National Woman’s Party to Raise $1 Million for Equal Rights Campaign
Meeting in Chicago, the National Woman’s Party announced on this day that it would seek to raise $1 million to support its campaign for women’s rights. The National Woman’s Party was founded by Alice Paul on March 1, 1917.
At the time of this meeting, there were 9 women in Congress: 6 in the House and 3 in the Senate (see the report, below).
Paul is famous for leading the campaign of picketing the White House in 1917, which helped secure passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (ratified on August 18, 1920) granting women the right to vote. For some of the picketing events, see March 4, 1917; August 11, 1917; and November 11, 1917.
Paul also drafted and introduced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution, which would guarantee equal treatment of women, on July 21, 1923. The ERA was reintroduced and sent to the states for ratification on June 11, 1970, but although it came close to ratification the effort failed.
Read Paul’s biography: Mary Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot (2010)
Read Paul’s Oral History interview: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6f59n89c/
See the report on the number of women in Congress, for each session 1917-2014: http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PLS%3D%22%40%20%20%0A
Watch the Video, Who Was Alice Paul?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fctY7-1BqA
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/