Suffragette Series
To gain the vote, Alice Paul used confrontation in her approach.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The National Women’s History Alliance has named 2020 the “Valiant Women of the Vote” to celebrate the women who have fought for woman’s right to vote and equality in the United States. In conjunction with the centennial of the 19th Amendment, HER magazine honors women from the original suffrage movement, women who have continued the struggle and those who have benefited from it.
Born 26 years after Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul entered the fight late, but it didn’t take her long to draw attention to herself. She had the same goal, but worked toward it in a very different way.
While Carrie was working her way through the states, young Alice Paul, born in 1885, became an outspoken suffragist and feminist while attending classes in England. There she joined a group of British suffragists who used disruptive and radical tactics, including hunger strikes and throwing bricks through windows. She was imprisoned many times.
Unusually educated for a woman of the time, Alice graduated Swarthmore College in 1905; received her master’s in sociology in 1907; and a Ph.D. in economics in 1912 from the University of Pennsylvania. She later obtained a law degree at American University in 1922.
Upon her return to the states in 1910, she joined the National American Women’s Suffrage Association and fervently set about to focus the movement away from the state suffrage issue. She instead focused on the passage of a federal suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In 1912 she was appointed chairwoman of the NAWSA Congressional Committee and immediately organized a
“I NEVER DOUBTED THAT EQUAL RIGHTS WAS THE RIGHT DIRECTION. MOST REFORMS, MOST PROBLEMS ARE COMPLICATED. BUT TO ME THERE IS NOTHING COMPLICATED ABOUT ORDINARY EQUALITY.” — Alice Paul, American Women’s Rights Activist
Woman Suffrage Procession planned for Washington, D..C. on March 3, 1913 — the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. The parade led to street riots and soldiers had to restore order.
Alice took full credit for what she deemed her successful fundraising and awareness efforts the parade brought. However, during one of her speeches, Carrie stood up and publicly criticized Alice, accusing her of taking too much credit for a movement she had only recently joined. Alice left the organization soon after the confrontation.
In 1916, Alice founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which became the National Woman’s Party.
She led the 1917 picketing of the White House — the first protest held there. This public display was perceived as disloyal and the women were deemed “Silent Sentinels.” They were arrested and sent to Occoquan Workhouse (prison) in Virginia. That October, Alice led the women in a hunger strike to protest the poor conditions. The superintendent ordered guards to attack the Silent Sentinels, beating some unconscious. The women described it as the “Night of Terror.”
Once freed, Alice and her group continued to organize protests outside the White House until 1919, when Congress voted to send the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” to the states for ratification. One year later, the required 36 states had ratified the amendment, making it the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
Despite her efforts, it was Carrie — not Alice — who received the credit in the press for doing the work that won the victory. Politicians who supported the movement were often quick to mention that those “troublemakers” of the NWP had no effect on their decision.
Alice reorganized the NWP and on July 20, 1925, introduced the Equal Rights Amendment in Seneca Falls, N.Y. She also founded the World Woman’s Party.
Perhaps Alice’s biggest contribution to the movement came in 1945, when she was instrumental in incorporating language regarding women’s equality in the United Nations Charter, and in establishing a permanent U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. In the 1960s, she also played a role in getting sex included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Alice died in 1977 at a Quaker facility in Moorestown, New Jersey.
Alice may have been ahead of her time, but her experience and knowledge were invaluable to women in later decades.