Alice Paul was one of the most influential suffragettes of her time. She used many new political and radical tactics that she acquired from the British suffrage movement and effectively spread awareness for suffrage. These methods made her very well known, although some still debate if she was successful in the American suffrage movement. Though some may disagree, Alice Paul was successful in the American women’s suffrage movement because of her political strategies, militant tactics, and how she spread awareness for women’s suffrage.
Alice Paul used many political strategies, such as holding the party in power responsible and campaigning for the 19th Amendment. Paul, as well as Lucy Burns, broke apart from the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association because they didn’t agree with NAWSA’s mild political strategies. As a result, they together founded the National Women’s Party. Leaders of NAWSA thought that it would be best to get suffrage laws passed state by state, while the NWP campaigned for an amendment. This approach was successful because the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. The NWP also held the Democrats, who were mostly in power, responsible for women not being able to vote. Instead of making allies with powerful Democratic lawmakers in order to get their vote, they blamed them for their resistance to supporting women’s suffrage. They even campaigned against the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, in the presidential election of 1916 and burned his speeches in public bonfires (Alice Paul and the Struggle for Women's Suffrage). This was effective because many powerful lawmakers lost supporters and felt pressure to pass suffrage laws. Campaigning for an amendment and holding the party in power responsible were ...
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...d more people about suffrage and gained more support for her cause.
Alice Paul played an important role in the passage of the 19th Amendment and was successful because of her political strategies, radical tactics and how she spread awareness for suffrage. In addition to her involvement in suffrage, she also worked with international rights and drafted the Equal Rights Amendment. Without Alice Paul, the United States wouldn’t have given women the right to vote as quickly, or even not at all. Additionally, women in many other countries might have less equality than they do today. Even though women don’t have complete equality yet, Paul has inspired many to fight and continue fighting for equality, because “when you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row” (qtd in Alice Paul: Feminist, Suffragist and Political Strategist).
Alice Paul was a Quaker who had strong views on women’s rights. However, she thought that the NAWSA and Carrie Chapman Catt’s plan was too conservative. She broke away from the association to form a more radical group, the National Women’s Party (NWP). The NWP pushed for a Constitutional Amendment at a federal level and focused on President Woodrow Wilson (Alice Paul 1885-1977). To raise support for the cause, Alice Paul conducted public events such as marches.
For many years people fought and struggled for change to make the world a better place. People struggle for change to feel equal by actively fighting for human rights, they urge people to abide by the rule of law to accomplish these equal rights, and they fight for a change in the future to ensure that the work they have done is not destroyed by the younger generations. Thanks to the hard work of our ancestors, the freedom that we are granted benefits many people around the world today. If it were not for their struggle we would not have some of the privileges we have today, such as the right to vote. Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells are both exemplary examples of advocates for the women’s suffrage. They marched and protested for the right to vote which eventually led to the 19th amendment. It took a very strong leader to accomplish this goal, a person that believed in the rule of law and a change for the future. These women are just two examples of people who were self motivated for a change. Many other people struggled for a change in what they believed in,and if they fought hard enough their efforts
In the 1840’s, most of American women were beginning to become agitated by the morals and values that were expected of womanhood. “Historians have named this the ’Cult of True Womanhood’: that is, the idea that the only ‘true’ woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family” (History.com). Voting was only the right of men, but women were on the brink to let their voices be heard. Women pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott wrote eleven resolutions in The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments; this historical document demanded abolishment of any laws that authorized unequal treatment of women and to allow for passage of a suffrage amendment.
They formed the National Women's Party, which called for an amendment for equal rights. Even though there were technological and social advancements during this time, including the assembly line and more rights for women, anxiety and intolerance still dominated the playing field in 1920’s America.
Susan B. Anthony was an equal rights activist and one of the founders of feminism. She was fined $100 for voting illegally in the 1872 election. She was outraged by this, and traveled the country speaking on women’s suffrage and equal rights. Though women weren’t given the right to vote until 14 years following her death, she delivered a powerful speech, now known as “Women’s Right to Suffrage” to express her anger with the lack of rights in this country. She argues that “we that people” isn’t just inclusive to white men, and that both men and women should be given equal opportunity. Today, Ms. Anthony’s words still echo into the hearts and minds of fourth wave feminists, like myself, and inspire them to continue fighting against inequality
As an ambitious, disciplined, and devoted woman, Susan B. Anthony was a prominent women’s right activist who established the women’s suffrage movement in the nineteenth century and advocated equal rights for all women and men throughout her life. Born and raised in a Quaker family that considered women equal to men, Susan B. Anthony developed a sense of impartiality and wanted to ignite equality throughout all men and women. After teaching for fifteen years, Anthony became active in the temperance movement and the anti-slavery movement. However, since she was a woman, her right to speak publicly was denied which is one of the most significant concepts that encouraged her to become an effective woman’s suffrage leader. With the help of her
One of the most important women, and often most forgotten, during women’s suffrage is Alice Paul. She was the first woman to earn her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and also earned a law degree at American University. She founded the National Women’s Party (NWP) in 1916. The way she fought for women’s rights was very different than how the women in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) fought for it. Although, in the end, they congratulated Alice Paul and the work she had done to get women’s rights. She had raised $750,000 in less than 10 years in the fight for the 19th amendment, which in today’s society would be $9.9 million. She also created the idea of lobbying, which is still actively used in modern politics. Her efforts and drive are what make her one of the most important women to study in women’s history. She is often never even mentioned during history classes when students are being taught about women’s suffrage. Teachers and professors usually stick with the more ...
