Political Change, Jim Crow/Industrial: Alice Paul
One of the leading advocates of women’s rights in the early twentieth century was Alice Paul. Pictured here with a flag for the National Women’s Party, Paul represented the more radical portion of the national movement for gender equality.
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[Alice Paul, full-length portrait, standing, facing left, raising glass with right hand].
CREATED/PUBLISHED
c1920 Sept. 3.
NOTES
Copyright by Harris & Ewing.
SUBJECTS
Paul, Alice,--1885-1977.
Portrait photographs--1920.
Photographic prints--1920.
MEDIUM
1 photographic print.
CALL NUMBER
Item in BIOG FILE - Paul, Alice <p&p>
</p&p>
REPRODUCTION NUMBER
LC-USZ62-20176 DLC (b&w film copy neg.)
REPOSITORY
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
DIGITAL ID
(b&w film copy neg.) cph 3a21383
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/suffrg:@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3a21383))
Paul’s protests and the reaction to them often garnered international attention. This British article describes one particularly salient moment in her career, a time when she was arrested and imprisoned for holding protests. While in prison, Paul went on a hunger strike, which upset the prison guards. They force-fed her through tubes against her will. In this article, Paul claims that similar methods had been used before, both in America and in England, where she worked with British activists to spread the cause of women’s rights across the Atlantic.
Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911
View text
ITEM TITLE
Alice Paul Describes Force Feeding
CREATED/PUBLISHED
London, England: December 1909
NOTES
Alice Paul describes her disruption of Lord Mayor's banquet and subsequent force feeding after hunger strike in Holloway jail. She refused to wear prison clothes or to work, so spent the month in bed
SUBJECTS
Brown, Amelia
Burns, Lucy
Churchill, Winston
England-suffragists
force feeding
Holloway Jail, London
hunger strike
Paul, Alice (1885-1977)
suffrage strategies
England--London
MEDIUM
clipping
CALL NUMBER
JK1881 .N357 sec. XVI, no. 3-9 NAWSA Coll
PART OF
Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911; Scrapbook 8; page 134
REPOSITORY
Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Washington, D.C. 20540
DIGITAL ID
rbcmil scrp6014301
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbcmil.scrp6014301
RELATED DIGITAL ITEMS
(View item in context of scrapbook; Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911; Scrapbook 1909-1910)
“Page 2 { page image }
Philadelphia, Jan. 22.--"Revolting" is the word Miss Alice Paul, the American suffragette, who returned on Thursday by the steamer Haverford from exciting adventures in England, applies to the forced feeding which she endured in Holloway jail. Miss Paul, by the way, doesn't look at all like the popular conception of an agitator. She astonishes persons who sees her for the first time, after hearing of her doings, by her exceedingly feminine appearance. She is a delicate slip of a girl, whom no one would suspect of being an interrupter of public meetings and a victim of prison hardships.
"I resorted to the 'hunger strike' method twice," she added to a Tribune reporter. "I was clapped into jail three times while in England, and during my first and second terms I refused to eat. Once I didn't touch food for five days. Then the authorities decided to feed me by force. I refused to wear the prison garb, too, and I would not perform the labor I was sentenced to do; so, of course, I had to spend my days in bed. When the forcible feedings was ordered I was taken from my bed, carried to another room and forced into a chair, bound with sheets and sat upon bodily by a fat murderer, whose duty it was to keep me still. Then the prison doctor, assisted by two woman attendants, placed a rubber tube up my nostrils and and pumped liquid food through it into the stomach. Twice a day for a month, from November 1 to December 1, this was done."
When Miss Paul was asked if she ever threw a stone through a window, she said:
"No, indeed. I never did and I never shall. I think such deeds belong to rioters and women are seldom rioters."
Miss Paul merely threw words at the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, and frightened him, she says, nearly to death. It was during a meeting at Guild Hall. Miss Paul, who seems not to mind going without food for any length of time, got into the hall the night before, disguised as a scrub woman, and secreted herself until the meeting began.
