The Story of Alice Paul and the National Women's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

The Story of Alice Paul and the National Women's Party. Great price for this book.

Genres: History, Feminism

501 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1977

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this reads like a college text & not the more popular narrative histories being written now, I wish I had read it when I was in college. It would have done more to help me be a good lobbyist than anything else I learned in political science classes, as it's a detailed primer on effective lobbying. It's less the story of Alice Paul's life, but really the story of the Party & all that it did to gain suffrage for women. It was fascinating to see the tactics used & the masterful way Alice Paul strategized the whole campaign. My favorite line from the book could have been said by me or my colleagues when we were advocating for children's issues: "It is not pleasant to have to talk to a man who does not want to hear you." I loved this book, but you would need to be a politics junkie to appreciate it.

[Kit]

This is good so far. It's quite partisan, and has lots of small historical details that are quite wonderful and shouldn't be lost. It's important to remember that Alice Paul, who led the hunger strikers in Washington DC during Wilson's presidency to finally pass the women's suffrage amendment to the Consititution, died only a few decades ago, in 1977. This is not ancient history!

[Highjump · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really just okay, but it gets bumped up to three stars because of the awesome subject matter and cool primary sources. The prose just kinds of plods along, not good storytelling at all. I prefer Doris Stevens' Jailed for Freedom, though it is heavily colored with her bias/experience, the Irwin maintains a very mid-century aloofness that is supposed to be impartial. But still, great detailed information of the militant period and the years immediately proceeding that period.

[Tari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating. There so so many articles from 'The Suffragist', poems, songs, quotes & personal stories. Just to be able to see all of that in one place was great. The only down side was that there is just so much information to ingest & although the chapter titles are in chronological order the content is not.