Paul


 * I. Introduction:**
 * A.** Alice Paul
 * B.** Alice Paul was a woman's suffragist and activist. She led many marches and gave many seeches on woman's right to vote.
 * **Born:** January 11, 1885 in Moorestown, New Jersey, United States
 * **Died:** July 09, 1977 in New Jersey, Moorestown, United States
 * **Nationality:** American
 * **Occupation:** Activist

Alice's father was a successful businessman and, as the president of the Burlington County Trust Company in Moorestown, NJ, earned a comfortable living. As Hicksite Quakers, Alice's parents raised her with a belief in gender equality, and the need to work for the betterment of society.
 * C.** She is a great leader because she
 * Biographical Information:**
 * A. Parents:** William and Tacie Paul.
 * B. Birthplace:** Alice Paul was born in 1885 in Moorstown, New Jersey, into a Quaker family, which, like other Quakers, ardently believed in women's suffrage.
 * C. Education:** After attending Quaker schools, Paul graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.S. in biology in 1905. In 1906 she attended the New York School of Philanthropy, and the following year finished her M.A. in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She then traveled to England on a fellowship and became involved in the British suffrage movement, which was led by Christabel, Emmeline, and Sylvia Pankhurst.

**B.** 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. **C.** In 1912, Alice Paul and two friends, Lucy Burns and Crystal Eastman, headed to Washington, D.C. to organize for suffrage. With little funding but in true Pankhurst style, Paul and Burns organized a publicity event to gain maximum national attention; an elaborate and massive parade by women to march up Pennsylvania Avenue and coincide with Woodrow Wilson's presidential inauguration. The parade began on March 3, 1913, with the beautiful lawyer, activist, and socialite Inez Milholland, leading the procession, dressed in Greek robes and astride a white horse.
 * Biographical Information Continued:**
 * A.** Alice Paul never got married and never had children. Instead, she devoted her life to women's suffrage and women's rights.
 * B.**
 * Rising status in field**
 * A.** The Pankhurst women (mother and two daughters) were leaders of a militant faction of suffragettes whose motto was "Deeds not words." Believing that prayer, petitions, and patience was not enough to successfully enfranchise women, the Pankhursts engaged in direct and visible measures, such as heckling, window smashing, and rock throwing, to raise public aware about the suffrage issue. Their notoriety gained them front-page coverage on many London newspapers, where they were seen being carried away in handcuffs by the police. The Pankhursts also devised a political strategy to hold the party in power responsible, regardless of affiliation, for women's secondary status. Paul joined their movement, personally breaking more than forty-eight windows (according to one interview) and was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions. The suffragettes, including Alice, protested their confinement with hunger strikes, for which they were forcibly fed in a brutal fashion.Paul believed that English suffragettes had found the path to victory that continued to elude American suffragists.


 * Key accomplishment **
 * A. **

Alice Paul's Educational Achievements
 * Information**


 * 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 **

Background. In December 1912 Alice Paul, age twenty-seven, arrived in Washington, D.C., to work for women's suffrage. She arrived alone, having convinced the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) that she should begin lobbying for a federal amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage throughout the nation. NAWSA had for years concentrated its efforts on individual states, and, in fact, had seen nine states, all in the West, grant women the right to vote. But Alice Paul did not want to wait for the other states to follow. By 1912 she was already an experienced organizer in suffrage work.

She and her colleagues formed the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1916 and began introducing some of the methods used by the suffrage movement in Britain.

She led a successful __[|campaign for]__ women's suffrage that resulted in granting the right to vote to women in the U.S. federal election.

She was the original author of a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

Out of frustration with NAWSA's policies, Alice Paul left to form the more militant Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage with Lucy Burns. The group was later renamed the National Woman's Party (NWP). It focused on the national level and its members even picketed the White House in 1917 to get its point across making the NWP the first group to do so. As a part of this action, Paul was jailed in October and November of that year. She chose to go on a hunger strike in protest of her confinement.

After women won the right to vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920, Alice Paul devoted herself to gaining equal rights for women. In 1923, she introduced the first equal rights amendment in Congress.

Although she did not live to see an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution, she did get an equal rights affirmation in the preamble to the United Nations charter.

Until she was debilitated by a stroke in 1974, Alice Paul continued to fight for the equal rights amendment. She died on July 9, 1977, in Moorestown, New Jersey.

Alice's group of suffragists made headlines across the nation and suffrage became a popular topic of discussion among politicians and the general public alike.

Paul wanted to focus all energy and funding upon a national amendment.

Alice Paul wanted to hold Wilson and his party responsible for women's continued disenfranchisement (a tactic of British Suffragettes). In 1914, after initially forming a semi-autonomous group called the Congressional Union, Paul and her followers severed all ties to NAWSA and, in 1916, formed the National Woman's Party (NWP). The NWP organized "Silent Sentinels" to stand outside the White House holding banners inscribed with incendiary phrases directed toward President Wilson. The president initially treated the picketers with bemused condescension, tipping his hat to them as he passed by; however, his attitude changed when the United States entered World War I in 1917. Few believed that suffragists would dare picket a wartime president, let alone use the war in their written censures, calling him "Kaiser Wilson." Many saw the suffragists' wartime protests as unpatriotic, and the sentinels, including Alice Paul, were attacked by angry mobs. The picketers began to be arrested on the trumped up charge of "obstructing traffic," and were jailed when they refused to pay the imposed fine. Despite the danger of bodily harm and imprisonment, the suffragists continued their demonstrations for freedom unabated.

