Paul initiated, and along with Lucy Burns and others, strategized events such as the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels, which were part of the successful campaign that resulted in the amendment's passage in August 1920.

She was jailed under terrible conditions in 1917 for participating in a Silent Sentinels protest in front of the White House, as she had been several times during earlier efforts to secure the vote for women in the United Kingdom.

[4] After graduation, partly to avoid going into teaching, Paul pursued a fellowship year in New York City, living on the Lower East Side at the Rivington Street Settlement House.

"[7] In 1907, after completing coursework in political science, sociology, and economics, Paul earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

[9] After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Paul enrolled at two law schools, taking day and evening classes to finish more quickly.

[8] While in London, Paul also met Lucy Burns, a fellow American activist, while arrested in a British police station,[13] who would become an essential ally for the duration of the suffrage fight, first in England, then in the United States.

[8] Paul gained the trust of fellow WSPU members through her talent with visual rhetoric and her willingness to put herself in physical danger to increase the visibility of the suffrage movement.

While at the WSPU's headquarters in Edinburgh, Paul and local suffragettes made plans to protest a speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey.

After Grey discussed proposed legislation he claimed would lead to prosperity at the meeting, Paul stood up and exclaimed: "Well, these are very wonderful ideals, but couldn't you extend them to women?

This act, considered shockingly improper by Victorian era standards, provided extensive press coverage for the suffrage movement.

After the ordeal of her final London imprisonment, Paul returned to the United States in January 1910 to continue her recovery and to develop a plan for suffrage work back home.

After this significant opportunity, Paul and Burns proposed to NAWSA leadership a campaign to gain a federal amendment guaranteeing the vote for women.

However, the city supervisor claimed that the women would not be safe marching along the Pennsylvania Avenue route and strongly suggested the group move the parade.

The event, which was led by notable labor lawyer Inez Milholland dressed in white and riding a horse, was described by the New York Times as "one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country".

One of the most notable sights was the lead banner in the parade which declared, "We Demand an Amendment to the United States Constitution Enfranchising the Women of the Country.

Eventually, members of the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania National Guard intervened, and students from the Maryland Agricultural College provided a human barrier to help the women pass.

[12] In the U.S. presidential election of 1916, Paul and the National Woman's Party (NWP) campaigned in western states where women could already vote against the continuing refusal of President Woodrow Wilson and other incumbent Democrats to actively support the Suffrage Amendment.

Over the next six months, many, including Paul, were convicted and incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia (which later became the Lorton Correctional Complex) and the District of Columbia Jail.

For example, the Boston Journal stated, "The little band representing the NWP has been abused and bruised by government clerks, soldiers, and sailors until its efforts to attract the President's attention has sunk into the conscience of the whole nation.

"[31] For Paul, the ERA had the same appeal as suffrage in that it was a constitutional amendment and a single-issue campaign that she believed could and should unite women around a common core goal.

Paul and her cohorts, including a small group from the NWP, thought that sex-based workplace legislation restricted women's ability to compete for jobs with men and earn good wages.

While early on, there was hope among NWP members that they could craft a bill that would promote equality while also guaranteeing labor protection for women, to Paul, that was a contradiction.

[36] While Paul continued to work with the NWP and even served as president again in the 1940s, she remained steadfastly committed to women's equality as her singular mission.

There were favorable committee reports in Congress in the late 1930s, and with more women working in men's jobs during the war, public support for the ERA also increased.

When the bill finally passed Congress in 1972, Paul was unhappy about the changes in the wording of the ERA that now included time limits for securing its passage.

[43] Advocates argued that this compromise—the newly added seven-year deadline for ratification in the states—enabled the ERA's passage in Congress, but Paul accurately predicted that the inclusion of a time limit would ensure its defeat.

[34] Paul was proved correct: while the ERA did receive a three-year extension from Congress, it remained three states short of those needed for ratification.

The prohibition on sex discrimination was added to the Civil Rights Act by Howard W. Smith, a powerful Virginia Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee.

On April 12, 2016, President Barack Obama designated Sewall-Belmont House as the Belmont–Paul Women's Equality National Monument, named for Alice Paul and Alva Belmont.

[73][4] Hilary Swank played Paul in the 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels, which portrayed the 1910s women's suffrage movement for passage of the 19th Amendment.