1848 The world's first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19 and 20. A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is debated and ultimately signed by 68 women and 32 men, setting the agenda for the women's rights movement that followed.

1848 When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brings the southwest under U.S. law, married women living in the region lose their property rights, and can no longer enter into contracts, sue in court, or operate their own businesses.

1848 Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; almost a century passes before a second woman is added.

1849 Elizabeth Smith Miller appears on the streets of Seneca Falls, New York, in "Turkish trousers," soon to be known as "bloomers."

1849 Amelia Jenks Bloomer publishes and edits "Lily," the first prominent women's rights newspaper.

1850 The first national women's rights convention attracts over 1,000 participants to Worcester, Massachusetts, from as far away as California. Only lack of space kept hundreds from attending. Annual national conferences are held through 1860 (except 1857).

1850 Quaker physicians establish the Female (later Woman's) Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to give women a chance to learn medicine. Due to threats against them, the first women graduated under police guard.

1851 Sojourner Truth gives her spontaneous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the woman's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.

1851 Myrtilla Minder opens the first school to train black women as teachers, in Washington, D.C.

1851 Under Oregon's Land Donation Act women are eligible recipients for the first time.

1853 Antoinette Brown (later Blackwell) is the first U.S. woman ordained as a minister in a Protestant denomination, serving two First Congregational Churches in New York.

1855 Lucy Stone becomes first woman on record to keep her own name after marriage, setting a trend among women who are consequently known as "Lucy Stoners."

1855 The University of Iowa becomes the first state school to admit women. In 1858, the board of managers tries, but fails, to exclude women.

1855 In Missouri v. Celia, a Slave, a Black woman is declared to be property without a right to defend herself against a master's act of rape

1859 American Medical Association announces its opposition to abortion. In 1860, Connecticut is the first state to enact laws prohibiting all abortions, both before and after quickening.

1859 The birth rate continues its downward spiral as reliable condoms become available. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two or three children, half the number earlier in the century.

1860 Of 2,225,086 Black women, 1,971,135 are held in slavery. In San Francisco, about 85% of Chinese women are essentially enslaved as prostitutes.

1862 The Homestead Act promises 160 acres of free land to anyone who lives on it for five years. Many single women "prove up claims," especially teachers who work the land in the summer and teach school in the winter.

1862 Mary Jane Patterson is the first African-American woman to receive a full baccalaureate degree, from Oberlin College. Three European-American women had been graduated in 1841 from Oberlin College: Mary Hosford, Elizabeth Smith Prall, and Caroline Mary Rudd.

1862 Congress passed the Morrill Act, which established land grant colleges in rural areas. Through them, millions of women earn low-cost degrees.

1863 Olympia Brown, first woman to be ordained as a minister by the full authority of her denomination (Northern Universalists).

1865 Hundreds of white women go South to teach at Freedman Schools.

1866 14th Amendment is passed by Congress (ratified by the states in 1868), the first time "citizens" and "voters" are defined as "male" in the Constitution.

1866 The American Equal Rights Association is founded, the first organization in the U.S. to advocate national women's suffrage.

1867 Cigar makers are the first national union to accept women and African Americans.

1868 Sorosis founded, the first professional club for women.

1868Middle and upper class women establish the Working Women's Protective Union in New York; similar groups form in other cities. These unions give free legal aid to workers, act as employment agencies, and lobby successfully for laws to protect women workers.

1868 The National Labor Union supports equal pay for equal work.

1868 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony begin publishing The Revolution, an important women's movement periodical. Other media ridicule their ideas, calling wider public attention to them.

1868 The African Methodist Episcopal Church establishes women's first official office within organized Christianity: "Stewardess," or assistant to the clergy.

1869 Women shoe stitchers from six states form the first national women's labor organization, the Daughters of St. Crispin. Folded in 1876.

1869 December 10: The first woman suffrage law in U.S. passed in the territory of Wyoming.

1869 In disagreement over the 15th Amendment, Anthony and Stanton withdraw from the Equal Rights Association to found the National Woman Suffrage Association. Its wide-ranging goals include achieving a federal amendment for the woman's vote.

1869 The American Woman Suffrage Association if formed to secure the vote through each state constitution.

1870 In March, for the first time in the history of jurisprudence, women serve on juries in the Wyoming Territory.

1870 Iowa is the first state to admit a woman to the bar: Arabella Mansfield.

1870 The 15th Amendment receives final ratification. By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote. During the next two years, approximately 150 women will attempt to vote in almost a dozen different jurisdictions from Delaware to California, including the Grimke sisters in Boston, Sojourner Truth in Battle Creek, MI, and Matilda Joselyn Gage in New York. Even in South Carolina, a few black women, protected by Reconstruction officials, cast ballots.

1870 The first issue of the Woman's Journal appears, sponsored by the American Woman Suffrage Association and edited by Mary Livermore. It is published until 1917.

1871 The Woman's Centenary Association forms, the first national organization of churchwomen. One goal is to promote the education of women ministers.

1872 Through the efforts of lawyer Belva Lockwood, Congress passes a law to give women federal employees equal pay for equal work.

1872 Charlotte E. Ray, Howard University law school graduate, becomes first African-American woman admitted to the U.S. bar.

1872 November 5: Susan B. Anthony and fourteen women register and vote in the presidential election to test whether the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment can be interpreted as protecting women's rights. Anthony is arrested, tried, found guilty, and fined $100, which she refuses to pay.

1873 The Association for the Advancement of Women is formed to promote both higher education and professional possibilities for women.

1873 Prof. Edward H. Clarke, Harvard Medical College, argues that higher education harms women and their future offspring. To women's real detriment, Clarke is widely believed and quoted for decades.

1873 Bradwell v. Illinois: Supreme Court affirms that states can restrict women from the practice of any profession to preserve family harmony and uphold the law of the Creator.

1873 Congress passes the Comstock Law, defining contraceptive information as "obscene material." As postal inspector, moralist Anthony Comstock seizes mail and shuts down newspapers carrying such information.

1874 The Presbyterian Mission Home, a women's shelter in Chinatown (San Francisco, CA), leads police-backed raids to rescue Chinese women held and abused as prostitutes or mujai (indentured servants). By 1908, about 1,000 have been housed and educated in the refuge.

1874 The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. The WCTU later becomes an important force for woman suffrage.