As the last legitimate heir to a powerful family, Catherine de Medici was married at only 14 into one of the most powerful royal houses in Europe. The two halves of her story are VASTLY different, and here in Part One, we’re going to tell you about how her only resources were INNER resources – and the character that developed from the circumstances in which she was placed.
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Our Field Trip to Philadelphia was what we call a “long weekend.” From Wednesday evening until Sunday morning, we packed a lot of learning, exploring, general merriment , and LOTS of women’s history into our days. In this episode, we let our travelers call in from the road, or after they returned home, to share their experiences.
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Shownotes are under construction, please come back later for all the things Beckett talked about in this episode!
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Books!
Web!
You can visit one of her studios (and the original Le Chat Noir poster) at the Musée de Montmartre! It’s a “must-see” from us for a day spent in Montmartre!
The chateau she lived with Andre Utter, Château de Saint-Bernard, you can visit or even have your wedding there.
We have a Pinterest board for every subject, you should check it out and maybe start with Suzanne’s!
Moving Pictures!
Once again, we have the perfect subject for a movie and Suzanne’s is a story ripe for a biopic! Scandal! Relationships! The rise of an underdog! A woman in a man’s world! Art! Paris! A scoundrel son! Invite us to the premier, please and thank you! Until such a film exists, the only documentary we could find was one in French, Suzanne Valadon, peintre sans concession , here’s the IMDB page.
Our favorite, of course, Season 4, episode 7: Festival of Living Art on Gilmore Girls.
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.
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.
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.
TIME TRAVEL WITH THE HISTORY CHICKS
Books!
Jailed for Freedom by Doris Stevens is available online (and written in 1920)
There are a lot of wonderful kids books about Alice and the fight for women’s suffrage, but here are a couple of our favorites:
Kirsten Gillibrand reading her picture book Bold and Brave on Online Storytime.
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
Rivington Street Settlement House (on the Tenement Museum website- it’s a two-fer) and from their own website since they are still in operation! University Settlement.
National Park Service, symbols of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and an article about the 1913 Suffrage March specifically.
Inez Milholland’s last speech.
Occuaquan Arts Center and Lorton Prison Museum with the Lucy Burns Gallery
Mapping American’s Social Movements Project, National Women’s Party chapter
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
PBS American Experience, The Vote
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
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.
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