While the women’s suffrage movement was none violent and mainly carried out by organized meetings, lobbying congressman, and picketing protests, the women that participated in it could do nothing to stop the violence of their oppressors from coming to them. In January 1917, the National Women’s Party, led by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, began to picket, six days a week, in front of the white house for their right to vote. At first largely ignored, they became under frequent attack with no help from the police. Then starting th...
Achieving equality between men and women was a long and arduous task. In the 19th century, an organized women’s rights movement began in the United States. Perhaps its most famous leader was Susan B. Anthony, a champion of women’s rights until her death in 1906. Susan B. Anthony’s work established and inspired the institution of many women’s rights, and she remains one of the most influential women in history.
Women throughout the suffrage act were faced with many challenges that eventually led into the leading roles of women in the world today. Suffrage leaders adopted new arguments to gain new support. Rather than insisting on the justice of women’s suffrage, or emphasizing equal rights, they spoke of the special moral and material instincts women could bring to the table. Because of these women taking leaps and boundaries, they are now a large part of America’s government, and how our country operates.
It was Theodore Roosevelt, who stated that, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care”, conveying the idea that with no voice comes no change. In the morning of August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, which centralized mainly on the enfranchisement of women. Today, they have the legal right to vote, and the ability to speak openly for themselves, but most of all they are now free and equal citizens. However this victorious triumph in American history would not have been achieved without the strong voices of determined women, risking their lives to show the world how much they truly cared. Women suffragists in the 19th century had a strong passion to change their lifestyle, their jobs around the nineteenth century were limited to just children, family, and domestic duties. It consisted of a very low rate of education, and job opportunities. They could not share their opinion publicly and were expected to support their male family members and husbands during the time. Women knew that the way to enfranchisement was going to be tenacious, and full of obstacles along the way. Therefore a new organization was formed, The National American Women Association (NAWSA), representing millions of women and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the first party president. This organization was founded in 1890, which strategized on the women getting education in order to strengthen their knowledge to prepare for the suffrage fight. NAWSA mainly focused on the right to vote one state at a time. In 1917, a member named Alice Paul, split apart from NAWSA because of the organization’s tactics and major goals. Due to this split, many other suffragists from NAWSA bitterly divided into a new organization named, National Women’s ...
“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” – Mary Wollstonecraft. In the 19th century the hot topic was women’s rights everybody had an opinion about it. Of course the expected ones like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had much to say but a few unexpected ones like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass spoke out for women’s rights. The focus will be the responsibilities and roles that the activists played in the Women’s Rights or Feminist Movement. The relevance to the theme is the activists had a very important role toward reaching the ultimate goal of the Women’s Rights Movement. The Women’s Rights Movement was one of the most essential times in American history; it was the fight for women acquiring the same rights as men. Susan B. Anthony was considered the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement after she was denied the right to speak in a temperance convention; she had the responsibility of creating the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) and helping to secure voting rights by her historic court case, the Trials of Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an important women’s rights activist that helped plan the first organized women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. Lucretia Mott worked along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to plan the first women’s rights convention and wrote the, “Discourse on Women”. Lucy Stone formed the American Women’s Suffrage Association (AWSA) and convince individual states to join the effort towards women rights. These women had an influence in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) achievement of the goals in the Women’s Rights Movement. These women had a profound effect on reaching equal rights between men and women.
The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.
The film shows Paul and her cohorts fighting for equality in Washington, DC. When Paul first arrived in DC, she was under the watchful eye of the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As Paul fought on, her values no longer lined up with NAWSA, which led to the suspension of her congressional union. In retaliation, Paul relentlessly continued her efforts by starting the National Women’s Party (NWP). The National Women’s Party solely fought for the passage of a constitutional amendment that would grant all United Stated citizens the right to vote. Although the opposing sides often came to a head, Alice Paul makes a great case when she says, “women don’t make the laws, but they have to abide by them”(von Garnier, 2004, part 2). With much determination and a lot of fight, the amendment was finally passed through Congress in
America did not begin as a beacon of freedom for everyone. Society had determined that a woman’s role was to help her husband by caring for the family. Some women were happy to heed to the societal rules, but the seeds of women’s suffrage were planted by women like Rosalie Calvert who pushed boundaries to express her opinions. She felt compelled to prove intelligence