Alice Paul
b.1885 - 1977
“There is a danger that because of a great victory women will believe their whole struggle for independence ended. They have still far to go. It is for the Woman's Party to decide whether there is any way in which it can serve in the struggle which lies ahead to remove the remaining forms of woman's subordination.”
- Alice Paul, The Suffragist, 1921
Alice was the dynamic, fearless leader of the militant wing of the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement. She was a Quaker, American suffragist, feminist and women's rights writer. She was an essential strategist of the 1910 campaign for the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution for women's right to vote. With Lucy Burns she started and ran the National Woman's Party.
Of Lucy Burns' and Alice Paul's working relationship, Eleanor Clift, in her 2003 book, Founding Sisters and the 19th Amendment, she notes, “[In 1923] they were opposite in appearance and temperament...whereas Paul appeared fragile, Burns was tall and curvaceous, the picture of vigorous health...unlike Paul, who was uncompromising and hard to get along with, Burns was pliable and willing to negotiate. Paul was the militant, Burns, the diplomat.” (page 93) Paul and Burns had met in London working on the Pankhurst's inspired protests for the British women’s right to vote.
Alice worked on the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and fought to add protection for women to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Though she did see the ERA passed in Congress in 1972, Alice did not live to see the ratification by all the states needed to pass the law.
Alice is remembered today as the leader of the more militant wing of the 20th century's women's suffrage movement in America.