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Paul’s steadfast beliefs in the rights of women and her strong leadership capabilities were also shaped by her mother. Educated at the Quaker-founded Swarthmore College, Paul’s mother was an active member of the Society of Friends, serving on the School Committee which was the governing board of Alice’s Quaker-based Moorestown Friends Academy in New Jersey, and holding a leadership role as Clerk of the Committee. Because of her mother’s involvement and leadership in the Quaker community, Paul received, at a young age, a strong message about the rights of women and their roles in the community.
Upon graduation from high school, Paul followed in the footsteps of her mother and attended Swarthmore College, graduating in 1905. After graduation, she earned a graduate degree in Social Work from the New York College Settlement School of Philanthropy, later Columbia, and then accepted an offer to continue her graduate work at the Quaker Study Center for Public Service and Theology in Woodbrooke, England, where she studied social work from 1907-1910. Shortly after her arrival in England, Paul was introduced to the Pankhurst family--a family of fervent proponents of militant activism as a means of attaining woman’s suffrage in Great Britain. Paul soon became actively involved in their Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and began utilizing its direct-action tactics of handing out papers, speaking at protest meetings, and interrupting speeches. In 1909 Alice made a conscious decision to become actively militant in the suffrage movement by joining a deputation to Prime Minister Asquith. The deputation ended with rock throwing and the arrest of Paul and several other WSPU members. This incident marked the first of six times that she would be arrested in her work for suffrage only to invoke the resistance strategy of the hunger-strike and eventually to be force-fed by prison officials. The repeated arrests, force-feeding sessions, and other instances of violence that Paul experienced as a member of the WSPU made her even more radical, more militant, and more dedicated in her work for woman’s suffrage.
After substantial debate, the NAWSA board finally agreed upon the necessity of creating a Congressional Committee. On January 2, 1913, the committee was created with Alice Paul as Chair. Paul immediately began her work of agitating for a Federal Suffrage Amendment by utilizing the direct-action techniques that she had learned as a member of the WSPU. The Congressional Committee organized deputations to newly-elected President Woodrow Wilson, created a press service for the sole purpose of distributing suffrage literature, and organized meetings throughout Washington, D.C. The Committee also engaged in organized activities that drew the attention of the American public to the cause of suffrage. For example, Alice Paul organized a huge woman’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. on the eve of President-Elect Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. The public was so mesmerized by this activity that they lined the streets of the city to watch the spectacle and the riot that unfortunately ensued when rowdy observers angrily mobbed the parade participants. Because everyone was watching the parade, there was no one at Union Station to welcome Woodrow Wilson upon his arrival. Bewildered, Wilson was quoted as saying, "Where are the people?" He should have taken this event as a signal of the suffrage battles he would fight during his administration.
The Congressional Committee, under the direction of Alice Paul and her cohort, Lucy Burns, brought fresh life into the stagnant Federal Suffrage Amendment. Although the two women were quite controversial with the older members of the NAWSA, one member was quoted as saying that Paul and Burns had gotten "our old guard half roused from its comatose state." Radical events such as the suffrage parade on the eve of Wilson’s inaugural allowed the Congressional Committee to focus the attention of the American people on the necessity of granting women suffrage. In addition, Alice Paul’s capabilities as a political strategist and leader meant that the Congressional Committee was able to organize effectively to press for the passage of the suffrage amendment. As a result, on April 7, 1913, the Congressional Committee was able to reintroduce, for the first time in almost a decade, the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in both the House and Senate.
The Congressional Committee learned quickly, however, that such political activities were not without a price. In turn, the Congressional Union for Woman’s Suffrage was created as an auxiliary of the NAWSA to raise the sums of money needed by the Congressional Committee both to operate their headquarters and engage in their direct-action activities. As Chair of the Congressional Union, Alice Paul immediately held a select membership drive to recruit only those women who believed that woman's suffrage was "fundamental to all democratic progress" and who considered suffrage to be "the main issue in the field of national politics."
