Inaugural National Women's Rights Convention

Date: October 23, 1850 • Location: Worcester, United States

The inaugural National Women's Rights Convention, presided over by American activist Paulina Wright Davis (pictured), began in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both female and male leadership and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates and abolitionists. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform, and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give women the right to vote.