Jamie Stiehm:	Well here she is, Alice Paul, class of 1905. A 110 years ago. She was a Quaker, of course. She was from New Jersey so she was part of the large mid-Atlantic Quaker community. How many of you are from New Jersey or Quakers or ... ? 
	Are you related?
Speaker 2:	No. From New Jersey. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Well, I'm so happy to see so many of you here and a very nice mix of people and interests, freshman, seniors. Do you still say freshman or is it first year now?
Speaker 2:	First year. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Okay, have to make allowances. And I happened to meet Brian at a Swarthmore event in Washington this winter and we just got to talking about the spark and the vibrance of Alice Paul. And that's how I came here today so thank you very much for inviting me into your brothers. How many of ... do the contingent are here? I'm impressed. There would not have happened in my day. 
	So let me explain Alice Paul very simply to begin with as the Quaker Fire Grand. That might seem like a contradiction in terms but if you go back to Lucretia Mott, who was one of the founders of Swarthmore. She planted one of these trees. She was also a Quaker Spitfire. She wore a bonnet so people look at her portrait, which is in the Friends historical library and think oh what a sweet, gentle Quaker lady. Well let me tell you, if you came to her house, the way the mob did to burn down her house in Philadelphia. I feel sorry for you because they didn't dare when they started looking for Lucretia and James Mott's house. They were known to be some of the most subversive abolitionists, pacifists, everything that this mob ... and some of this mob, they were medical students. Believe it or not. Did you know that? Southern medical students were in Philadelphia. And Lucretia Mott never, ever gave up antislavery, which she did was she took on women's rights to fuse the two together as one in the same human rights movements. Most people felt they had to choose one or the other. She was both. 
	Alice Paul was very conscious of the legacy from Lucretia Mott and Lucretia Mott founded the women's rights movement. And do you know what year there was a convention in Seneca Falls?
Speaker 3:	1848. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Yes. 1848. Lucretia Mott was the main speaker. Fredrick Douglass was there. It was about 400 people from hither and yon that came to meet in this tiny ton in New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also there but this was the beginning of something big but how many years did it take? Lucretia started what Alice Paul finished. From 1848 to ... 
Speaker 3:	1928. 
Jamie Stiehm:	1920. So that's 72 years. It was a very long, hard road. In demographic terms, that's three generations or one lifetime, 72 years. Why did it take so long? Well after the Civil War, there was a huge debate whether Negros and women would both be enfranchised. And the decision was that it was the Negros hour. It's a phrase from that time. The Negros hour. So women were expected to take a backseat even though they had worked very hard to become full citizens. Are you all familiar with that? Yes?
	So Alice Paul was really a 20th century sensibility mind, political strategist and so she worked ... Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who sort of took over from Lucretia Mott. Lucretia Mott was the voice and Susan B. Anthony was the strategist and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the pen of the early movement. And as Paul took a fresh look at all that. Graduating from here in 1905, she went to London. Well what was happening in London at that time? There was a lot of ferment. A lot of rage on the streets and I know we have sit in demonstration going on right here and right now so I'm glad your here. Alice Paul ripped up the old paradigm completely. She didn't go state by state by state. She didn't collect signatures on hundreds of petitions. She didn't have indoor conventions in Cleveland or all around the country, Kansas, to try to build a grassroots movement all around the country. So what did she do instead? She learned on the ground in London. She brought those techniques and tactics back here to Washington and she changed the game completely. 
	Do you know how she changed the whole look and feel face of the suffrage movement? This is a modern woman. This is a 20th century woman. The other two, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony were dead actually. They never lived to see the day women voted. So she's like the last runner. She has the baton and what she does that is so original in building a mass movement. She was the first person to ever do this. Not the first woman to do woman's movement this way. This is the first American mass movement that focused on the President. Only the President. Didn't waste energy other places and by concentrating on the head of the Federal Government, you can make much more of a show and scene out on the streets. So she took it from the indoors to the outdoors. Out to the streets. Why is that so powerful? How does that change the public mind or move people because this strategy worked very well in the Civil Rights movement, 50 or 60 years later. Yes. 
Speaker 3:	People can't turn away because you're in public. They can't deny what's happening. 
Jamie Stiehm:	They can't ignore you. 
