Few individuals have had as much impact on American history as has Alice Paul. Her life symbolizes the long struggle for justice in the United States and around the world. Her vision was the ordinary notion that women and men should be equal partners in society.

In 1917, in response to public outcry, President Wilson reversed his position and announced his support for a suffrage amendment, calling it a "war measure." In 1919, both the House and Senate passed the 19 th Amendment and the battle for state ratification commenced. Three-fourths of the states were needed to ratify the amendment. Finally on August 26 th 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19 th Amendment. Six days later, Secretary of State Colby certified the ratification, and, with the stroke of his pen, American women gained the right to vote after a seventy-two year battle.  August 26th is now celebrated as Women's Equality Day in the United States.

Yet Alice Paul believed the true battle for equality had yet to be won.  In 1923, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Paul announced that she would be working for a new constitutional amendment, one she authored and called the "Lucretia Mott Amendment."  This amendment called for absolute equality stating, "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction."  In 1943, the ERA was rewritten and dubbed the "Alice Paul Amendment."  The new amendment read, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

Alice Paul died in, 1977, in Moorestown, New Jersey, just a few miles from her birthplace and family home of   Paulsdale.   Her life demonstrates that one person can make a difference. Today, her legacy lives on through The Alice Paul Institute which is dedicated to educating and encouraging women and girls to take leadership roles and to continue the long struggle for women's equality.