After a disappointing year of no major political gains, the Woman’s Party adopted a new, more militant strategy to gain support for woman’s suffrage in 1916. For several months Alice Paul had considered picketing the White House, but had decided not to put her plan into action. However, when President Wilson informed a deputation of Congressional Union members that he could do nothing for suffrage until they obtained "concrete public opinion" for their cause, the idea of picketing the White House seemed to Paul to be the surest means of success in the shortest amount of time. Thus, on January 9, 1917, a news report announced that the Woman’s Party would post women pickets about the White House grounds so that President Wilson would not be able to enter or leave without encountering a plea for the suffrage cause. The next day the pickets, known as the "silent sentinels," took up positions around the White House carrying banners that read: "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty;" "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and "I don’t wish to sit down and let any man take care of me without my having at least a voice in it; and if he doesn’t listen to my advice, I am going to make it as unpleasant for him as I can" – ironically, a quote from Woodrow Wilson himself.
The pickets continued surrounding the White House peacefully until April, 1917. Once the United States entered the war in Europe, the pickets were viewed as unpatriotic, especially since some of their banners referred to President Wilson as "Kaiser Wilson," and the respect that they had once enjoyed turned into riots in front of the White House as angry military personnel and then civilians attacked the picketers. Even though they were physically assaulted by young men, the women nonetheless continued to picket the White House with banners that reflected the impact of the war on the suffrage issue: "Russia and England are enfranchising their women in war time," and "It is unjust to deny women a voice in their government when the government is drafting their sons." On June 22, 1917, police began arresting the pickets. Although the grounds for the arrests were never really known, the women were most often charged with "obstructing traffic." Even though the women were often physically assaulted by unruly men, only the women pickets and those men who attempted to defend them were arrested.
Despite the reality that they could be arrested for their activities, the women of the Woman’s Party kept their cause alive by picketing the White House for the next year and a half. During that time, many prominent women, including Alice Paul, were arrested, sentenced, and given the preference of serving their sentences or paying a fine of $10. Most women preferred the sentence for the good of the cause and were sent to the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia where they experienced harsh conditions such as worms in their food, filth, and cockroaches. While in jail, Paul went on a hunger strike, similar to those in which she engaged while a member of the WSPU, in an attempt to win concessions from the government. Instead of gaining concessions, however, Paul was placed in a psychiatric ward where she was submitted to psychological testing and force fed. The continued militancy of the women who were arrested, including that of Alice Paul, led to an increase in the severity of the treatment experienced by the pickets on the streets, in the courts, and in the jails.
While the picketing annoyed President Wilson and caused many membership cancellations for the Woman’s Party, Alice Paul’s strategy succeeded in bringing the issue before the public, especially since it led to a Congressional investigation of the suffragist jailings. The strategy also led to sizeable financial contributions to the Woman’s Party and attracted some of the ablest, dedicated women in the nation to the suffrage cause. Alice Paul also credited the picketing for several positive gains in the suffrage movement during 1917, namely the creation of a Woman’s Suffrage Committee in the House, the Senate’s favorable report on the amendment, and the suffrage referendum victory in the state of New York.
The response of the conservative NAWSA to the picketing was far from positive. In a letter to a suffrage supporter, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, former president of the NAWSA, distanced her organization from the Woman’s Party by writing, "this little branch of Suffragists do not belong to the National Association and never will so long as they keep up their semi-militant practice." While the NAWSA openly scorned the practices of the Woman’s Party and denied Alice Paul’s claims that the picketing caused the victory in New York, the picket strategy of the Woman’s Party helped to advance the woman’s suffrage movement in two ways. First, the pickets kept suffrage in the public eye while the country was at war. Second, the confrontational tactics of the Woman’s Party made the gentle persuasion and tact of the increasingly politicized NAWSA appealing to those in government. Thus, though it was not intended to play out in such a manner, the picketing of the White House by the Woman’s Party made it easier for NAWSA to approach President Wilson and to work with him to advance the suffrage cause.
According to President Wilson, the United States became involved in World War I to bring democracy to the entire world. The suffragists, however, reminded Wilson on a daily basis that while he was fighting for democracy for the world, he was at the same time "denying justice to 20,000,000 women" by not supporting the Federal Suffrage Amendment. This political contradiction became a powerful arguing point in the woman’s suffrage movement. In meeting halls throughout the nation, women gathered and accused President Wilson of hypocrisy and displayed large banners that echoed Wilson’s April 2 war message to Congress in large black letters, "We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in the government."
With the nation at war, most suffragists were careful not to speak out publicly against the war because they felt such actions would bring increased charges of disloyalty that would hamper the suffrage movement. Thus, a large number of the suffragists temporarily diverted their suffrage work to contribute to the war effort, even though many suffragists were members of the Woman’s Peace Party. Members of the NAWSA, for example, supported a French hospital, knitted socks, grew food, and worked for the Red Cross.
On the other hand, suffrage work came before war work for Alice Paul and her Quaker background supported her opposition to war. Paul had studied the history of the movement and did not want to make the same mistake Susan B. Anthony had made more than fifty years earlier, by putting her suffrage work to the side to engage in the work of abolition. She believed that such a diversion on the behalf of the National Woman’s Party would surely reverse the momentum the organization had gained in the fight for suffrage. Thus, the National Woman’s Party voted to continue with the work of suffrage. Individual members, however, could do as much war work as they desired. The suffragists did not let their work or the sacrifices they made for the war go unnoticed. The personal letters sent to President Wilson and the speeches made by suffrage leaders continually reminded Wilson that the women of the nation were selling Liberty Bonds, enrolling for the Hoover Food Campaign, doing Red Cross work, as well as working in the factories and in the fields. Carrie Chapman Catt, the President of NAWSA, wrote to President Wilson in May of 1917 suggesting that he endorse woman’s suffrage as a war measure because she was sure that being equipped with the ballot "would add to our enthusiasm and usefulness during the war." She further hoped that the willingness of women "to serve our country even only half armed would appeal to the men with whom you and we must deal in Congress as a good and sufficient reason for our enfranchisement."
Unfortunately, Wilson’s response to Ms. Catt was that he did not think it was "the opportune time to press the claims of our women upon the Congress." The fact that women continued to agitate for suffrage during the war may have swayed President Wilson’s view of suffrage because half of the nation’s resources could not be diverted to the promotion of another cause if the United States was to win the war. Although he never endorsed the enfranchisement of women as a war measure and maintained his state’s rights strategy, Wilson began a proactive campaign of supporting woman’s suffrage by sending messages of support to state suffrage campaign organizers. For example, Wilson sent a letter to Deborah Knox Livingston, Chair of the Maine State Suffrage Campaign, in which he pledged his support for their campaign and urged all Democrats to do the same.
Even as President Wilson spent most of 1918 actively fighting for the passage of the suffrage amendment, the National Woman’s Party continued to hold open meetings and demonstrations throughout Washington, D.C., for the sole purpose of criticizing Wilson and his failure to advance the suffrage amendment. When the elections of 1918 failed to change the balance of votes in the Senate on the Federal Suffrage Amendment, the National Woman’s Party reinstituted their picketing on a smaller scale in front of the Senate. In response, Wilson began to use his influence as the leader of the Democratic Party to sway Democratic Senators to vote for the Federal Suffrage Amendment. In a letter to Senator Josiah Oliver Wolcott of Delaware, Wilson was straight forward in his request when he asked, "Will you forgive the leader of your party if he begs that you will vote for the Suffrage Amendment?" In a letter to Senator John K. Shield of Tennessee, an opponent of woman's suffrage, Wilson pleaded the case of democracy in an attempt to gain his vote in the Senate. In this letter Wilson wrote that:
The morale of this country and of the world, and not a little of the faith which the rest of the world will repose in our sincere adherence to democratic principles, will depend upon the action which the Senate takes in this now critically important matter.
In a speech made to Congress on September 30, 1918, Wilson, speaking as Commander-in-Chief, urged for the passage of the suffrage amendment as a war measure because he believed it would encourage women in their war work. Aside from their war work, Wilson also argued in his speech that women should be granted equal suffrage because their vote would be good for the country as women’s "moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that ought to be purified and reformed."
Nevertheless, the combined efforts of President Wilson, the Woman’s Party, and the NAWSA to pass the amendment through Congress before it adjourned in the later half of 1918 were unsuccessful as it failed in the Senate on October 1, two votes short of the necessary 2/3 majority. Discouraged because of the stagnation of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in Congress, Alice Paul determined the need to dramatize further the suffrage issue. Thus, Paul organized several events which would meet her objective early in 1919. The "jailbird special," launched in January, was one such event. Twenty-six women dressed in prison garb similar to that from the Occoquan Workhouse and travelled the country proclaiming President Wilson as the person responsible for the delay in woman’s suffrage. January also found Woman’s Party members igniting watchfires in front of the White House into which they tossed copies of Wilson’s speeches on Democracy. Although the suffragists were arrested for setting the watchfires, Paul determined that the demonstrations should become even more militant. Thus, on February 9, the eve of the next Senate vote on the Federal Suffrage Amendment, thirty-six suffragists marched to the White House where they burned Wilson in effigy.
On February 10, the Susan B. Anthony Amendment once again failed in the Senate, this time by only one vote. Alice Paul argued successfully for re-introduction of the amendment, but the Senate refused to consider the issue. At this point, Paul reversed her philosophy of blaming the Democrats for the failure of the amendment and instead blamed the Republicans for the defeat saying that they would not cooperate because they did not want the Democrats to get the credit for passing the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Sensing that victory was right around the corner, Paul successfully convinced President Wilson to call a special session of the Sixty-Sixth Congress so that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment could be reintroduced in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. On May 21, 1919, the House once again passed the amendment nearly a year-and-a-half after it had been passed in the House for the first time. At the urging of President Wilson, the Senate finally passed the amendment on June 4, 1919. After a forty-two year battle for equal suffrage, the suffragists were one step away from attaining their goal. However, before the Federal Suffrage Amendment could be made an amendment to the Federal Constitution, it had to be ratified by thirty-six of the forty-eight states. Just six days after the amendment had passed through the Senate, Wisconsin and Michigan became the first states to ratify the amendment. By the end of the year, twenty-two of the required thirty-six states had ratified the amendment. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the final state to ratify the suffrage amendment. The long battle for equal suffrage came to an end on August 26, 1920, when the Susan B. Anthony Amendment became the Twentieth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. After years of fighting for equal suffrage, Alice Paul and the other dedicated suffragists could at last rejoice. They were finally recognized as full citizens by their government. But Paul’s work was not complete.
Although the suffrage victory was a huge achievement for women, Alice Paul wanted equality for women in other spheres of life as well. Thus, on February 10, 1920, Paul handed down a dictum that the Woman’s Party would sponsor a federal Equal Rights Amendment which would guarantee women equality in all of their life endeavors. She continued her work for women’s equality by using her power and influence to advance the legal status of women worldwide. For instance, she organized a World Woman’s Party in Geneva, Switzerland in 1938. In addition, she was influential in the passage of the Equal Nationality Act in 1934, as well as the incorporation of the Equal Rights Statement in the United Nations Charter in 1945. She was also a major player in the creation of Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed "discrimination in employment on the basis of sex." With Paul’s death on July 7, 1977, the world lost a tireless advocate for the equality of women.
Alice Paul’s contribution to the fight for woman suffrage cannot be underestimated. With her return from England and consequent entrance on the suffrage scene, Paul revived the notion of a Federal Suffrage Amendment that had died with the passing of Susan B. Anthony. Paul’s political leadership, radical tactics, and talent in organizing and drawing bright, hard-working women to her cause placed the Woman’s Party at the forefront of the fight for woman suffrage. While the radical tactics of Paul and the Woman’s Party undoubtedly made many politicians skeptical about the wisdom of granting women the vote, her tenacity on the issue certainly played a large part in winning the seventy-five year-old battle for woman suffrage.