We left Alice as she completed the project that the leadership of NAWSA (National American Women’s Suffrage Association) didn’t think was possible: In just three months, organize a parade of thousands of suffragists from around the country to march down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. While this dazzling feat of organization and spectacle was stunning for a couple of blocks, a large group of rowdy men violently disrupted the event. The parade limped to the finish line. What it did succeed in doing was put women’s suffrage, the purpose of the parade, in all the papers for several weeks which was a score for Alice and Lucy Burns’ mission to get the country talking, but they didn’t stop there and built on the mounting momentum for the cause.
What followed was six years of parades, rallies, growing suffrage groups around the county, lobbying strategy, campaigning for pro-suffrage politicians, and failed attempts to get President Wilson to put suffrage in front of Congress so they could vote it into law. Alice’s organization was kicked-out of NAWSA and created their own suffrage group, the National Women’s Party (NWP), whose sole purpose was to get women’s right to vote as a constitutional amendment. To that end, Alice dug into her toolkit and pulled out a bold demonstration, the first of its kind, picketing in front of the White House. Over two and a half years, approximately 2,000 women participated as silent sentinels all day, every day but Sunday, regardless of weather or public opinion.
The Silent Sentinel protest, circa 1917 LOCThe NWP paper, The Suffragist, was used to share news of the battle for women’s suffrage. This cover is during the Silent Sentinel protest circa 1918, LOC.
When emotions got dark during WWI, and Alice still had women on the picketline, things turned violent. Women were arrested and beaten, and Alice once again was force-fed. Eventually public opinion turned the tide of politics and the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was ratified into law in May of 1919.
Lucy Burns during one of her prison terms, this one was at the Occoquan Workhouse prison (where she also underwent violence and force-feeding) for the “crime” of blocking the sidewalk. LOC
But Alice was only in her mid-30s and her work was far from over. She set out to get an amendment guaranteeing equal rights for all into the Constitution and co-wrote what we know as the Equal Rights Amendment. She would live to see it passed in both houses of Congress.
She was not without mistakes, for instance, Alice didn’t land on the right side of history as far as the rights of Black Americans were concerned (we go into it in this, and several other episodes.) The W column was much longer than the L, and, all totaled, Alice and her NWP were involved in over 300 pieces of legislation that became laws.
Alice Paul died on July 9, 1977, at the age of 92.
The Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be ratified as of today, July 9, 2025- 48 years to the day after her death.
Alice Paul Memorial March for the ERA 1977, LOC
TIME TRAVEL WITH THE HISTORY CHICKS
Books!
by J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fryby Tina Cassidyby Mary Waltonby Bernadette Cahillby Ellen Carol Duboisby Doris Stevens
by Susan Cambell Bartoletti and Ziyue Chenby Nancy Kennedy
Web!
You can visit Alice Paul’s family home, Paulsdale, in Moorestown, New Jersey, OR take a lovely virtual tour online (scroll down VISIT page for this): Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice
Have some questions about the ERA? Congress.gov might have some answers.
Here’s a timeline of the Women’s Right’s movement (you might have to scroll down the page…and not be tempted by any of the other subjects. Good luck with that, and an article on the 1977 memorial march for Alice Paul and the ERA, from The Smithsonian.
Mixed Media!
We mention several of our former episodes to give you more information about this era, including Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer, and 50’s Housewives to name a few. YOu can find any of these on your favorite podcatcher! (Transparency: The audio may not be here on our website due to a behind-the-scenes move that disabled our podcast players.)
Suffs, a Tony Award-winning musical about Alice Paul, has closed on Broadway, where we saw it, BUT, it’s starting a large tour this year. We HIGHLY recommend that you see it if it comes to your area- it’s a delight. And, hello? How do we get this to come to Kansas City?? SUFFS TOUR SCHEDULE
2004 with Hilary Swank but why it’s also with Patrick Dempsey we just don’t know. (Ooooh…maybe because they couldn’t have a movie with an all-female, lead character cast? naaaw, couldn’t be that.)
