National Woman’s Party Announces Plan to Elect More Women to Congress
Now that women had the right to vote, Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party on this day called for the election of more women to Congress. At the time, there was one woman in the House, Mae Nolan, a Republican from California, and none in the Senate.
Alice Paul (January 11, 1885) was the founder and leader of the National Woman’s Party (see March 3, 1917). She organized picketing of the White House in 1917, which played a major role in pressuring President Woodrow Wilson to support the Nineteenth Amendment that granted women the right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, and women voted in federal elections for the first time on November 2, 1920.
The year before, Alice Paul had drafted and introduced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that would guarantee equal rights for women, on July 21, 1923.
Learn more about Alice Paul: Mary Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot (2010)
Read a report with a timeline and biographies of women in Congress, 1917–2014: http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=’0E%2C*PLS%3D%22%40%20%20%0A
Read an oral history interview with Alice Paul: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6f59n89c/
See a chronology of the National Woman’s Party history: http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/women-of-protest/images/detchron.pdf
Visit the National Woman’s Party Museum in Washington, DC: http://www.sewallbelmont.org/