The suffrage ladies may not be done with me. Those were the women who, between 1910 and 1920, affected the most profound change in the make-up of the electorate in the history of the Republic. In 2013, Seeing Suffrage was published by the University of Tennessee Press. The book was about the 1913 Washington suffrage • Read More »
At the beginning of 1913, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had a little more than two months to plan an eye-popping suffrage parade that would set the suffrage movement onto a different course. They not only needed participants; they needed spectators.
March: Women’s History Month Plans for a gigantic suffrage parade along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in 1913 began as soon as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns convince the National American Woman Suffrage Association to put them in charge of its Congressional Committee in late November 1912. Paul and Burns, who had been friends since • Read More »
Now, as we approach the centennial of the Washington Suffrage Parade, a new book containing an explanation of the parade and more than 100 exquisite photographs has been published. Seeing Suffrage: The Washington Suffrage Parade, Its Photographs, and Its Effect on the American Political Landscape is now available as an iPad book on the iBookstore. The print edition of the book, published by the University of Tennessee Press, will be available sometime after January 1, 2013.
Why did Alice Paul earn so many college degrees? No one really knows the definitive answer to that question. Paul turned out to be quite good about concealing her motivations, usually arguing that whatever she was doing wasn’t about her and she wasn’t very important. Still, the question must be asked, and there are answers that are at least reasonable to assume.
One of the stories that should be told — and probably will be if this documentary is any good — is that of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who in one afternoon, changed the tenor and trajectory of the women’s suffrage debate that eventually led to the 19th Amendment that allowed women to vote.
Paul is by far the most colorful and vibrant character of the final decade of that debate, but did she ultimately help or hurt the ratification process of the Nineteenth Amendment? The debate continues, but undoubtedly Paul’s presence adds great life to the suffrage story.
The spectacle of such a parade at such a time would vault the issue of women’s suffrage onto the national political as nothing else could. Maybe it would even spur the new president and Congress to take up the issue and add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote.