Alice Paul

The rivalry between the National Women’s Suffrage Association lead by Carrie Chapman Catt, and the National Women’s Party lead by Alice Paul was only intensified by each group’s intense desire to as quickly as possible get the vote for American women. Progress having been stalled and stagnated after the Civil War, ignited by this halt in momentum the two groups to give no ground or tolerance for anything that might stall their progress.

The 19th century was the start of the American industrial revolution that transitioned the rural nation to one that was more urbanized with the rise of big businesses. Factory owners were now able to hire less skilled workers due to methods such as taylorism in factory production. That shift triggered the need to to hire more unskilled laborers like women and children, will to work for low wages. Like many of the citizens of the lower class, the women working in these factories weren’t benefiting from the economic boom that was provided by the industrial revolution but the ability for them to be able to contribute to the income need for their family to survive empowered them with the feelings of independence and economic power. Following years

Alice Paul was one of the most necessary factors in the equation for Women's Suffrage. Her bold tactics revitalized the suffragists movement and allowed for her to achieve her long term goals. She is the most important person of this time period because she never compromises her beliefs in the face of adversity. From a young age she was taught that she deserved unconditional equal rights. This is a radical notion that will drive her work throughout the rest of her life. She underwent arrests, forced feedings and protest after protest all in the name of equality. This message still resonates with people today as this generation fights for their rights.

First, I will talk about her growing up. “American suffragist Alice Paul was born into a prominent Quaker family in New Jersey in 1885” (History.com). In year 1905 Paul graduated from Swarthmore and then attended the New York school of Philanthropy. “While an activist it was acquired through series of arrest, imprisonments, hunger strikes and forced feedings in 1920”(History.com). Now it’s year 1910 Paul enrolled back to university of Pennsylvania for her return to the U.S. “She launched her full-time suffrage career. Working first within the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Paul gathered about her group of young woman, many of whom had also worked with the Pankhurst in England and who were willing to depart from the associations conservation” (History.com) (source 1 page 1).

Women used many different methods to earn the right to vote in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. A method Alice Paul set up to help the problem publicly noticed was she held a parade in Washington D.C. on the day President Woodrow Wilson arrived from his inauguration. there were large crowds at the parade but most of them were drunk men (not good). On all of the tons of floats they had there were hundreds of women helping marching. A lot of the crowd yelled in anger and threw bottles at the women and attacked them. At the parade there were police but none of them cared and let everyone attack the women. There ended up being 100 women in the parade hospitalized. Newspaper reporters made an article about the parade taking the womens’ side. Another

Paul then began publishing a weekly newspaper, The Suffragist, in November of 1913. In the issues to follow they spoke of injustice and the laws affecting the interest of women.      In April 1916, the National Women's Party was established as a political party. This party did not endorse any candidate but only woman suffrage. The Democrats and Republicans were beginning to realize the women's votes could definitely influence the election.

In the mid to late 1700's, the women of the United States of America had practically no rights. When they were married, the men represented the family, and the woman could not do anything without consulting the men. Women were expected to be housewives, to raise their children, and thinking of a job in a factory was a dream that was never thought impossible. But, as years passed, women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell began to question why they were at home all day raising the children, and why they did not have jobs like the men. This happened between the years of 1776 and 1876, when the lives and status of Northern middle-class woman was changed forever. Women began to

Between 1900 and 1920, women started taking jobs outside the home. It started with teaching, nursing, and social work but soon women began taking clerical jobs if they were native born white women with an education. Thus leading to “Rosie the Riveter”, which we will discuss later. “American Feminists, in the early 20th century included a segment of working-class women, participating alongside better-known middle-class and elite adherents of feminist ideas”, (Greenwald, 1989).

The female wage earners impacted the economic climate of the 1800s and caused significant change to women public activism. While, the majority of white female wage earners were unmarried and living at home. In 1890, the estimated of women wage earners were 3 quarters of women. in addition “10-15% of urban families were headed by single mothers” (297) . For white women at this time domestic work was going down and left in leu of factory labor.

