Alice Paul

by Nicolleta Perna

Alice Paul, 1912 Graduation Portrait

Alice Stokes Paul (1885-1977) was the daughter of two Quakers, William and Tacie Paul, and a prolific advocate for women’s rights. Born in Mount Laurel and raised on her family’s farm in Moorestown, Paul spent her formative years as a New Jersey local. Alice Paul was a champion for the women’s suffrage movement not just in the U.S, but in England as well.

Born in the time when First Wave Feminism was at its peak Alice Paul had readily been exposed to the idea that women were and should be treated equal from her parents’ Quaker ideals to attending women’s suffrage meetings with her mother when she was younger. This all helped lay the groundwork for Alice to start her true journey into political feminism during her time at college in England, where she became a women’s rights activist after meeting Christabel Pankhurts and helping with the cause of the British Women’s Suffrage Movement.

After her stint in England Alice Paul returned home to the U.S and pursued the fight for women’s right to vote in the States. Paul had joined the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and led a Women’s Suffrage Procession through Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C one day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. Paul eventually started her own women’s suffrage group named the National Women’s Party (NWP). Paul had begun a protest with the NWP outside of the Whitehouse known as the Silent Sentinels where the group would silently stand at the Whitehouse gates with picket signs. Eventually Alice Paul and other NWP members had been jailed for their protesting and subjected to heinous conditions and treatment while imprisoned; when word of this broke out to the public the public began to side and sympathize with the National Women’s Party’s cause. In 1919 Alice Paul’s work had finally paid off when Congress decided to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. 

Paul continued to work and advocate towards better representation and rights for women in the United States by earning three law degrees, her Doctorate included, and helping draft as well as fighting to get the Equal Rights Act passed, though it came close it was never ratified into the Constitution. Alice also founded the World Women’s Party in 1938 in order to help women around the world get equal rights. Among other achievements Alice Paul then succeeded in securing a sexual discrimination clause in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. With a seemingly endless list of achievements under her belt for women’s rights Alice Paul was a champion for women everywhere in her lifetime. 

Alice Stokes Paul died on July 9th, 1977 in Moorestown New Jersey in her nursing home. Her legacy lives on through the Alice Paul Institute, a national historical landmark at her childhood farm Paulsdale. Alice Paul was posthumously inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1979.

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References:

“About Alice Paul.” Alice Paul Institute. Accessed September 25, 2024. https://www.alicepaul.org/about-alice-paul/. 

“Alice Paul.” National Parks Service. Accessed September 25, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/bepa/learn/alice-paul.htm. 

Michals, Debra. “Alice Paul.” National Women’s History Museum, 2015. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul. 

Winslow, Barbara. “Alice Paul, Suffrage Militant.” Alice Paul, Suffrage Militant | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Accessed September 25, 2024. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/alice-paul-suffrage-militant.

Suggested Citation:

Perna, Nicolleta. (2024, Oct). Alice Paul. New Jersey Women’s History, Rowan University Libraries Digital Scholarship Center. https://njwomenshistory.org/biographies/alice-paul/