Speaker 3:	Yeah. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Very good. So on the day that Woodrow Wilson arrived in Washington. And you know he was a very kind of haughty, Princeton man. He had a strong sense of his own importance and he had just been elected President of the United States and he got to Union Station and he looked around and there was nobody to greet him. He was going to be inaugurated the next day and he said "Where are all my people to greet and say hello. Where's the throng?" And the answer was "Well Sir. They're out on the other edge of town at the Suffrage parade." She planned a show of thousands. She rounded up women, almost entirely women from all over the east coast. A lot of them were her Swarthmore friends. This was a very idealistic wave of young women and she had horses. She had signs. She had something ... nobody had seen anything like it before so the message that she sent to President Wilson was I'm here and I'm a force. We are a force to be reckoned with on the very first day. 
	How do you think President Wilson liked that? He was not pleased. He was a cultural Southerner from Virginia and he was born in 1856. Why is that important? 1856. Yes. 
Speaker 4:	His family probably owned slaves. 
Jamie Stiehm:	I don't think they owned a lot of slaves. His father was a minister. 
Speaker 4:	[crosstalk 00:09:41]
Jamie Stiehm:	Clergy. But it was five years before the Civil War broke out. So he belonged to antebellum. As you say may or may not have owned slaves. He believed and belonged to an old order. He was not at all conducive to either racial integration or gender, female. He had three daughters but he didn't see the larger picture for women. How many of you have ... the documentary ... It's not a documentary but how many of you have seen Iron Jawed Angels? Besides very recently. It's inspiring, isn't it? Empowering. 
	Well Alice Paul didn't just do that for one day. She lived in a very nice townhouse. You've seen it Brian. Capital Hill. Right by the Senate. She kept up the pressure constantly. She worked all the time. She mobilized thousands of women from around the country came to Washington to be part of it. People wanted to belong so a lot of Philadelphian, their mothers or their sisters or their wives had gone to join the movement. A lot of them were Seven Sisters graduates. They were the first women who really felt that I want to cease this century and be a full citizen. Be part of the body politic.  So in 1915, lets say 100 years ago today, she was in the middle of waging this, I don't want to say war because she was a Quaker, but this fierce campaign and always trying to do something a little different like hold up signs by the White House saying how long must women wait for liberty. Chained themselves to the gates of the White House. Doing just out and about and visible and vocal organizing the activities so they could not be ignored. 
	President Wilson called them into his office at one point and he tried to talk some sense into these ladies because did you know he was briefly a professor at Bryn Mawr? He didn't really like being a professor at a women's college. And Alice Paul and her friends were not sufficiently deferential to his ... He wanted to give them a lecture. And so they parted on no love lost on either side and she never let up. I want you to really understand. In 1915, there were five more years to go but it was going to take as long as it took. And she knew that in London, the more militant street tactics and techniques ... have you seen pictures of the suffragettes in London? That's what we called them. There was the one who threw herself under a horse. It was led by the Pankhurst sisters. So she knew from witnessing and learning on the ground, these very theatrical, showy tactics. She knew that the public mind was being affected and that it would take time. But I sometimes marvel at her tenacity because President Wilson did not have a chance against her. She was not going to stop. 
	And did you have any impressions from that visit from the Sewall-Belmont house that you wanted to share? It was like a war room there, right?
Brian:	Yeah. They essentially were there almost 24/7. Just kind of strategizing and I recommend anyone who ... It's actually right by the Capital. If you can go, just spend a couple dollars and you can get a tour of the whole house where all this happened. It's right near the capital. 
Jamie Stiehm:	It's right ... Do you know where the Senate Hart office building is? It's near the Senate. It's the oldest townhouse in Washington. It's really worth a visit. And she lived there the rest of her life. She lived until the 1970's. I'll get to that in a moment but the principle that she applied fresh and new was non-violent resistance. Civil Obedience. And the Underground Railroad was civil disobedience, right? From the 1830's to the 1860's and she took that ... It's a Quaker practice. In fact Quakers were the first practitioners of non-violent resistance so you're following in a noble tradition there. She took that tradition to a new height and a new interpretation and Alice Paul is not only a major figure in women's history. She's a major figure in American history. And let me also impress upon you that between Lucretia Mott up in the Friends library and Alice Paul, there is no university, no college in the United States that has a prouder record, a prouder history of women's rights than right here, right now.
