Who is Alice Paul?

Alice Paul was born to a Quaker family on January 11, 1885 and in her ninety two years on earth she became one of the most influential figures in the women's rights movements. She is one of the primary leaders that fought to ratify the 19^th Amendment. Alice moved from her home town in New Jersey to attend Swarthmore College and the New York School of Philanthropy. In 1907 she left to work in a settlement house movement in England and attended university there. She returned to the states in 1910 and by 1912 she had earned her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to attend American University's Washington College of Law and earn a LLM followed by a Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1928.

While in England in 1908, Paul heard an activist named Christabel Pankhurst speak at the University of Birmingham. Paul was so encouraged by his words she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU.) She met fellow American Lucy Burns in the WSPU and the two became good friends and partners in the formation of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. While with the WSPU she was arrested and imprisoned three times. She was among the suffragists that went on a hunger strike and had to be force-fed.

She was on a major committee within National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) that same year but left, along with others, to form the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. This organization would later become the National Woman's Party in 1917. Unlike NAWSA, which primarily used a state by state approach to win the right to vote; the National Woman's Party fought for a constitutional amendment. Paul employed tactic used by suffragists in Britain. Tactics included parades, mass meetings, fires, hunger strikes, picketing, demonstrations, and suffrage watch. These actions were amplified by abundant press coverage and the publication of the weekly Suffragist.