organizations but were quite content with their
own separate one, which served its purpose very well under prevailing
local conditions. James G. Birney, the candidate of the Liberty party
for the Presidency in 1840, had good reasons for opposition to the
inclusion of men and women in the same organization. He knew that by
acting separately they were winning their way. The introduction of a
novel theory involving a different issue seemed to him likely to be a
source of weakness. The cause of women was, however, gaining ground
and winning converts. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were
delegates to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at London. They
listened to the debate which ended in the refusal to recognize them
as members of the Convention because they were women. The tone of
the discussion convinced them that women were looked upon by men with
disdain and contempt. Because the laws of the land and the customs of
society consigned women to an inferior position, and because there would
be no place for effective public work on the part of women until these
laws were changed, both these women became advocates of women's rights
and conspicuous leaders in the initiation of the propaganda. The
Reverend Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, New York, preached a sermon in 1845
in which he stated his belief that women need not expect to have their
wrongs fully redressed until they themselves had a hand in the making
and in the administration of the laws. This is an early suggestion
that equal suffrage would become the ultimate goal of the efforts for
righting women's wrongs.

At the same time there were accessions to the cause from a different
source. In 1833 Oberlin College was founded in northern Ohio. Into some
of the first classes there women were admitted on equal terms with men.
In 1835 the trustees offered the presidency to Professor Asa Mahan, of
Lane Seminary. He was himself an abolitionist from a slave State, and he
refused to be President of Oberlin College unless negroes were admitted
on equal terms with other students. Oberlin thus became the first
institution in the country which extended the privileges of the higher
education to both sexes of all races. It was a distinctly religious
institution devoted to radical reforms of many kinds. Not only was the
use of all intoxicating beverages discarded by faculty and students but
the use of tobacco as well was discouraged.

Within fifteen years after the founding of O