	When I was a student here, I knew a lot about Lucretia Mott but I didn't realize the incredible connection between the two. That Alice Paul was very, very proud of her connection to Lucretia Mott. In fact, did you know that Alice Paul's the author of the Equal Rights Amendment? Think about that. She brought women over the finish line for suffrage and then she spent the rest of her life working on the Equal Rights Amendment, that she is the author of. Well her name for it was Lucretia Mott Amendment. So she knew the incredible debt of gratitude that women owed to Lucretia Mott and we should all be proud, inspired by the inheritance. The political inheritance that we have from Swarthmore College. There should be a sculpture out there of the two of them. I really mean that. I wish I had known more about Alice Paul when I was a student. Did any of you hear anything about her in class? Yes. You did. What class did you take that was ... ?
Speaker 6:	Politics and voting rights. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Politics of human rights?
Speaker 6:	Voting rights. 
Jamie Stiehm:	Voting rights. Okay. We might want to add something to have questions at the end. Now the other point is that the Quakers back in England, she was willing to be jailed for her beliefs and her movement. So to be force-fed in jail is a pretty grim prospect. President Wilson let all of this happen. He let those women be dragged to a very squalid facility in Virginia where they were ... It was like a Civil War prisoner camp. It was really ugly and mean and dirty and she probably spent at least six months there. Okay. And then public pressure ... the public mind was starting to side with these women because they respected their courage and what else? Their dedication but also the fact that they were probably related to some women who were involved in the movement. The gay rights movement, it happened very quickly. It seemed like a wave or a tipping point. That people started feeling more personally connected to it. And in the last five, ten years there are same sex weddings. That was all again non-violent change, resistance and it often happens through personal experience. 
	Have you heard the old feminist motto? The personal is political. That's what happened here. That the tide of social ... no, the consensus was beginning to side with women. Alice Paul was very astute. She could read the public leaves, you know the tea leaves. And she felt it was only a matter of time. So I want to impress upon you that these principles are always being renewed. The social contract. Quakers never wavered from their commitment to non-violence. They took a lot of personal punishment for it. 
	Back in 1660, you're not gonna believe this but if you go to Boston Common there is a little statute for a Quaker woman, who was hanged by the Puritans. Unbelievable until you see it with your own eyes. Her name was Mary Dyre and she kept being expelled. She was banned in Boston for her subversive beliefs and she kept coming back and the governors, well somebody like Hancock or Bradstreet, one of the early Puritan governors who finally on the third or fourth time said to her husband in Rhode Island "I don't want to see this woman on her horse ever again. She can't come back to Boston." So gave her clemency but sure enough she came back a few months later for religious freedom. She is considered to be the first martyr for religious freedom. And she was hanged on Boston Common. Can you imagine that? In broad daylight? And she apparently went very cheerfully to her death. 
	There's a continuum from Mary Dyre, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, the sit-in demonstrators today, they're willing to risk their skin in the game. And never resort to violence. And Quakers have changed the world slowly but surely. I'd like you to know that even if you're not Quaker, that you're still part of ... Your lives today are shaped by the Society of Friends and women especially. We're full citizens because of Alice Paul and the movement that she led. That generation of women was very idealistic and some of them went to work with Jane Adams. Where was Jane Adams setting up the first settlement house? In Chicago. So that was a very exciting time to be alive. It was vibrant and since I have a talk about Abraham Lincoln yesterday at a Synagogue in Bethesda, let me just connect the arc that Lincoln enlarged democracy by freeing four million enslaved people with the stroke of a pen. However, he couldn't have signed that document if it hadn't been for the Quakers and the abolitionists, who for 30 years but their own lives and wealth on the line to protest slavery. And what I like to say is that when Lincoln said "All men are created equal" echoing Thomas Jefferson, he left out one little thing. And that Alice Paul also enlarged democracy. The same way. She finished not only what Lucretia Mott began but what Abraham Lincoln started. 
	So here we all are. How many years since 1920? 95. It's not that long ago and to imagine that she was walking the same grounds. Walking out of Paris. She was being ... All of you have your coming of age here and so did she and so did I and I'm happy to take your questions.