"It was a weary vigil," she said, "but it paid. The Prime Minister made a most eloquent speech, and I listened, waiting for a chance to break in. At last there came a pause. Summoning all my strength, I shouted at the top of my voice: "How about votes for women?'
"You would have thought I had thrown a bomb. There was serious disorder, but Mr. Asquith was the most startled of all. You see, the hall was guarded by a cordon of police, and he felt safe from interruption. While the officers searched for me he stood like a statue, after one great start. I was found and arrested, and imprisonment followed."
Miss Paul left Philadelphia for her home in Moorestown, N. J., immediately after landing, and intends to give her attention for the present to the recovery of her health, which suffered somewhat from her stormy experience. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and had gone to England to continue her studies, when she was drawn into the militant suffrage movement.”
Paul was active in both America and England for most his career. This article details some of her activities abroad, including a vocal protest in from of British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
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View text[Alice Paul talks ....]
SUBJECTS
Women's rights.
Paul, Alice.
MEDIUM
? p.
PART OF
Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller suffrage scrapbooks; National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Library of Congress)
DIGITAL ID
rbnawsa n8133 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbnawsa.n8133
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/nawbib:@field(NUMBER+@od1(rbnawsa+n8133))
Paul’s method of protest centered on involved large public demonstrations in prominent areas of cities. Along a large street in Chicago here is a protest by the National Women’s Party, a group that Paul co-founded.
Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party
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Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party
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Item Title
[Suffragists demonstrating against Woodrow Wilson in Chicago, 1916]
Created/Published
[1916 Oct. 20]
Notes
Summary:Photograph of (mostly female) suffrage supporters demonstrating with signs addressed to President Woodrow Wilson while assembled along a street in Chicago. Signs read "Wilson Against Women" and other texts.
Title derived by Library of Congress staff.
Subjects
Demonstrations--Chicago (Ill.)--1910-1920
National Woman's Party
Suffragists--United States--1910-1920
Women--Suffrage--United States
United States--Illinois--Chicago
Part Of
Records of the National Woman's Party
Medium
1 photograph: print; 3.5 x 4.5 in.
Call Number/Locator
Location:National Woman's Party Records, Group II, Container II:276, Folder: Group Photographs Nos. 45-58
Repository
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. 20540
Digital Id
mnwp 276016
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mnwp.276016
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/tactics.html
Some of the largest women’s rights protests in the country were organized by Paul’s groups. Here is a scene from a famous 1914 protest in which Paul led NWP members onto the steps of the U.S. Capitol to advocate for women’s suffrage.
Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party
The Library of CongressAmerican Memory HomeBrowse CollectionsCollection Home
Item Title
Nation-wide demonstrations were held on May 2nd in support of Federal Amendment. Envoys from these demonstrations brought petitions to Washington on May 9th and carried them in procession to Congress from Lafayette Square. Five thousand women massed on and about the East Steps of the Capitol singing Ethel Smyth's Hymn of the Women before entering the Rotunda to deliver the petitions.
Author/Creator
Photographer:Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C.
Created/Published
1914 May 9
Notes
Summary:Photograph of large crowd of suffragists who took part in Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage procession of May 9, 1914, gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol (those in front line, white dresses with sashes, singing "The Woman's March"), advocating a federal amendment securing women's right to vote.
Title transcribed from item.
Subjects
Demonstrations--Washington (D.C.)--1910-1920
National Woman's Party
Petitions
Processions
Suffragists--United States--1910-1920
Women--Suffrage--United States
United States--District of Columbia
Part Of
Records of the National Woman's Party
Medium
1 photograph: print; 5 x 7 in.
Call Number/Locator
Location:National Woman's Party Records, Group I, Container I:160, Folder: Suffrage Parade, May 9, 1914
Repository
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. 20540
Digital Id: mnwp 160079
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mnwp.160079
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mnwp:@field(DOCID+@lit(mnwp000269))