Actor Maya Keleher had no idea the impact Alice Paul had in the women’s suffragette movement until she got the chance to play her in the “SUFFS” touring company, now opening in Philadelphia, writes Jane M. Von Bergen for Billy Penn.
“I learned so much about her tenacity and her fight,” Keleher said. “She was so relentlessly committed to her causes.”
Paul was a Quaker from Moorestown, NJ, who would later enroll at Swarthmore College, co-founded in 1864 by her maternal grandfather, Judge William Parry.
While she was there earning an undergraduate degree in biology, Paul was on the Executive Board of the Student Government. She also played field hockey, tennis, and basketball, and was dubbed in the college yearbook, “An open-hearted maiden, true and pure,” according to the website alicepaul.org.
Paul started advocating for women’s suffrage in Great Britain. She participated in hunger strikes, was beaten, and served time in prison, where she was sometimes force-fed.
She returned to the United States, where she and other suffragettes suffered further imprisonments, beatings, and force-feedings.
Paul led marches in Washington, D.C., and lobbied until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, granting women the right to vote.
Read more about Alice Paul in Billy Penn and at alicepaul.org.
Editor’s Note: This post was initially published on DELCO.Today in January 2026.
