Declaration Project

Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States (July 4, 1876)

Editor’s Note: Not everything went according to the carefully planned script during our Centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, held at Independence Square in Philadelphia. At the proceedings, five of our nation’s most prominent women’s rights activists –Matilda Joslyn Gage, Phoebe W. Couzins, Sara Andrews Spencer, Susan B. Anthony, and Lillie Devereux Blake — interrupted the […]

American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man – 1948

Editor’s Note:  Adopted in April 1948 at the International Conference of American States in Bogota, Colombia, this document represents the first attempt on the world stage — coming out eight months before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations — to set forth and enumerate the rights, and duties, of each […]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Editor’s Note: Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was crafted in less than two years’ time — an amazing feat, especially given how divided among Eastern and Western factions the world was at the time as it emerged from World War II. Yet uncommon common […]