Happy Birthday Alice Paul! In honor of the historic activist’s birthday, we’ve rounded up some little-known facts about the women’s rights activist to help you celebrate.
She was raised to believe in gender equality.
As Hicksite Quakers, the Paul family was raised believing in gender equality. Hicksite Quakers also believed strongly in working for the betterment of society. Both values influenced Paul’s path to progress. When asked why she dedicated her entire life to women’s equality, she quoted an adage she had learned from her mother: “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until the end of the row.”
She was arrested.
Paul was a trailblazer for women’s rights, which meant she faced her fair share of resistance. Her fight for equality intensified in 1907, when she worked with militant suffragists in England and was arrested several times. Some years after her return to America in 1910, she founded the National Women’s Party and organized protests outside the White House calling for a national amendment. She was constantly arrested during her fight in the United States. Despite the frequency of arrests and danger her ambitions created, Paul continued to fight for equality – and it paid off. In 1919, the 19th Amendment was passed.
She traveled around the world.
For Paul, the fight for gender equality didn’t end in the United States. After the 19th Amendment was passed, she continued to speak for equality around the world, traveling to South America and Europe, and forming the World Woman’s Party, headquartered in Switzerland, before returning to the U.S. to drive gender equality forward.
She is buried in South Jersey.
Alice Paul grew up in South Jersey, where she attended a Friends school in Moorestown and was raised at Paulsdale, the family farm. When she passed away in 1977 in Moorestown, she was buried at Westfield Friends Burial Ground in Cinnaminson.
She’s still inspiring the fight for women’s rights.
Even after her death, Alice Paul is influencing big changes. The Alice Paul Institute was founded in 1985 in honor of Paul and continues to encourage young girls to take on leadership roles and continue to speak out for Paul’s vision of equality.
To celebrate Alice Paul’s birthday, you can make a donation to the Alice Paul Institute and follow the organization on Facebook and Twitter as it shares photographs of South Jersey’s champion for women’s rights.
