Photograph of Alice Paul, c. 1918. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2004670382/
Alice Paul (1885-1977) and Alice Duer Miller (1874-1942) were two of the many women who played an important role in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 20, 1920, giving white women the right to vote in the United States. Alice Paul was instrumental in planning marches on Washington, D.C., by the National American Women’s Suffrage Association beginning in 1913. In 1917, together with, Lucy Burns, and the National Women’s Party, Paul created the Silent Sentinels. These women stood at the White House gates with picket signs six days a week, silently, in protest. Many of the 2,000 Silent Sentinels were arrested, jailed, and forcefully made to eat during hunger strikes.
Photograph of Mrs. Henry Wise Miller on Women Suffrage, c. 1908-1909. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbcmiller002009/
Alice Duer Miller wrote a weekly column in the New York Tribune from 1914-1917 where she responded to political events with wit in order to move forward the suffrage movement. Many of these writings were later published in collections: Are Women People?: A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times (1915), Come Out of the Kitchen (1916) and Women are People! (1917). She was a member of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS) which had been formed by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. Alice Duer Miller’s connection to the Macculloch-Miller family is through her marriage to Henry Wise Miller (1877-1955), the great-grandson of George and Louisa Macculloch.
What do you feel passionate about? What do you feel deserves more attention? How can you use your talent as a writer, an artist, a musician, or speaker to help get your message out as Alice Paul and Alice Duer Miller did more than 100 years ago?
Resources
Listen to MHHM Guess & Go Story Time reading of Dean Robbin’s Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote. (LINK to Facebook Live 3/10/2021)
Learn more about the Alice Paul Institute located in Mount Laurel, NJ https://www.alicepaul.org/
Read newspapers from the that time period at the Library of Congress Chronicling America project https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-alice-paul
Topic: History, Highlighting Women
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