Alice Paul
Sewing Stars
18 x 24 inches • oil on wood panel • artist Steve Simon
Biography
About the Painting
Selected Quote
Overview
Alice Paul was born in New Jersey and studied in the U.S. and England. In London, she participated in women’s suffrage demonstrations. Paul returned home and applied her experience in the fight for women’s suffrage in the U.S.
In Washington D.C., Paul organized a Woman Suffrage Procession and organized suffragists to picket the White House six days a week for two and a half years. She was imprisoned for her activism. While in jail she undertook a hunger strike. Her media-savvy craftiness caused public opinion to swing in favor of women’s suffrage. On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed, guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Alice Paul and the 19th Amendment
Alice Paul Biography
Alice Paul was born on January 11, 1885 in Mount Laurel Township, New Jersey. She earned a degree in Biology from Swarthmore College, one of the country’s first coeducational colleges. She continued her studies at the University of Pennsylvania and in Birmingham, England.
Paul later moved to London where she worked as a social worker. There she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and actively participated in women’s suffrage demonstrations. She was arrested seven times and imprisoned three times for various acts of civil disobedience related to the suffrage cause.
Paul returned to the United States in 1910, and earned a Ph.D. in sociology, followed by a law degree, and later another Ph.D. in Civil Laws. She also began participating in National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) events where she brazenly raised the issue of a constitutional amendment to guarantee women’s suffrage, an idea considered by NAWSA leadership to be foolhardy.
In 1913, she organized the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington D.C. on the day preceding Woodrow Wilson’s Presidential Inauguration. Approximately 8,000 suffragists participated in the march. The lead banner read “We Demand an Amendment to the United States Constitution Enfranchising the Women of the Country.” The parade drew a half-million onlookers, many of whom were violent toward the marchers. The event descended into riotous chaos. Despite the rather messy result, Paul’s tactics had once again raised attention to the cause, prompting NAWSA to align its support behind Paul’s goal for an amendment to the constitution.
Program cover for the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession which was organized by Alice Paul
Tension, however, resurfaced between Paul and NAWSA leadership, leading Paul to form a new suffrage group called the National Woman’s Party (NWP) in 1915. On January 11, 1917, the “Silent Sentinels,” organized by Paul and the NWP picketed in front of the White House. It was the first time such a demonstration had been attempted. Their nonviolent protest continued six days a week for two and a half years. Many of the Silent Sentinels were harassed and abused. Some were arrested and sent to prison. Out of solidarity, Paul endeavored to join them.
On October 20, 1917, Paul was sentenced to seven months in prison and further placed in solitary confinement. Drawing on her experiences with the English WSPU, she began a hunger strike. Her example inspired other inmates to join. Prison officials responded by force-feeding the strikers. On November 14, 1917, guards went even further and physically abused the women. The national media seized the story, fueling public outrage. Within two weeks the women were released and by January of 1918, President Wilson publicly announced his support for the amendment.
…guards went even further and physically abused the women. The national media seized the story, fueling public outrage.
It would still take painstaking efforts over the next couple of years to pass such legislation.
Finally, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the government from denying citizens the right to vote based on sex, was finally adopted.
In the years that followed, Paul and some NWP members pressed for full equal legal rights between men and women. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), co-authored by Paul and dubbed the “Lucretia Mott Amendment,” was first introduced to Congress in 1923. Over the years, support for the amendment waxed and waned. The proposed amendment was renamed the “Alice Paul Amendment” in 1943. For decades Paul promoted the legislation, but it would never be fully ratified.
Paul died on July 9, 1977 at the age of 92, and was buried at Westfield Friends Burial Ground in Cinnaminson, New Jersey.
Alice Paul toasting with grape juice the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Courtesy of the United States Library of Congress.
About the Painting
Neither Elizabeth Cady Stanton nor Susan B. Anthony would live to see women obtain the right to vote. In fact, it would take the movement seventy-two years from its inception at the Seneca Falls Convention for women’s suffrage to become a reality. It was through the extraordinary energy, craftiness, and determination of Alice Paul and others that the 19th Amendment became law.
After the proposed amendment passed Congressional approval in 1919 it was sent to the states for ratification. The Constitution requires a 75% majority of states to ratify a proposed amendment. As states ratified, Alice Paul sewed a star on the suffragist flag. Ratification came down to one last state—Tennessee. On August 18, 1920, just before the ratification deadline was to expire, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted in favor with 50 of the 99 voting for ratification. Women had finally won the right of suffrage by the margin of a single vote.
A bouquet of white roses rests atop a nightstand behind Paul. White was the color chosen by the suffragists to reflect purity and the quality of their purpose. White remains the symbolic color for women’s equality.
Selected Alice Paul Quote
“There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it. “
