"A Woman's Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot" by
Mary Walton is a biography of an important woman few have heard
of. Alice Paul, an American Quaker, began fighting for women's
suffrage in Great Britain. Armed with the tactics of English
"militants," she returned to the States and fought for the right
to vote here. In addition to being enthralled with history that
directly affected me--and about which I knew virtually nothing--
I was also interested in how some details of the women's
suffrage movement mirrored today's animal-rights movement.
Alice's time in England had taught her about civil disobedience,
including hunger strikes. Officials there had no idea what to do
with imprisoned suffragettes who refused to eat. They didn't
want the women to die on their watch, so they released them.
Incidentally Mahatma Gandhi attended a meeting featuring these
hunger strikers. Eventually, though, prison officials decided to
forcefully feed the women. Alice was force-fed both in England
and in the United S