When Alice Paul arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1912, the proposed federal
woman suffrage amendment was over thirty years old. The amendment, drafted
by Susan B. Anthony, was first introduced in Congress in 1878. Since then
it had received little attention from either Congress or the suffrage movement.
Suffragists, who had been working to achieve the vote on a state-by-state
basis, viewed the national amendment as impractical and impossible to obtain.
Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and a small group of determined women decided to
do the impossible.
Alice Paul began her work in Washington as the chairperson of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). This self-sustaining branch of NAWSA worked in 1913 to draw public attention to federal suffrage. Through an inaugural parade, deputations to President Woodrow Wilson, and numerous public meetings the Committee began its campaign of public education. As it became necessary to provide physical and financial support for these activities, the Committee formed the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in April 1913. The Congressional Union became an affiliated society of NAWSA.
In 1914 the Congressional Union, with Alice Paul as its chairperson, became independent of NAWSA. For the next three years the Congressional Union continued its campaign to achieve federal woman suffrage. The Union lobbied Congress and the president, held public parades and meetings, sent speakers throughout the country, formed state branches, and perfected their organizational structure.
In 1914 the Congressional Union initiated the most unique feature of its campaign strategy--political activism. That fall during the congressional election campaigns, the Union supported no candidates, but rather opposed all Democrats on the basis that the party that controlled Congress refused to pass the suffrage amendment. The Congressional Union and later the National Woman's Party used the argument of party responsibility again and again in their suffrage campaign.
When the Congressional Union faced the 1916 presidential election campaign, it decided to consolidate and organize the votes of enfranchised women in the western states to defeat the Democrats. The Union called a convention in Chicago in June 1916, and the National Woman's Party was formed. The National Woman's Party consisted of the enfranchised members of the Congressional Union. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the National Woman's Party coexisted until 1917 when the two merged under the title, National Woman's Party (NWP). The NWP continued the tactics of the Congressional Union--publicity, lobbying, and political activity.
Throughout 1917 the NWP picketed the White House. This confrontation began peacefully, but as the United States entered World War I the pickets became increasingly distasteful to the nation and the government. In June the first arrests of the picketers occurred. The picket and the arrests continued, and the suffragists began to serve jail sentences. The jailed suffragists, often mistreated physically and mentally, went on hunger strikes and were force fed.
The picket, the arrests, and the prison terms served their purpose. In 1918, President Wilson expressed his support for the federal suffrage amendment, and on January 10 the House of Representatives passed the amendment. Although the NWP began a concerted lobbying campaign in the Senate, the Senate refused to pass the amendment. Again, the NWP resorted to public demonstrations. The White House and the Capitol area were picketed, President Wilson's words were burned, and beginning in 1919 watchfires were kept burning before the White House. Suffragists were arrested and jailed. In 1918 the NWP also opposed anti-suffrage candidates in the senatorial elections.
On May 21, 1919, the House passed the suffrage amendment; on June 4, 1919, the Senate passed the amendment. The amendment now required ratification by thirty-six state legislatures. Through 1919 and 1920 the NWP shifted its lobbying efforts from the national to the state level. A number of the states quickly ratified the amendment, but as the campaign neared its end the NWP found its efforts blocked by the political intrigues of the Republican and Democratic parties. Finally, on August 8, 1920, the thirty-sixth state, Tennessee, ratified after a rigorous campaign by the NWP.
After eight years of intensive work and the expenditure of three quarters of a million dollars by the Party, woman suffrage was guaranteed by the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution. The National Woman's Party officially ended its suffrage campaign at its February 1921, convention. With suffrage achieved the NWP began a new campaign of equal rights for women.
A more detailed account of the activities of the National Woman's Party suffrage
campaign can be found in published accounts of the campaign such as The
Story of the Woman's Party, by Inez Haynes Irwin (1921); Jailed
for Freedom, by Doris Stevens (1920); and Lifting the Curtain: The
State and National Woman Suffrage Campaign in Pennsylvania as I Saw Them,
by Caroline Katzenstein (1955). "Alice
Paul and the Triumph of Militancy" by Linda G. Ford, in One Woman, One
Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, edited by Marjorie Spruill
Wheeler (Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995) 277-294, and the book-length treatment
by Linda G. Ford, Iron-Jawed Angels: The Suffrage Militancy of the National
Woman's Party, 1912-1920 are excellent secondary sources. For primary sources,
see also the microfilm edition of National Woman's Party Papers: The Suffrage
Years, 1913-1920. Donald L. Haggerty, ed. (Sanford, N.C.: Microfilming Corporation
of America, 1981), and The National Woman's Party Papers, 1913-1974.
Thomas C. Pardo, ed. (Sanford, N.C.: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1979).
For other related works, please refer to the Bibliography.
Source: This essay was largely drawn from "Brief History of the National
Woman's Party" in Haggerty, Donald L. (ed). National Woman's Party Papers:
The Suffrage Years, 1913-1920, A Guide to the Microfilm Edition (Sanford,
N.C.: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1981) 1-2.
Last modified: 4/3/99