March is Women's History Month

"Iron Jawed Angels"

Alice Paul

LUCY BURNS

Alice Paul  was an American suffragist 

that believed that women should

have the right to vote! 

Alice and her best friend Lucy Burns, 

lead a  successful campaign for women's

suffrage that resulted in the passage

of the Nineteenth Amendment

to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

For the first time in history,

women across the United States

could participate in elections and vote! 

 Their voices would now be heard!

 Alice Paul was the born on January 11, 1885,

in Moorestown, New Jersey. Her parents were

William Mickle Paul and Tacie Parry Paul. 

As Hixsite Quakers, the family believed in

gender equality, education for women,

and working for the betterment of society.

Tacie often brought Alice to her

women's suffrage meetings.

In a time when the importance

of a good education was thought of

only for men, Alice Paul ventured beyond

her boundaries, attending such noteworthy

schools as Columbia University,

University of Birmingham (in London),

University of Pennslyvania,

and theWashington college of Law.

Alice Paul

From 1905 to 1928, she received a

Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology,

 a Master of Arts degree in Sociology.

a Ph.D. in Sociology.

a LL.B. and  a LL.M. of Law.

and a Doctorate of Civil Law.

 While in school in England,

 Alice met Emmeline Pankhurst,

founder of the British

suffrage movement, who advocated

 “taking the woman’s movement to the streets.” 

She met Lucy Burns in a

 London police station

after being arrested in a

suffrage demonstration

 at the entrance to Parliament.

They participated in some

 demonstrations together;

even getting arrested

and jailed together.

Alice Paul meeting with  Mrs. Lawrence Lewis

Pauline Floyd, Secretary

In the Fall of 1912, 

Alice and Lucy approached the

National American Woman Suffrage Association

(NAWSA),

 having decided to join forces

 toward a constitutional amendment

by directly lobbying congressmen.

They were allowed to take over the

NAWSA

Congressional Committee

 in Washington, D.C.,

 but they had no office,

no budget and few supporters.

 Alice was only 26 years old.

Alice Paul  1913

On March 3, 1913,

Alice organized the largest parade

 ever seen on the  the eve of

President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.

 About 8,000 college, professional,

middle- and working-class women

dressed in white suffragist costumes marched

 in units with banners and floats down

Pennsylvania Avenue from the

Capitol to the White House.

The goal was to gather at the Daughters of the

American Revolution's Constitution Hall.

The crowd was estimated at half a million people,

 with many verbally harassing the marchers

while police stood by. Troops finally had to be called

to restore order and help the suffragists get to

 their destination -- it took six hours.

Alice Paul  1915

The publicity of the parade opened the door

for the Congressional Committee to

lobby congressmen, and the president.

On March 17,  Alice and other suffragists met

with President Wilson, who appeared mildly

interested but feigned ignorance and said

the time was not right.

Alice Paul meeting with Helen Gardener

In January 1017,

Alice founded the National Women's Party

and they began  to picket the  White House.

They became known as the Silent Sentinels,

standing silently by the gates,

carrying purple, white and gold banners saying,

"Mr. President, what will you do for suffrage?"

and

 "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"

The first day, 12 NWP members

 marched in a slow, square movement

 so passers-bycould see the banners.

Over the next 18 months,

 more than 1,000 women

picketed, including Alice,

day and night, winter and summer,

every day except Sunday.

Alice Paul working on the Ratification Banner

Spectators began assaulting the

women verbally and physically

 while the police did nothing to protect

 them. Then in June, the police began

arresting the picketers on charges

 of  "obstructing traffic."

First the charges were dropped,

then the women were sentenced

to a few days' jail terms.

 But the suffragists kept picketing,

and the jail terms grew longer.

Finally, to try to break their spirit,

the police arrested Alice on
October 20, 1917, and she was
sentenced to seven months in prison.

The banner she carried that day said:

"THE TIME HAS COME TO

CONQUER OR SUBMIT,

FOR US THERE

 CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE.

WE HAVE MADE IT."

(President Wilson's words)

Alice Paul standing in front

of the Ratification Banner

Alice was placed in

solitary confinement for two weeks

and immediately began a hunger strike.

Unable to walk on her release from there,

she was taken to the prison hospital.

Others joined the hunger strike.

"It was the strongest weapon

left with which to continue

... our battle ...," she later said.

Then the prison officials put

Alice in the "psychopathic" ward,

hoping to discredit her as insane.

They deprived her of sleep,

she had an electric light,

directed at her face, turned

on briefly every hour,

every night.

And they continually threatened to

transfer her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital,

a notorious asylum in Washington, D.C.,

as suffering a "mania of persecution."

