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Alice Paul (1885 - 1977)

A vocal leader of the twentieth century women’s suffrage movement, Alice Paul advocated for and helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Paul next authored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which has yet to be adopted.

EARLY LIFE: Born on January 11, 1885 in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, Paul was ​ the oldest of four children of Tacie Parry and William Paul, a wealthy Quaker businessman. Paul’s parents embraced gender equality, education for women, ​ and working to improve society. Paul’s mother, a suffragist, brought her daughter with her to women’s suffrage meetings.

EDUCATION: Paul attended Swarthmore College, a Quaker school co-founded ​ by her grandfather, graduating with a biology degree in 1905. She attended the ​ New York School of Philanthropy (now Columbia University) and received a ​ Master of Arts degree in sociology in 1907. She then went to England to study ​ social work, and after returning, earned a PhD from the University of ​ Pennsylvania in 1910.

EARLY EFFORTS FOR SUFFRAGE: While in England, Paul met American ​ Lucy Burns, and joining the women’s suffrage efforts there, they learned militant protest tactics, including picketing and hunger strikes. Back in the United States, in 1912, Paul and Burns joined the National American Woman Suffrage ​ Association (NAWSA), with Paul leading the Washington, DC chapter. NAWSA primarily focused on state-by-state campaigns; Paul preferred to lobby Congress for a constitutional amendment. Such differences led Paul and others to split with NAWSA and form the National Woman's Party. ​

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TACTICS: Borrowing from her British counterparts, Paul organized parades ​ ​ and pickets in support of suffrage. Her first—and the largest—was in Washington, ​ DC, on March 3, 1913, the day before President-elect Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. Approximately eight thousand women marched with banners and ​ floats down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, while ​ a half million spectators watched, supported and harassed the marchers. On March 17, Paul and other suffragists met with Wilson, who said it was not yet time for an amendment to the Constitution. On April 7, Paul organized a demonstration and ​ founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage to focus specifically on lobbying Congress.

MORE TACTICS: In January 1917, Paul and over 1,000 “Silent Sentinels” began ​ eighteen months of picketing the White House, standing at the gates with such ​ ​ signs as, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” They endured ​ verbal and physical attacks from spectators, which increased after the US entered World War I. Instead of protecting the women’s right to free speech and ​ peaceful assembly, the police arrested them on the flimsy charge of obstructing traffic. Paul was sentenced to jail for seven months, where she organized a hunger ​ strikes in protest. Doctors threatened to send Paul to an insane asylum and ​ force-fed her, while newspaper accounts of her treatment garnered public sympathy and support for suffrage. By 1918, Wilson announced his support for suffrage. It took two more years for the Senate, House, and the required 36 states to approve the amendment.

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Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delivering speeches in favor of women's suffrage.

EARLY LIFE: Susan B. Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, ​ Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and later a cotton mill owner and manager and was raised as a Quaker. Her mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government. From an early age, Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief ​ that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life. ​ ​ She had seven brothers and sisters, many of whom became activists for justice and emancipation of slaves.

OTHER ADVOCACY: After many years of teaching, Anthony returned to her ​ family who had moved to New York State. There she met William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, who were friends of her father. Listening to them moved Susan to want to do more to help end slavery. She became an abolition activist, even though most people thought it was improper for women to give speeches in public. Anthony made many passionate speeches against slavery.

PUBLIC ADDRESSES: In 1848, a group of women held a convention at Seneca ​ Falls, New York. It was the first Women’s Rights Convention in the United States and began the Suffrage movement. Her mother and sister attended the convention, but Anthony did not. In 1851, Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two ​ women became good friends and worked together for over 50 years fighting for women’s rights. They traveled the country and Anthony gave speeches ​ ​ demanding that women be given the right to vote. At times, she risked being ​ arrested for sharing her ideas in public.

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STRATEGY: Anthony was good at strategy. Her discipline, energy, and ability to ​ organize made her a strong and successful leader. Anthony and Stanton ​ co-founded the American Equal Rights Association. In 1868 they became ​ editors of the Association’s newspaper, The Revolution, which helped to spread ​ the ideas of equality and rights for women. Anthony began to lecture to raise ​ money for publishing the newspaper and to support the suffrage movement. She became famous throughout the county. Many people admired her, yet others hated her ideas.

INTENSE SUFFRAGE ADVOCACY: When Congress passed the 14th and 15th ​ amendments which give voting rights to African American men, Anthony and Stanton were angry and opposed the legislation because it did not include the right to vote for women. Their belief led them to split from other suffragists. They thought the amendments should also have given women the right to vote. They ​ formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, to push for a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting. She was ​ ​ ​ tried and fined $100 for her crime. This made many people angry and brought national attention to the suffrage movement. In 1876, she led a protest at the 1876 Centennial of our nation’s independence. She gave a speech—“Declaration of Rights”—written by Stanton and another suffragist, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

MORE TACTICS: Anthony spent her life working for women’s rights. In 1888, ​ ​ she helped to merge the two largest suffrage associations into one, the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. She led the group until ​ 1900. She traveled around the country giving speeches, gathering thousands of ​ signatures on petitions, and lobbying Congress every year for women. Anthony ​ died in 1906, 14 years before women were given the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Name: Date:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

Author, lecturer, and chief philosopher of the woman’s rights and suffrage movements, Elizabeth Cady Stanton formulated the agenda for woman’s rights that guided the struggle well into the 20th century.

