In Her Own Right restores Elizabeth Cady Stanton to her true place in history. It traces Stanton from her privilege, unconventional childhood to her marriage to an abolitionist hero turned political opportunist ( with whom she had seven children), to her achievements as reformer, newspaper editor, popular lecturer, organization leader, and historian of woman's suffrage.

The first comprehensive, fully documented biography of the most important woman suffragist and feminist reformer in nineteenth-century America, In Her Own Right restores Elizabeth Cady Stanton to her true place in history. Griffith emphasizes the significance of role models and female friendships in Stanton's progress toward personal and political independence. In Her Own Right is, in the author's words, an "unabashedly 'great woman' biography."