Alice Paul, circa 1913 in college robes, this is what she wore in the parade when she tried to march in the college women’s section of the Suffrage Procession. CC via LOCEmmaline, Christabel, and Sylvia Pankhurst, circa 1911 CC via wikicommonsOooh, Alice, the places you’ll go! Circa 1900 CC via LOC
SHOWNOTES UNDER CONSTRUCTION, come back in a little bit for more photos and some details from the episode!
Time Travel With The History Chicks
The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Suffs is hitting the road for a national tour! We saw it last fall in New York and LOOOVED it, but relevant to this episode, Alice Paul is the main character and the show focuses on her life and work. If the touring company is in your neighborhood, we strongly recommend you try to see it. (This isn’t sponsored, we just really loved the musical.) SUFFS TOUR DATES
Media recommendations will be on the shownotes for Part Two.
End song: We’re Dynamite by Craig Reever (featuring Willow) used by permission of Epidemic Sound
Travelers with a Golden Hour glow at Versailles! Photo: Ken Nelson
In April, 55 of of us descended upon Paris for a History Chicks Field Trip! It was nine days of history, exploring, learning, wonder, and friendship. And champagne. And cheese. We’ve compiled the stories of those experiences from some of our fellow travelers into this episode.
We left Miep right after she decided, with zero hesitation, that she would do whatever was necessary to keep the people in the attic safe as they hid from the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population.
For the next several years Miep would risk her life daily to fulfill that promise, and her Miep’s story is quite documented. One of the most important things she did was to collect from the annex and keep safe the writing collection of a 15-year-old Anne Frank until after the war. We know how she, Jan, and the other four helpers–Bep Voskuijl, Victor Kugler, Johan Klieman, and Johan Voskuijl– kept the Frank and Van Pel’s families, and Fritz Pfeffer safe for two years in the attic. In the slightly wider world, we know how the Nazi government captured, transported to concentration camps in other countries, tortured, and slaughtered millions of mostly Jewish people but also resisters, Black, Roma, and gay people… including all the former inhabitants of the secret annex with the lone exception of Otto Frank.
The time that Miep spent caring for those in hiding was not pleasant in Amsterdam, there was severe food shortages and more and more control by the Nazi military until, in 1945, the war ended and the rebuilding began. Otto Frank returned to Amsterda and moved in with Miep and Jan for the next seven years. He edited, published, defended, protected, and made sure that his daughter Anne’s legacy, her diary, was read and understood by as many people as possible throughout the world so that atrocities like this may never happen again.
Miep did what she could to support him until he passed away in 1980, then she took up his work until her death at 100 in 2010.
When Otto Frank, Anne Franks father, received the news that Anne and Margot had died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, helper Miep Gies was with him in the office. In this video, she explains how she gave Otto Frank the diaries of Anne Frank. She had saved these papers from the moment the people in hiding were arrested. #annefrank#miepgies#ottofrank#diary#legacy#woii#after
Miep said this of her work during the war: “My story is a story of very ordinary people during extraordinary times, times the like of which I hope with all my heart will never come again. It is for all of us ordinary people, all over the world, to see to it that they do not.”
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Perhaps more than any other subject, this is not an exhaustive list of materials on Miep, Anne, the Holocaust, WWII…it’s simply the ones that we used and can recommend.
Books!
Miep’s memoirWho betrayed the family? By Rosemary Sullivan (also in audiobook narrated by Julia Whelen) One of three versions, this is the most recent, the Definitive VersionFrom Bep’s perspective by her son, Joop Van Wijk-VoskuijlBy Angela WoodBy Carol Ann LeeBy Corrie Ten BoomBy Tim BradyBy Nina Siegal
Kids books:
By Meeg Pincus, Illustrated by Jordi SolanoBy Barbara Lowell, illustrated by Valentina Toro
There were many investigations aimed at revealing the person who betrayed those hiding in the attic, the first one was only a year after the war ended. Here’s an article on one from Anne Frank House website.
Moving Pictures!
1995 documentary based on Miep’s memoirfrom 1988 starring Mary SteenburgenThe most recent adaptation of Miep’s memoir, currently on Disney+ (It’s very good)
