's family officially gave Douglass his freedom. He died in 1895.