Elizabeth Cady Stanton believed this to be the most important speech of her lifetime. With gorgeous and direct language, she presents a compassionate appeal for human equality and dignity, and she addresses the place of solitude in the lives of women and men. "Solitude of Self" joins the canon of classic American speeches. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's timeless appeal presents the historical convergence between the 19th and the 21st centuries. In this last speech, Stanton proves that while many rights have been gained over the past century, inequality and degradation of the soul continue to thrive. For those opposed to the "glass ceilings" covering our culture, "Solitude of Self" will be a perfect gift of inspiration and comfort. ""The talk of sheltering women from the fierce storms of life is the sheerest mockery, for they beat on her from every point of the compass, just as they do on man... Such are the facts in human experience, the responsibilities of individual sovereignty. Rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant, wise and foolish, virtuous and vicious, man and woman, it is ever the same, each soul must depend wholly on itself.""-from "Solitude of Self" Born in Jonestown, New York, in 1815, Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived in Boston, Seneca Falls, NY, and NYC, where she died at the age of 87. Growing up with the knowledge that "girls didn't count for much," for over a half of a century Stanton devoted her life to attaining equality for women. Of her long-standing relationship with Susan B. Anthony, she said, "I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them." An instrumental figure in securing women's right to vote, and one of the first to wear bloomers, Stanton was an outspoken proponent of equality in the United States. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the subject of the recent and enormously popular PBS documentary produced by Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward.