Alice Paul

Feminism, women's rights

Suffragist who started the National Woman's Party and was willing to lose her freedom for the cause

Amy French

Image Source: Wiki Commons

1885

Moorestown, New Jersey, USA

1977

Suffragist and women's rights activist

Alice Paul was a suffragist who famously split from the state-by-state campaign of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association to form the National Woman's Party, which was dedicated to a constitutional amendment. The NWP picketed the White House and many women, including Paul, were arrested for obstructing traffic. Paul began a hunger strike while in prison to protest the conditions there. Their campaign kept the cause of suffrage in the news during World War I and contributed to the passage of the 19th amendment enfranchising women. Not satisfied with women's still inequitable status, Paul shifted her focus to the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA called for the rights of U.S. citizens to not be denied or abridged on the basis of sex. Although ERA has been continuously discussed in Congress since 1924, to this day there is still no amendment to the U.S. Constitution protecting rights on account of sex. Paul was a well-educated women who took a B.A. in Biology, a M.A. in Sociology, a Ph.D. in Economics, and three law degrees (LL.B., LL. M., Doctorate in Civil Laws) from various colleges.

Adams, Katherine H. and Michael L. Keene. Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign. (University of Illinois Press, 2007).

Alice Paul Institute: http://www.alicepaul.org/

Conversations with Alice Paul: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6f59n89c/