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 Faces of Freedom> Alice Paul
Paul was born in New Jersey in 1885. She first became interested in women’s suffrage as a graduate student in England. She came back to the United States in 1910 and turned her attention to winning votes for women in America. In 1913, she organized demonstrations against President Woodrow Wilson, who opposed suffrage. Four years later, she began picketing the White House daily and handed out leaflets. She organized large demonstrations and parades. Women protestors who joined Paul in the fight for women’s votes became known as suffragettes. Paul burned copies of President Wilson’s speeches, calling them “meaningless words” on democracy and even burned an effigy of the president at the White House gates. In 1917 she and other protestors were arrested for peacefully marching. While in jail, she began a hunger strike and was force-fed by prison authorities. 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. He also 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. After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, Paul began lobbying for an Equal Rights Amendment. Congress passed the Amendment in 1972, but it was not ratified by the states and failed to become law. Rights for women The struggle for women’s rights in the United States continues today on number of different issues such as equal pay and reproductive rights. Internationally, women in some developing countries still don’t enjoy many of the basic rights women in this country enjoy such as property rights and the ability to divorce. In 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allows workers to sue their employers for up to 180 days after receiving a discriminatory pay check, was signed into law. The Ledbetter Act is considered a victory for equal pay rights for women. It took Ledbetter and a coalition of supporters 10 years to achieve this, working through the court system, all the way to the Supreme Court and the Oval Office. back to Faces of Freedom |
Lesson plan: Women’s Suffrage: Their Rights and Nothing Less Library of Congress Lesson plan: Suffragists and their Tactics Library of Congress Lesson plan: Suffrage Strategies: Voices for Votes Library of Congress Lilly Ledbetter biography Time Magazine Equal work, Unequal pay: A Q&A with Lilly Ledbetter U.S. News and World Report |