The arrested suffragists were sent to Occoquan Workhouse, a prison in Virginia. Paul and her compatriots followed the English suffragette model and demanded to be treated as political prisoners and staged hunger strikes. Their demands were met with brutality as suffragists, including frail, older women, were beaten, pushed and thrown into cold, unsanitary, and rat-infested cells. Arrests continued and conditions at the prison deteriorated. For staging hunger strikes, Paul and several other suffragists were forcibly fed in a tortuous method. Prison officials removed Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane. When news of the prison conditions and hunger strikes became known, the press, some politicians, and the public began demanding the women’s release; sympathy for the prisoners brought many to support the cause of women's suffrage. Upon her release from prison, Paul hoped to ride this surge of goodwill into victory.

** 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." In 1919, both the House and Senate passed the 19th Amendment and the battle for state ratification commenced. **

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment. Six days later, Secretary of State Colby certified the ratification, and, with the stroke of his pen, American women gained the right to vote after a seventy-two year battle. August 26th is now celebrated as Women's Equality Day in the United States.

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. In 1923, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Paul announced that she would be working for a new constitutional amendment, one she authored and called the "Lucretia Mott Amendment." This amendment called for absolute equality stating, "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until it passed in 1972. During the 1940s, both the Republicans and Democrats added the ERA to their party platforms. In 1943, the ERA was rewritten and dubbed the "Alice Paul Amendment." The new amendment read, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."


 * Alice Paul worked tirelessly for the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States and for women's rights internationally. **

She also traveled to South America and Europe during the 20's through the 50's. She began the World Woman's Party (WWP), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1938. The WWP worked closely with the League of Nations for the inclusion of gender equality into the United Nations Charter and the establishment of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Alice Paul moved back to the United States in 1941 and became active in American women’s issues. She led a coalition that was successful in adding a sexual discrimination clause to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Her life demonstrates that one person can make a difference. Her legacy lives on, bearing witness to the significance of her life and inspiring others who struggle for social justice. The Alice Paul Institute was founded in 1985 and is dedicated to creating a heritage and leadership development center at //Paulsdale//. The Institute works to educate and encourage women and girls to take leadership roles in their communities and to continue the long struggle for women's equality. In her name, the API works to fulfill its mission to honor her legacy, preserve her home, and develop future leaders.


 * []**
 * "Alice Paul." //American Decades//. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 1998. //Gale Biography In Context//. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.**

On 10 January 1917, twelve women began picketing the White House, while carrying banners of purple and gold and large signs that read, "Mr. president what will you do for woman suffrage?" For the next eighteen months they became a daily sight in Washington, embarrassing the president at home as he championed liberty and democracy abroad. The picketers achieved nearly mythic status in the women's movement, enduring miserable weather, hostile crowds, and violence, even from police. In June police began to arrest the picketers, including Paul; she was tried in October 1917 and sentenced to seven months in jail. She told the judge, "We do not wish to make any plea before this court. We do not consider ourselves subject to this court since, as an unenfranchised class, we have nothing to do with the making of the laws which have put us in this position." She went to prison on 20 October, where she was isolated and prevented from communicating with the Woman's Party organization. But on 28 November she and all suffrage prisoners were released. Privately, President Wilson had instructed Congress to pass a suffrage bill. Paul's education of the president and the political pressure she had created had had a decisive impact. In 1919 the Nineteenth Amendment passed Congress, and swept through the states for ratification.
 * Quotes**


 * Got education from this site.**
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 * "Paul, Alice 1885-1977." //American Decades//. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 2: 1910-1919. Detroit: Gale, 2001. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.**


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 * "Alice Paul." //World History: The Modern Era//.ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.**
 * Got parents section from this site**

As a feminist and suffragist favoring the use of militant tactics, Alice Paul devoted her life to fighting for women's rights, not just in America but worldwide. The [|suffrage] battle won, she wrote the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and worked hard, though unsuccessfully, to secure its passage.
 * Quotes**

In the end, Paul's tactics, combined with persuasion from Catt, convinced President Wilson to give priority to a federal suffrage amendment as a war measure.
 * Quotes**


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// "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
 * Quotes**

// **"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 Paul Biography." //Welcome to the Alice Paul Institute Website//. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.


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American Association of University Women//. Profiles of Women Past and Present.// Thousand Oaks, CA : Thousand Oaks Branch, Inc., 1996. Print.
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 * Book Source**

Quote

Quote "If you believe in something, keep working to make it happen. You will succeed if you work hard and don't give up" ( //Profiles of Women Past and Present 55).//