Historical discussions of social justice in education and its impact on society tend to focus on Brown v. The
Board of Education (1954), as an antidote to Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which enshrined the infamous
"separate but equal" dictum for racially segregated schools. One person rarely considered in the discussion,
yet critical because of her enormous public influence in her day, is Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Most know
Cady Stanton as a founder of the Women's Movement in America , and as an advocate for women.
However, Cady Stanton also provided a well-documented, systematically developed theory on social justice
in education. This surprised us, since her work received enormous scrutiny when feminists of the 1960s and
1970s worked to unearth forgotten women. Believing that advancing women's place in educational thought
requires understanding the contributions of women to educational thought, we set out to understand Cady
Stanton's philosophy of social justice in education.