Notable Women of the Suffrage Movement | Alice Paul

Suffragist Alice Paul was born in 1885 to a prominent family in Moorestown, New Jersey (Editors, 2009). Paul's parents, active in the Quaker church, instilled in their four children a belief in gender equality, the importance of educational opportunities for both men and women, and a communal approach for societal change and improvement (Michals, 2015). Paul's involvement in the suffrage movement began early in life. At a young age, she would attend meetings of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with her mother, suffragist Tacie Paul (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015). After graduating from Columbia University with a Master of Arts degree in Sociology, Paul traveled to England where she studied social work and became active in the country's radical suffrage movement (Michals, 2015).


Alice Paul head and shoulders portrait; PhD Graduation from the University of Pennsylvania. 1910, Taylor Studios, 1910, Courtesy the Library of Congress.
 
Also in England at this time was Lucy Burns, another American interested in the English suffrage movement. Both Burns and Paul worked alongside Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, enacting more aggressive protest models such as picketing and hunger strikes (Michals, 2015). Once arriving back in the United States in 1912, Paul, in her new role with the NAWSA, used the tactics she learned to create awareness for the movement and expand that publicity into a greater benefit for the cause (Editors, 2009). After serving a contentious two years with the NAWSA—Paul and the organization were moving in different directions and utilizing different methods to achieve the vote—Paul co-founded the Congressional Union (CU). The focus of the CU—later to be called the National Women's Party—was to secure a federal amendment to the constitution guaranteeing voting rights for women. Using the skills she acquired as chapter leader in the NAWSA coupled with the tactics she learned from her militant English sisters in suffrage, Paul and the NWP organized marches and demonstrations that could and would lead to arrest and imprisonment, including protesting a sitting president (Editors, 2009).


Suffragettes, 1920, Courtesy the Library of Congress.

Beginning in January 1917, Paul, joined by more than 1,000 members of the NWP, picketed the White House occupied by then-President Woodrow Wilson (Michals, 2015). The "Silent Sentinels", as they were known, protested for eighteen months marching and carrying signs—many of which used Wilson's own words of “freedom” and “liberty” against him. The protests and pickets continued through the United States' entrance into World War I, with the women suffering increased verbal and physical attacks from spectators (Michals, 2015). In addition to the abuse suffered from spectators, the women were also denied their constitutional rights of free speech and right to peaceably assembly by the District police who arrested them on charges of obstructing traffic (Michals, 2015). Paul and others were arrested. Seeing themselves as political prisoners they refused to pay their fines and were sentenced to seven months in prison (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015). While in prison Paul and the other staged hunger strikes. To end these hunger strikes, the staff at the prison threatened to commit Paul to an insane asylum and when that did not work they chose to force-feed the prisoners (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015). Word spread of suffragist’s mistreatment, sparking public outcry and support for both Paul and the suffrage cause (Graddy, 2012). Following the public outrage, Wilson finally offered his support for a suffrage amendment in 1918, it would still take Congress and the states two more years to ratify the amendment (Michals, 2015). 


Silent Sentinels, picketing the White House, 1917. Courtesy the Library of Congress.
 
Alice Paul's fight for equality did not end with the passing of the 19th amendment. In 1923 Paul proposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The purpose of the ERA is to ensure that "equal rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015). Although she was successful in garnering support for an ERA plank on both major party platforms by the 1940s, Paul faced a great deal of opposition. The strongest argument against the ERA came from women's organizations who were concerned that such an amendment would negatively affect their gains in legislation (Editors, 2009). The ongoing civil rights movement and the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s revived interest in the ERA. Nearly 50 years after it was introduced, Congress passed the amendment in 1972 and sent it to the states for ratification (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015).  However, by the 1982 deadline, the bill fell just short of the 38 states needed to become a constitutional amendment (Michals, 2015). Although it did not succeed in Paul's lifetime, the ERA has been put before every Congress since 1982 and efforts continue to ratify the legislation (Who Was Alice Paul, 2015).


Alice Paul sewing stars on a banner representing those states that have ratified the 19th Amendment. 1919-1920. Courtesy the Library of Congress.
 
Although conservative throughout her life, Paul never let her personal beliefs dictate the role women should play in society. Her view of what women could achieve always went beyond her rigidity and dogma (Editors, 2009). Toward the end of her life in the 1970s Paul was quoted as saying "I think if we get freedom for women, then they are probably going to do a lot of things that I wish they wouldn't do...but it seems to me that isn't our business to say what they should do with it. It is our business to see that they get it" (Editors, 2009).


 Alice Paul at Belmont House, 1972.

Works Cited

Editors, Biography. “Alice Paul.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 9 July 2019, www.biography.com/activist/alice-paul. 

Editors, History.com. “Alice Paul.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/womens-history/alice-paul. 

Graddy, Lisa Kathleen. “Alice Paul: Champion of Woman Suffrage.” National Museum of American History, 8 May 2012, https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2012/05/alice-paul-champion-of-woman-suffrage.html.   

Michals, Debra. “Alice Paul.” National Women's History Museum, 2015, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul.

“Who Was Alice Paul.” Alicepaul.org, 2015, www.alicepaul.org/who-was-alice-paul/.