Topic: Alice Paul

Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist leader. Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

Paul was born into a Quaker family at Paulsdale in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. She was the first-born child of William Mickle Paul I (1850-1902) and Tacie Parry. Her father was a banker and businessman who served as president of the Burlington County Trust Company. Alice had two brothers, William Mickle Paul II (1886-1958) and Parry Haines, and a sister, Helen (1889-1961).

In 1901, she graduated first in her class from the Moorestown Friends School. She later attended Swarthmore College (BA, 1905), the New York School of Philanthropy (social work), and the University of Pennsylvania (MA, sociology). In 1907, she moved to England where she attended the University of Birmingham and the London School of Economics (LSE). Returning to the U.S. in 1910, she attended the University of Pennsylvania, completing a PhD in political science in 1912. Her dissertation topic was titled The Legal Position of Women in Pennsylvania. In 1927, she received an LLM, followed by a Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1928, both from American University's Washington College of Law.