PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Alice Paul was the architect of some of the most outstanding political achievements on behalf of women in the 20th century.
William and Tacie Paul married in 1881 and moved into Paulsdale in 1883. Two years later, their first child, Alice, was born, followed by William in 1886, Helen in 1889 and Parry in 1895.
Quaker Education
Alice attended a Hicksite school in Moorestown, New Jersey, and graduated first in her class in 1901
Paul joined their movement, personally breaking more than forty-eight windows (according to one interview) and was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Though Alice's upbringing was steeped in suffrage ideals, it was during her stay in England that she was transformed from a reserved Quaker girl into a militant suffragist.
Paul returned to her home country in 1910 imbued with the radicalism of the English suffrage movement and a determination to reshape and re-energize the American campaign for women’s enfranchisement.
National Woman's Party, Picketing and Prison Although both Carrie Chapman Catt, NAWSA president, and Alice Paul shared the goal of universal suffrage, their political strategies could not have been more different or incompatible.
The Nineteenth Amendment
In 1917, in response to public outcry about the prison abuse of suffragists, President Wilson reversed his position and announced his support for a suffrage amendment, calling it a "war measure."
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
-Equal Rights Amendment
"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- Interview, 1972
Raised in an area founded by her Quaker ancestors, Alice and her family remained devoted observers of the faith.
"When the Quakers were founded...one of their principles was and is equality of the sexes. So I never had any other idea...the principle was always there."
-Alice Paul-interview, 1974
Alice’s relationship to Swarthmore College began long before she entered as a student in 1901. Her grandfather, Judge William Parry, was one of the founders of the co-educational school in 1864.
Alice Paul's Educational Achievements
B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College, 1905
M.A. in Sociology from University of Pennsylvania, 1907
Ph.D. in Economics from University of Pennsylvania, 1912
LL.B. from Washington College of Law, 1922
LL.M. from American University, 1927
D.C.L. from American University, 1928
While a student at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She was quickly appointed as head of the Congressional Committee in charge of working for a federal suffrage amendment, a secondary goal to the NAWSA leadership.
Alice Paul toasting (with grape juice) the passage of the 19th Amendment. August 26, 1920
Paul and her compatriots followed the English suffragette model and demanded to be treated as political prisoners and staged hunger strikes.
While many suffragists left public life and activism after the 19th Amendment was enacted, Alice Paul believed the true battle for equality had yet to be won.
Alice Paul died on July 9, 1977, in Moorestown, New Jersey, just a few miles from her birthplace and family home of Paulsdale.
