Blatch, Harriot Eaton Stanton (1856-1940), was a leader of the American woman suffrage movement. This movement worked to get women the right to vote. In the early 1900’s, Blatch organized several suffrage parades and women’s meetings in New York. These events helped create public support for the suffrage movement, and in 1917, the state gave women the right to vote.
In 1907, Blatch formed the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, the first American suffrage group that included working-class women. The league held the nation’s first suffrage parades and open-air meetings. Blatch later joined the National Woman’s Party during its campaign for an equal rights amendment to the United States Constitution.
Blatch was born on Jan. 20, 1856, in Seneca Falls, New York. Her father, Henry B. Stanton, was a prominent abolitionist, and her mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was one of the earliest leaders of the women’s rights movement. Blatch graduated from Vassar College and later earned a master’s degree there. She wrote two books, Mobilizing Woman Power (1918) and A Woman’s Point of View (1920). She died on Nov. 20, 1940.