In 1870, only 13% of women worked outside of their homes. By 1900, over 20% were working outside their homes, most being young and single. The main jobs for them still were, cooking, cleaning and childcare. Although they did start to work in factories. The main types of factories they worked in were garment and textiles. The worked the same long days and tough jobs but were only being paid half of what the men were receiving. The employers reasoning for this was that the women didn’t need to support a family like men do. These employers could do this because women simply didn’t possess enough power to change it.

Woman along with the children were affected while working during the industrial revolution. During 1834 and 1836 Harriet Martineau, a British feminist and abolitionist, visited America and enthusiastically embraced the social implications of the Industrial Revolution, (DTA, 223). Martineau compared the lifestyle of women to slaves and said the United States contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. She did believe though with some progress that it could become New England’s new industrial order. One of the Mill factories Martineau visited, Waltham Mill, was a prime example of the scheduled lifestyle of women mill workers. Women Mill workers of all ages worked at Waltham Mill, which I compared to a boarding school because of their strict schedules. The ladies had a time to wake up, to be at work, to eat, and to go to school. A lot of women did not mind the harsh conditions they lived and worked in because they fought for their equality of rights for a long time now.

This new generation of activists fought with this new agenda for almost 20 years until a few states in the West began to extend the vote to women. The Eastern and Southern states still refused to give in, but this didn’t stop the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1916, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the NAWSA, worked vigorously to get women’s organizations from all over the country together and fight side by side. “One group of activists, led by Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party, lobbied for full quality for women under the law” (Divine). She used mass marches and hunger strikes as strategies, but she was eventually forced to resign because of her insistence on the use of militant direct-action tactics (Grolier). Finally, during World War 1, women were given more opportunities to work, and were able to show that they were just as deserving as men when it came to the right to vote. On August 18th, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, allowing women to vote. This drawn-out and arduous battle opened a new window of opportunity for women all over the country. Significant changes in both social life and job availability began to create what is now referred to as the “new women.”

America is the land of opportunity. It is a place of rebirth, hope, and freedom. However, it was not always like that for women. Many times in history women were oppressed, belittled, and deprived of the opportunity to learn and work in their desired profession. Instead, their life was confined to the home and family. While this was a noble role, many females felt that they were being restricted and therefore desired more independence. In America, women started to break the mold in 1848 and continued to push for social, political, educational, and career freedom. By the 1920s, women had experienced significant “liberation”, as they were then allowed to vote, hold public office, gain a higher education, obtain new jobs, drastically change

The NUWSS had wide-ranging support, from both men and women from working and middle-class backgrounds. The approaches of different regional branches of the NUWSS varied, from passive to fairly militant, and the lack of specific location attached to the source also suggests that this could have been publicised cross-country. By softening their approach with the language of motherhood, the NUWSS could increase their audience and avoid alienation of their diverse audience, appealing to both moderates and those who were more radical. The form of the source may lend some support to this, as leaflets could achieve large circulation and reach a large audience. It is clear that the suffragists sought to create some form of cohesion and unity in their organisation, perhaps seen in this source by the “us versus them” mentality. The suffragists frequently address the reader as "you" and refer to "we", uniting the reader with the movement and pulling the entire suffrage movement into a single group. Though this level of unity was not actually a reality, with multiple suffrage organisations existing such as WSPU and Women's Freedom League, their presentation of the movement as such suggests a desire, and perhaps a need in the face of opposition, to appear

There are debates in classrooms, workplaces, and in general conversations about what men can do that women cannot. In history classes, teachers often explain how feminist society was “back in the day.” Females were given the job of staying home and taking care of the children. They were to have meals prepared, ready for when the men got home from a long day’s work and do laundry. It was not until the mid-1800’s that women were given permission to work somewhere else besides their home. Textile mills began to open which employed over 7,000 unmarried women. During the years of World War I, they were hired as nurses to aid the wounded soldiers. At that time, the lives of many men were in their hands. From then on, females played a big role in hospitals. Once women were allowed to study and work, they were