The National Women's Party Pickets the White House

In 1916, a new militant suffrage group, the National Women’s Party (NWP), was formed. Led by Alice Paul, the NWP began picketing the White House. NWP members criticized President Woodrow Wilson for going to war “to make the world safe for democracy” in World War I, while in the United States women were denied the right to vote. Police arrested the picketers for blocking traffic and a judge sentenced them to seven months in prison. Paul and other prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest the harsh treatment they received there. The willingness of the picketers to be arrested, their campaign for recognition as political prisoners rather than as criminals, and their acts of civil disobedience in jail shocked the nation and brought attention and support to their cause.

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