Militant Suffragists and Constitutional Transformation

• In Event: Resistance & Mobilization in Constitutional Development: Potentials & Pitfalls

Abstract

Lynda Dodd
Princeton University

Alice Paul’s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment is a leading example of transformative constitutional reform. This article examines the ideas and arguments about gender, equality, freedom, justice, and democratic politics that propelled and shaped Alice Paul’s leadership of the militant campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment, from her early work employing a passionate politics to launch a new campaign for the federal amendment through her later use of tactics of unruly defiance, including the party accountability campaigns in 1914 and 1916 and the picketing and protests during the final stage of the campaign. Through an examination of how these ideas about gender and politics influenced her early strategies, as well as how core civil ideals were featured in the public rhetoric of the National Woman’s Party during the final stage of the campaign, the article assesses the impact of Paul’s militant approach in the suffrage movement.

Author

• Lynda G. Dodd, Princeton University