1885-1977
Suffragist

Background.

In December 1912 Alice Paul, age twentyseven, arrived in Washington, D.C., to work for women's suffrage. She arrived alone, having convinced the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) that she should begin lobbying for a federal amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage throughout the nation. NAWSA had for years concentrated its efforts on individual states, and, in fact, had seen nine states, all in the West, grant women the right to vote. But Alice Paul did not want to wait for the other states to follow. By 1912 she was already an experienced organizer in suffrage work.

Education.

Paul was born in 1885 in Moorstown, New Jersey, into a Quaker family, which, like other Quakers, ardently believed in women's suffrage. After attending Quaker schools, Paul graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.S. in biology in 1905. In 1906 she attended the New York School of Philanthropy, and the...