Standards Addressed by Lesson: CIVICS Standard 4.3 Students know how citizens can exercise their rights (d). Describing and evaluating historical or current examples of citizen movements to ensure rights of all citizens. Standard 4.4 Students know how citizens can participate in civic life (a-d). HISTORY Standard 5.1 Students understand how democratic ideas and institutions in the United States have developed, changed, and/or been maintained (c-d). Standard 5.3 Students know how political power has been acquired, maintained, used and /or lost throughout history (e).

Lesson Outline

Introduction to the Lesson:

Focus on Alice Paul and her contributions to woman's suffrage. Also look at contemporary statistics of women's voting and issue concerns. Use quotes, video, and statistics in allowing the students to evaluate the importance of woman's suffrage. Use a combination of small group work and large group discussion.

Activities

Activity 1:                                                                                   Video and Discussion

Have students watch the video, How We Got the Vote . After watching the video might be a good time to ask for students' definition of militancy and democracy. Did watching the video change in any way their previous understanding of these concepts? If so, how?

Activity 2:                                              Large Group Activity – Imaginary Situation

Identify political issues which might be of particular importance to women today. Perhaps

facilitate this by establishing an example: The students are all young men and women. They work in a factory with mediocre pay, especially for the women. Some of them have families they must support. Others would like to pursue more education in order to get a different job.

What are the important political issues surrounding this? Brainstorm issues. Compile a list on the board, then identify which might be of particular interest to women. Now the facilitator should divide the class between males and females in order to discuss the implications of the absence of female representation in the voting process.

Discussion Questions:

• What are the major implications of not allowing women to vote in a democratic society?

• Can a form of government really be a democracy if the voices of all segments of society are not included?

Activity 3:                                                                                    Quotes by Alice Paul

Break up into groups of 4 or 5. Discuss respective quotes (see below), Alice Paul's militancy, and why her militancy was important to the cause. Write a response for the group's narrator to present.

Questions:

•  How can one balance Alice Paul's perceived militancy with her title as a peacemaker?

•  How is woman's suffrage connected to the idea of peace?

DJPC 2004

 Attachment A: Fact Sheet, Alice Paul

I. Background

•  1885-1977

•  1905 graduated from Swarthmore College

•  Earned Masters in 1907 and Doctoral degrees in 1912, both at the University of Pennsylvania

•  Held three law degrees

II. Political Involvement

•  1907-1910 Paul was involved in the suffragist movement in England and Scotland .

•  1910 Paul returned to the states and joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

•  1912 Paul accepts the position to chair the NAWSA Congressional Committee.

•  1913 Paul organized a large suffrage parade to coincide with the day Woodrow Wilson would be coming into Washington to accept the presidency. 8,000 women took part amid an audience of 500,000.

•  1913-14 Paul decided to create and chair the Congressional Union and separate herself from the NAWSA.

•  1916 Paul forms the Woman's Party.

•  During the 1914 and 1916 elections, Paul worked hard to make woman's suffrage a major issue.

•  1917 Paul and others organize to picket in front of the White House. Despite arrests and harassment from the police, the women picket up to the point when the bill was signed by Wilson .

•  October 1917, Paul is arrested during a demonstration and sentenced to seven months in jail. While imprisoned, she begins a hunger strike and is released after a month.

•  1920 – 19 th Amendment is added to the Constitution.

•  1921 Paul forms the National Woman's Party with the sole purpose of pushing for a Federal Equal Rights Amendment.

•  1938 Paul creates the World's Woman's Party to reach out and interconnect women on an international level.

III. Important Contemporary Statistics

•  Colorado population according to gendergap.com is 3,822,676.

•  Females 18 and older, and therefore able to vote, make up nearly 51% of the population

•  Women are steadily becoming the majority voters in elections, casting 53% of the ballots in the 2000 election.

Alice Paul's major contributions:

  Through her methods of militancy and civil disobedience in picketing and organizing parades, Paul was able to draw wide publicity and attention to the issue of woman's suffrage and put significant pressure on the current politicians.

Quotes:

“The thing I think that was the most useful I ever did was having a part in getting the vote for all women, because that was a big transformation for the country to have one half the country enfranchised.” Alice Paul.

“At the core of Paul's convictions was the belief that women should be in charge of their own lives rather than regulated by the government as a specialized group.” Renèe Miller, Alice Paul 1885-1977: Radical Suffragist Leader , 223.

“Her protests- on the picket lines and in prison – stemmed from her guiding principle that women should be self-governed.” Reneè Miller, Alice Paul 1885-1977: Radical Suffragist Leader , 222.