But she still refused to eat.

During the last week of

her 22-day hunger strike,

the doctors brutally forced a tube

into her nose and down her throat,

 pouring liquids into her stomach,

three times a day for three weeks.

 Despite the pain and illness this caused,

Alice refused to end the hunger strike.

 One physician reported:

"She has a spirit like Joan of Arc,

and it is useless to try to change it.

 She will die but she will never give up."

Hundreds of women were arrested,

with 33 women convicted and

thrown into Occoquan Workhouse.

This was the first of actual violence

perpetrated on women:

forced feeding, rough handling, worm-infested food,

and no contact with the outside world.

Blankets were only washed once a year.

The open toilets could only be flushed by a guard,

who decided when to flush.

 

November 15, 1917,

became known as the

Night of Terror at the Workhouse

Under orders from

 W.H. Whittaker, superintendent

of the Occoquan Workhouse,

as many as forty guards

with clubs went on a rampage,

brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists.

Photo taken of Lucy Burns

at the Occoquan Workhouse 

They beat Lucy Burns,

chained her hands to

 the cell bars above her head,

and left her there for the night. 

 According to affidavits,

other women were grabbed,

dragged, beaten,

choked, slammed, pinched,

twisted, and kicked.

Newspapers across the

country ran articles about the

suffragists' jail terms and

forced feedings, which angered

many Americans and

created more support.

With mounting public pressure,

the government released

all the suffragists on

 November 27 and 28, 1917.

Alice served five weeks.

Later, the Washington, D.C.,

Court of Appeals

overturned all

of the convictions.

Congress convened a week

after the women were released,

and the House set January 10

as the date to vote

on the 19th  Amendment.

On January 9, 1918,

President Wilson announced

his support of the

 women's suffrage amendment.

The next day, the

House of Representatives

narrowly passed the amendment

 (274-136).

The Senate didn't vote

until October, and it

 failed by two votes.

 The ammendment would not

be completely passed

 until  June 1920.

The fight took 72 years,

spanning two centuries,

18 presidencies, and three wars.

Women could now vote in

the 1920 Presidential Elections. 

Photo of Alice Paul unfurling the

ratification banner over the railing

of the National Woman's Party Headquarters

on August 26, 1920

Did Alice Paul stop there,

after winning her battle with Congress,

 and getting the 19th Amendment passed?

NO!

 She  never quit,

 believing that women

everywhere deserved

 equal rights.

Alice worked closely with the

League of Nations and later with

the United Nations, trying to achieve

equality and the rights of women

around the world.

In 1923, Alice introduced

the first Equal Rights Amendment:

She continued to re-introduce

the ERA for many years and finally

 got it through Congress in 1970. 

Not enough states voted to ratify

the amendment and she failed. Since then,

 it has been passed and accepted.

From the mid-1950s on,

Alice re-focused on women's issues

 in the U.S., trying to have

prohibition of sex discrimination 

included in the pending

civil rights bill.

She was not successful

 until the next decade.

At 79 years of age,

Alice ran the NWP's lobbying

campaign to add a sex discrimination

category to Title VII of the

Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The National Women's Party 

 was the only women's organization

to fight for this inclusion.

Alice never married,

committing herself to

a life of causes.

While in her 80's,

she still protested in rallies

for women's rights and

against the Vietnam War.

In 1974, she suffered a stroke

that left her disabled.

On July 9, 1977,

Alice died of heart failure.

She was 92 years old.

***QUOTES***

 If women had helped to end the first World War,

the second one would not have been necessary.

When you put your hand to the plow,

you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row.

We women of America tell you

that America is not a democracy.

Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.

This world crisis came about without women

having anything to do with it.

 If the women of the world had

not been excluded from world affairs,

 things today might have been different.

The Woman's Party is made up of
women of all  races, creeds and nationalities
who are united on the one program of
working to raise the status of women.

It is better, as far as getting

the vote is concerned,

I believe, to have a small, united group

 than an immense debating society.

Men and women shall have equal rights
throughoutthe United States and

every place subject to its jurisdiction.

"Each of us puts in a little stone and

then you get a great mosaic at the end."

           ***CREDITS***

2 Public Domain Images and Biography are a courtsey of:

http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/paul-ali.htm

9 images in Public Domain are a courtesy of:

commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alice_Paul

http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Lucy_Burns

    I Recommend:

     IRON JAWED ANGELS:

    A HBO Special Presentation Movie

   about Alice Paul and Lucy Burns

   and the passing of the 19th Amendment.

     Made in 2004 and can be found in video stores.