Unpacking the Suitcase: The Real Last Chapter of Alice Paul and Peg Edwardsâ•Žs Activism, and

188 Pages·2014·4.75 MB·English

by  Clark Edwards

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Honor Scholar Theses Student Work
2014
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Clark Edwards
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.depauw.edu/studentresearch
Part of the United States History Commons, and the Women's History Commons
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Edwards, Clark, "Unpacking the Suitcase: The Real Last Chapter of Alice Paul and Peg Edwards’s Activism,
and Why These Stories Matter" (2014). Honor Scholar Theses. 3.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/studentresearch/3
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Unpacking the Suitcase: The Real Last Chapter of Alice Paul and Peg Edwards’s Activism, and
Why These Stories Matter

Clark Edwards
Honor Scholar Thesis
DePauw University
2013-2104
Christy Holmes, Meryl Altman, Aaron Cavin
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Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone who has helped make this project possible. Thank you to my
committee for helping me finding a context for these stories and reading drafts. Thank you to
my mom for helping me proof read and transcribe interviews. Thank you to all of my friends and
family for putting up with my stress, sass, and constant questions about what I should include.
Most importantly thank you to Nana for allowing me to tell this story and helping me get it right
by giving me a thesis in the form of a suitcase.

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Abstract

I was fortunate enough to find a thesis topic within my own family. My paternal
grandmother was guardian ad litem for Alice Paul in the later 1970s. Paul was instrumental in
securing the passage of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and author of
the Equal Rights Amendment among other contributions for women’s rights. Fortunately my
grandmother saved court records, letters, her notes, and more for her period of activism with Paul
and as part of the Ridgefield Connecticut National Women’s Political Caucus. I knew nothing of
my grandmother’s work until last year. My thesis seeks to tell the stories of Alice Paul and my
grandmother in their own words through the use of oral histories and to examine their paths into
activism and the transfer of feminism across generations.

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Table
 of
 Contents

Introduction
 and
 Methodology
 9

Alice
 Paul:
 A
 Women’s
 Icon
 23

Peg
 Edwards:
 The
 Common
 Activist
 85

Conclusion
 123

Appendix
 One-­‐
 November
 25,
 2012
 Interview
 transcript
 129

Appendix
 Two-­‐
 February
 5,
 2014
 Interview
 Transcript
 147

Appendix
 Three-­‐
 February
 8,
 2014
 Interview
 Transcript
 159

Appendix
 Four-­‐
 Peg
 Edwards
 Document
 Collection
 Primary
 Source
 List

175

Bibliography
 185

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Introduction
 and
 Methodology

There was a suitcase sitting in my grandparents’ storage space for years that I had no idea
existed. This suitcase and its contents survived multiple moves and downsizing. This suitcase
held a part of my grandmother’s history that was completely unfamiliar to me. Exploring this
suitcase and the research and conversations its contents inspired introduced me to my
grandmother’s activism and allows me to share it now as my honor scholar thesis.
Introduction

In my first semester at DePauw University I ended up in a women’s history class. I was
unfamiliar with the topic, trying to balance playing college basketball with my first semester of
college classes, and intimidated by the seniors who seemed to get so much more out of the
reading than I did. I found the class interesting, but was just trying to survive with an acceptable
grade rather than really appreciate the class. Intrigued, I took additional classes emphasizing
women’s history. In one class we watched the movie Iron Jawed Angels. I found the movie
interesting and for the first time it put faces to the struggle for improving women’s rights in the
early 20th century. I had not realized how contentious this issue was. I called my mom shortly
after class to tell her I finally watched the movie after her telling me to watch it for years. She
then asked if I knew my grandmother, Peg Edwards, had been Alice Paul’s court appointed
guardian. I did not.
Iron Jawed Angels stars Hillary Swank and focuses on Alice Paul and her efforts to
secure the passage of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote.1 The movie is
dramatic, emphasizing Paul’s time in jail and being force-fed, but I had been told it was fairly

1 “Iron Jawed Angles (2004),” IMDb, accessed March 2014, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338139/.
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