Alice Paul was a prominent and influential leader during the women’s suffrage movement during the twentieth century. Her contributions and courage have made her a symbol of equality across America.
Paul was born on January 11, 1885. Her two parents and therefore her upbringing played a significant role to her views of equality that would lead her to fight for the rights of women. She was raised in a quaker household and the oldest of four children. Both her parents supported gender equality which included educational rights for women and voting. In fact, Paul’s mother frequently attended suffrage meetings and participated in suffrage movements of her time, taking Paul along with her.
Paul strove to receive the fullest education possible and she first secured a degree in biology from Swarthmore College. Later, she received a master of arts in Sociology from what is now known as Columbia University and finally received a PHD from the University of Pennsylvania. Paul traveled to England in 1907 and stayed there for ten years. Her resentment gave her skills that she would hone into her suffrage movements. She worked as a caseworker in London with a focus for women’s rights. Under the guidance of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, Paul learned valuable skills to protect herself and others such as hunger strikes, imprisonments and arrests. Paul also met Lucy Burns, a significant leader for women’s suffrage in the US. Through Burns’s influence, Paul joined the women’s suffrage movement and together, in 1912, Burns and Paul joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association or NAWSA.
Paul’s first organized parade was in Washington DC on March 3, 1913. At the rally, over eight thousand women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House with banners and floats. The reception was mixed with onlookers voice their support or trying to break the women down through jeers. The rally caught the attention of Wilson and on March 17, Paul met with the president who simply told that in the present state and condition of the US, this was not the time for suffrage. However, Paul did not falter.
Paul formed the SIlent Sentinels who were given the name due to “their silent protesting”. On January of 1917, Paul and her group took it even further by picketing the White House. The abuse this time was even harsher and it only worsened with America’s entrance into World War I. At this point, the government was irritable at the women and the police arrested them on the charges of disturbing the peace and obstructing traffic. Many of the women were thrown into jail and severely abused, Paul herself was sentenced to seven months in jail. During her time, she organized a hunger strike which made doctors resort to the choice of force feeding her.
The abuse that the Silent Sentinels and Paul suffered throughout the years did not go unnoticed. A particularly harsh time occurred for them on November 14, 1917 when those picketing the White House were brutally tortured by workhouse guards, led by superintendent WH Whittaker. In particular, Paul’s force feeding abused aroused more media attention and created sympathy not only towards Paul but to the constant efforts for the suffrage movement. By 1918, WIlson finally announced support for suffrage yet it took more than two years for the white house and thirty six of the fifty to actually approve the amendment. Her campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment was passed but it was never ratified.
Paul eventually passed away on July 9, 1977, a strong women who fought on the battlefield for equality. Her legacy still lives on and she played a significant role in the rights of women, not just for suffrage but to show that they had the power to not just sit ideally by.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul
http://www.alicepaul.org/who-was-alice-paul/
http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/alice-paul
http://nationalwomansparty.org/learn/who-is-alice-paul/
https://www.biography.com/people/alice-paul-9435021
Interesting post, Madison! One of the themes which I found most compelling was Paul's ability to create protests that made a difference. I found this to sharply contrast many of the labor strikes we have been reading about and discussing. With those, the labor force was so large that in many cases, missing a few hundred workers barely made a difference. However, Paul found a way to make her voice heard, even with a smaller group of supporters. Because of the skills that she learned, including those from Emmeline Pankhurst, a successful suffragette from England, Paul was able to help women get the vote. One main difference between her movement and many labor movements was the use of violence and even words. By organizing her efforts so successfully, she didn't have to rely on these techniques to make her voice heard. Thanks again for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for focusing on a lesser know suffragette, your post added a lot of depth to my impression of feminism and the suffragist movement. I found it fascinating that Paul was so dedicated to her cause that she organized a hunger strike for the very cause that she had been arrested for while in jail. Her dedication is so inspirational as is her ability to succeed in her efforts. I also liked how you added in the part about how well educated she was, her degrees are not only impressive today but back then they would have helped with her credibility. Paul's approaches were unique but they made progress in achieving the goal shared by her and many other women of the time, allowing women today to have the opportunities that they have. Thank you for such a wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteI thought that this was an interesting post. I especially thought that the part where she meets up and works together with Lucy Burns was interesting. Together, they used tactics that some of the women's suffrage groups in England used. Another thing that they did together, was to create a party separate form the NAWSA called the NWP. This stood for National Women's Party. They favored a more national fix to the issue of women's rights, as opposed to the NAWSA's approach. That was to grant voting rights state by state.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.biography.com/people/lucy-burns-063016
http://nationalwomansparty.org/womenwecelebrate/lucy-burns/
This was an informative post! While I knew a lot about the women's suffrage moment, I had never before heard about people and organizations, even the government being annoyed with them or asking them to stop, or the amount of violence and difficulty that these women faced along their way. I think it's sad that while Alice fought so hard for her values and has such a great legacy as a women's advocate, some of the things she fought for have still not come about today. One of the most important things she tried to do, ratify the ERA, has still not been accomplished today. Women's groups across the country are still fighting to get the ERA ratified by campaigning in states and getting the word out to women to talk to their state government. Unfortunately, even if 38 states ratified it for the majority, the deadline has technically passed for when the ERA can meet its required support, so even if enough states finally ratify the amendment will not pass unless congresspeople can successfully get bills through extending or eliminating the deadline. Hopefully the ERA will pass soon so Alice Paul's great legacy can become even stronger and honor her with progress.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/21/520962541/nevada-on-cusp-of-ratifying-equal-rights-amendment-35-years-after-deadline
http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/states.htm