A Woman's Crusade

“A reminder of the perseverance, the gall, the intelligence it took to obtain what now seems an inalienable right, an obvious pillar of any democracy.” —Los Angeles Times

Alice Paul began her life as a studious girl from a strict Quaker family in New Jersey. In 1907, a scholarship took her to England, where she developed a passionate devotion to the suffrage movement. Upon her return to the United States, Alice became the leader of the militant wing of the American suffrage movement. Calling themselves “Silent Sentinels,” she and her followers were the first protestors to picket the White House. Arrested and jailed, they went on hunger strikes and were force-fed and brutalized. Years before Gandhi's campaign of nonviolent resistance, and decades before civil rights demonstrations, Alice Paul practiced peaceful civil disobedience in the pursuit of equal rights for women.

With her daring and unconventional tactics, Alice Paul eventually succeeded in forcing President Woodrow Wilson and a reluctant U.S. Congress to pass the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Here at last is the inspiring story of the young woman whose dedication to women's rights made that long-held dream a reality.

“Alice Paul was a visionary and a pioneer . . . She went where most men and women would not have gone.” —Hillary Clinton

“I value the book for introducing [Paul] to the next generation of feminists with a taste for revolution.” —Vivian Gornick, Ms. Magazine

“Mary Walton vividly brings [Paul] to life again in this brilliant, important and highly readable book. America's understanding of its history will be all the richer for it.” —Gene Roberts, Pulitzer Prize–winning author