175 years ago, the Seneca Falls Convention kicked off the fight for women's suffrage – an iconic moment deeply shaped by Quaker beliefs on gender and equality

The Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., where on July 19 and 20, 1848, the first women's rights conventions in the U.S. were held. Epics/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

On July 19, 1848, nearly 300 men and women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, to begin the United States’ first public political meeting regarding women’s rights. The Seneca Falls Convention resulted in the Declaration of Sentiments, a document modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence that asserted “all men and women are created equal.”

The two-day conference marked the beginning of the movement for women’s suffrage, which would be granted 70 years later by the ratification of the 19th Amendment of the Constitution. And it likely wouldn’t have happened without Quakers.