Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
- Free to read
- 9 hours to read
- 28 chapters
- Reading level: 8th & 9th grade
"Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a historical account written during the late 19th century. This memoir chronicles Stanton's life, reflecting on her experiences as a prominent women's rights activist and her interactions with contemporaries in the movement. The opening chapters introduce her early childhood, family background, and foundational experiences that shaped her views on social justice and gender equality. The beginning of the memoir delves into Stanton's reflections on her childhood, emphasizing the complexities of growing up in a society with rigid gender roles. She provides vivid descriptions of her family life, capturing both joyful moments and struggles against the constraints imposed upon young girls. As she recounts formative experiences, such as her education and the inequities she observed, Stanton reveals her burgeoning awareness of the injustices women faced, setting the stage for her lifelong advocacy for women's rights. The tone is introspective and evocative, providing insight into the emotional landscape that would inform her later activism.
- Women · Suffrage · United States · History · 19th century
- Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1815-1902
- Suffragists · United States · Biography
- Feminism · United States · History · 19th century
Read the opening
Chapter I
CHILDHOOD.
The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but by the impressions passing events make on its mind. What may prove a sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments. As well wonder why lilies and lilacs in the same latitude are not all alike in color and equally fragrant. Children differ as widely as these in the primal elements of their physical and psychical life.
Who can estimate the power of antenatal influences, or the child's surroundings in its earliest years, the effect of some passing word or sight on one, that makes no impression on another? The unhappiness of one child under a certain home discipline is not inconsistent with the content of another under this same discipline. One, yearning for broader freedom, is in a chronic condition of rebellion; the other, more easily satisfied, quietly accepts the situation. Everything is seen from a different standpoint; everything takes its color from the mind of the beholder.
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About this edition
This free edition of Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #11982, released 2004-04-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Biographies, American Literature, History - Modern (1750+), Gender & Sexuality Studies, Parenthood & Family Relations.
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