New Jersey native Alice Paul, along with her longtime colleague Lucy Burns,was one of the driving forces behind final passage of the 19th Amendment granting Women's Suffrage. The product of a privileged background, she took advantage of her educational opportunities, earning a Ph.Din sociology from the University of Pennsylvaniain 1912. Prior to the doctorate, Paul studied at the London School of Economics, where she befriended English suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst. Like her longtime friend and colleagueBurns, she embraced the suffragist movement, participating in countless demonstrations and otheracts of civil disobedience that resulted inimprisonment. With Burns, she participated in hunger strikes and endured brutalforce feedings.
Upon her return to the U.S., she was driven to bring the same tactics of direct action to the American suffrage movement. She joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), assuming leadership of the committee working on a constitution amendment. Paulreunited with Burns, and they began planning the 1913 Woman's Suffrage Procession, which was set to coincide with the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. The 8,000 who marchedattracted an estimated 500,000 onlookers and national press coverage.*
Photo: Public domain
However, soon frustrated with NAWSA'sstate by state strategy to push for women's suffrage,Paul and Burns split with the organization in 1914and founded the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party) to continue their direct action pressure campaign for a suffrage amendment. They believed that the way to get results on Capitol Hill was to force President Woodrow Wilson to come out in favor of their cause, and in 1917, they recruited an army of volunteers to engage in dailypickets outside the White House fence; dubbed the "Silent Sentinels,", the protestors held colorful banners directly addressing Wilson, confronting him forhis lack of action.
The tactics, initially a minor nuisance to the president,ultimately forced his hand, as local police began to arrest the picketers; most of the women ended up spending time in horrific conditions in a workhouse in Virginia, where they engaged in hunger strikes to protest their increasingly harsh treatment. As they had in England, the strikes resulted in retaliation, includingforce feedings. Both Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were arrested and jailed multiple times, and were the primary targets of the torturousfeedings due to their leadership status within the National Woman's Party (NWP).
The protests continued until 1919, when, along with NAWSA's pressure at the state level, they eventually brought about introduction and passage of the Suffrage Amendment. The campaign for ratification was equally arduous, as the amendment faced opposition not just from the existing male power structure, but from women's groups; in the end, it came down to a single vote in the Tennessee legislature.
After ratification of the Suffrage Amendment in 1920, Paul remained at the NWP to continue herwork for women's rights, turning her attention to an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA),which sought to eliminate gender-based discrimination. Draftedby Paul, it was introduced to Congress in 1923; the ERA was finally passed by Congress in 1972, but ratification efforts failed by three states.
*See "Problematic Figures" box on this page for more detail about Alice Paul's role in the 1913 Procession.
Sources: Milestone Documents of Civli Rights Leaders; The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame;Encyclopedia of Women &American Politics:The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Making History
