Alice Paul (1885–1977): Download the PDF
Alice Paul energized the suffrage movement with a spectacular parade in Washington DC and picketing the White House to pressure President Woodrow Wilson to endorse women’s suffrage.
“Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about simple equality.”
- Alice Paul, 1972
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- Library of Congress
Quaker Values
Alice Paul was a descendant of Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn. Her parents were “Hicksite” Quakers, a group that favored social activism and equality between men and women. As a child Alice attended suffrage events with her mother.
The National Woman’s Party (NWP)
Alice Paul came into conflict with NAWSA (the leading suffrage organization in the U.S.) and its president Carrie Chapman Catt. Paul felt that NAWSA was too conservative in its approach. In 1916 she founded the National Woman’s Party to engage in bold and dramatic protest. Paul wanted to embarrass President Wilson personally, and “hold the party in power responsible” - increasing pressure on Wilson by defeating members of his party regardless of their stance on suffrage.
- Library of Congress
The Silent Sentinels
Alice Paul and the NWP picketed the White House, the first such protests in American history. Picketing six days a week, 2,000 protested during 1917-1919. Of hundreds arrested for “obstructing traffic,” many were jailed. Insisting they were political prisoners, some refused food and were force fed. Once Alice Paul, who led the hunger strikes, was confined to a windowless prison psychiatric ward. News of their severe treatment turned public opinion in their favor.
Raising a glass of grape juice, Alice Paul celebrates the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
- Library of Congres
ERA
Alice Paul authored the first draft of the Equal Rights Amendment and remained an advocate throughout her lifetime.
Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested in front of Buckingham Palace.
- Imperial War Museum
Radical Turn
While studying in England she met Emmeline Pankhurst the radical “suffragette” who favored disruptive protest, vandalism, and confrontation with political figures. With fellow American Lucy Burns she joined Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU) and was arrested and jailed several times. Engaged in hunger strikes, she endured the pain and discomfort of forced feedings. Paul concluded that social work, her intended occupation, was futile without fundamental changes to society including women’s suffrage
Spectacular Debut
Returning to America, Alice Paul joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and she created and organized the famous woman’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in 1913.
- Library of Congress