EARLY LIFE: Born on November 12, 1815 in Johnstown, New York, Stanton ​ was the daughter of Margaret Livingston and Daniel Cady, Johnstown's most prominent citizens. She received her formal education at the Johnstown Academy and at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary in New York. Her father was a ​ noted lawyer and state assemblyman and young Elizabeth gained an informal legal education by talking with him and listening in on his conversations with colleagues and guests.

OTHER ADVOCACY: A well-educated woman, Stanton married abolitionist ​ lecturer Henry Stanton in 1840. She, too, became active in the anti-slavery ​ movement and worked alongside leading abolitionists of the day including ​ Sarah and Angelina Grimke and William Lloyd Garrison, all guests at the Stanton home while they lived in Albany, New York and later Boston.

TACTICS: While on her honeymoon in London to attend a World’s Anti-Slavery ​ convention, Stanton met abolitionist Lucretia Mott, who, like her, was also angry about the exclusion of women at the proceedings. Mott and Stanton, now fast friends, vowed to call a woman’s rights convention when they returned home. Eight years later, in 1848, Stanton and Mott held the first Woman’s Rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. In 1848, Stanton authored, “The Declaration of Sentiments,” which expanded on the Declaration of Independence by adding the word “woman” or “women” throughout. This ​ pivotal document called for social and legal changes to elevate women’s place in society and listed 18 grievances from the inability to control their wages and property or the difficulty in gaining custody in divorce to the lack of the right to vote. That same year, Stanton circulated petitions throughout New York to ​ urge the New York Congress to pass the New York Married Women’s Name: Date:

Property Act.

TACTICS (CONTINUED): Although Stanton remained committed to efforts to ​ gain property rights for married women and ending slavery, the women’s suffrage movement increasingly became her top priority. Stanton met Susan B. Anthony ​ in 1851, and the two quickly began collaboration on speeches, articles, and books. Their intellectual and organizational partnership dominated the woman’s ​ movement for over half a century. When Stanton was unable to travel do to the demands of raising her seven children, she would author speeches for Anthony to deliver.

HER PASSIONS: In 1862, the Stantons moved to Brooklyn and later New York ​ City. There she also became involved in Civil War efforts and joined with Anthony to advocate for the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery. An outstanding orator with a sharp mind, Stanton was able to travel more after the Civil War and she became one of the best-known women’s rights activists in the country. Her ​ speeches addressed such topics as maternity, child rearing, divorce law, married women’s property rights, temperance, abolition, and presidential campaigns. She and Anthony opposed the 14th and 15th amendments to the ​ ​ US Constitution, which gave voting rights to black men but did not extend the franchise to women. Their stance led to a rift with other women’s suffragists and ​ prompted Stanton and Anthony to found the National Woman Suffrage ​ Association (NWSA) in 1869. Stanton edited and wrote for NWSA’s journal The Revolution. As NWSA president, Stanton was an outspoken social and political commentator and debated the major political and legal questions of the day. The two major women’s suffrage groups reunited in 1890 as the National ​ American Woman’s Suffrage Association.

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LATER LIFE: By the 1880s, Stanton was 65 years old and focused more on ​ ​ writing rather than traveling and lecturing. She wrote three volumes of the ​ History of Woman Suffrage (1881-85) with Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage. In this comprehensive work, published several decades before women won the right to vote, the authors documented the individual and local activism that built and sustained a movement for woman suffrage. Along with numerous articles on the subject of women and religion, Stanton published the Woman's Bible (1895, 1898), in which she voiced her belief in a secular state and urged women to recognize how religious orthodoxy and masculine theology obstructed their chances to achieve self-sovereignty. She also wrote an autobiography, Eighty Years and More, about the great events and work of her life. Stanton died in October 1902 in New York City, 18 years before women gained the right to vote

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Women’s Suffrage Movement: Notable Leaders

Alice Paul: 1. How was Paul influenced in her early life?

2. Where did Paul obtain her education?

3. What group did Alice Paul get her suffragist beginnings in? What group did she eventually create?

4. What tactics did Paul use to create support?

Susan B. Anthony: 1. How was Susan B. Anthony influenced in her early life?

2. What other movements did Anthony support?

3. Who did Anthony become close friends with? What did they do together?

4. What strategies did Anthony use to rally public support?

5. What was Anthony arrested for? Why’d she do this? Name: Date:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: 1. How was Elizabeth Cady Stanton influenced in her early life?

2. What other movements did Stanton support?

3. What did Stanton write in 1848?

4. What tactics did Stanton specialize in?

5. What groups was Stanton apart of?