Caroline Wells Dall was an American feminist writer, transcendentalist, and reformer. She was affiliated with the National Women's Rights Convention, the New England Women's Club, and the American Social Science Association. Her associates included Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller, as well as members of the Transcendentalist movement in Boston.
Portrait of Caroline Healey Dall, ca.1872
National Women's Rights Convention
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.
Frederick Douglass was strongly in favor of women's right to vote.
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis helped organize and presided over the first two conventions, and was president of the Central Committee for most of the decade.
Lucy Stone helped organize the first eight national conventions, presided over the seventh and was secretary of the Central Committee for most of the decade.
Wendell Phillips spoke powerfully at many conventions, and was in charge of the finances.
