*For a version of this lesson with questions and answers on separate pages, click here*

• http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/
• http://www.sewallbelmont.org/mainpages/aboutus_nwp-history.html
• http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9803/suffrage.html
• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
• http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/00/women/index.html

“Several prison officials dragged me out of bed, wrapped me in blankets, carried me into the next cell, and placed me in a chair. I was then fed by means of a tube passed through the nostrils into the stomach. When the operation was over, I was trembling.”

In this letter written to her mother, Alice Paul, a 1905 graduate of Swarthmore College then studying in England, told of her experiences after being arrested at a women’s suffrage event. Only a few years later, she would suffer a similar experience as a result of her support for American women’s suffrage.

Paul returned to the United States in 1910, completed a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1912, and turned her attention to the American suffrage movement. She held mass meetings in private halls and public places. Paul coordinated large demonstrations and events. In March, 1913, she organized a parade to coincide with Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural celebrations. Led by a woman wearing a white cape and riding a white horse, over 5000 women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The women wore colorful banners and marched grouped according to their professions. As they marched, they sang verses from “The March of the Women”: Firm in reliance; laugh at defiance/, Laugh in hope, for sure is the end/ March, march; many as one/ Shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend. The marchers were laughed at and jeered at by the crowd, but they persevered to the end of the route. When President-elect Wilson arrived at the train station just a few blocks away, an aide wondered “Where are all the people?”

Paul published leaflets and held daily pickets in front of the White House, holding signs asking “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” She burned copies of President Woodrow Wilson’s speeches, calling them “meaningless words” on democracy.

In 1917, she and many others were jailed at the federal prison in Occoquan, Virginia for these demonstrations. Her colleague, Lucy Burns, reported other suffragists imprisoned with Paul were “flung into cells," “thrown out of rooms,” and “manacled to the bars of cells.” While in jail, Paul began a hunger strike as she had done in England.

Paul’s actions alienated some who believed the women’s suffragists were becoming too militant. On the other hand, those who were arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights to speak, publish, peaceably assemble, and petition won the public’s sympathy. The President ordered them released from prison, and soon lent his support to women’s suffrage. Congress approved the Nineteenth Amendment within a year and it was ratified by the states in 1920.

Questions

1. In what ways did Alice Paul exercise her First Amendment freedoms?
   
2. What other strategies did Paul use to draw attention to the suffrage movement?
   
3. Why were some people opposed to Paul’s actions?
   
4. If you were alive at that time, which of Paul’s actions would you have found most persuasive? Least persuasive?

1. She spoke at public events; she published pro-suffrage pamphlets; she demonstrated in support of women’s suffrage; and she picketed government buildings to communicate her message.
   
2. She went on hunger strikes.
   
3. They believed that her confrontational tactics would alienate the public and actually decrease popular support for suffrage.
   
4. Answers will vary.