“Woman has never wakened to her highest destinies and holiest hopes,” said Lucretia Mott (1793-1880). “The time is coming when educated females will not be satisfied with the present objects of their low ambition ... sinking down into almost useless inactivity ... the social circle, ... a little sewing, a little reading, a little domestic duty ...” As found in her speech Discourse On Women, Mott knew women were needed to facilitate critical social change. “There is nothing of greater importance to the well-being of society at large ... than the true and proper position of woman.” She boldly announced in 1849: “A new generation of women is now upon the stage.”

As one of the most famous women in America, Lucretia Mott spoke out for women’s right to choose their path in a time when few agreed with this notion or even questioned women’s place in society. “[Woman will] not be limited by man ...,” Mott said, “nor will [she] fulfill less her domestic relations ... [Woman] will not suffer herself to be degraded into a mere dependent.” Preaching against slavery and advocating for women’s rights was radical for the times, especially coming from a woman. But these were Mott’s passions; and, with the support of her husband, they were her missions in life.

Lucretia Mott, a Quaker, mother of five children, and a pacifist, was unafraid to take a bold stance for her causes. To protest slavery, she participated in the Free-Produce Movement, refusing to wear or eat the products of slavery. Along with black women in 1833, she helped found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society opposed to slavery and racism, and faced mob violence for her stance. For women’s rights, Mott believed the Bible supported women’s rights and valiantly proclaimed that God “gave dominion to both [man and women] over the lower animals, but not to one, [man], over the other, [woman].” She was part of the Free Religious Association along with Ralph Waldo Emerson and others to “emancipate religion from the dogmatic traditions it had been previously bound to.”

Mott was one of the speakers at the Seneca Falls Convention, traveled widely giving speeches for women’s rights, was the president of the American Equal Rights Associations which advocated for universal suffrage, and was a founder of Swarthmore College in 1864.