"An eye-opening, inspiring, and timely account of the complex relationship between leading suffragist Alice Paul and President Woodrow Wilson in the fight for women's equality. Woodrow Wilson arrives in Washington, DC, in March 1913, a day before he is to take the presidential oath of office. He is surprised by the modest turnout. The crowds and reporters are blocks away from Union Station, watching a parade of eight thousand suffragists on Pennsylvania Avenue in a first-of-its-kind protest organized by a twenty-five-year-old activist named Alice Paul and led by a woman riding a white horse. The next day, the New York Times calls the procession "one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country." [This book] weaves together two story lines: the trajectories of Alice Paul and Woodrow Wilson, two apparent opposites. Paul's procession of suffragists resulted in her being granted a face-to-face meeting with President Wilson, one that would lead to many meetings and much discussion, but little progress for women. With no equality in sight and patience wearing thin, Paul organized the first group ever to picket on the White House lawn--night and day, through sweltering summer mornings and frigid fall nights. From solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and mental institutions to ever more determined activism, [this book] reveals the courageous, near-death journey it took, spearheaded in no small part by Alice Paul's leadership, for women to win the right to vote in America. A rousing portrait of a little-known feminist heroine and an inspiring exploration of a crucial moment in American history--one century before the Women's March--this is a perfect book for fans of Keith O'Brien's Fly Girls and Jon Meacham's The Soul of America."--Dust jacket. Woodrow Wilson arrived in Washington, DC in March 1913, a day before he took the presidential oath of office. There's only a modest turnout-- the crowds and reporters are blocks away, watching a parade of eight thousand suffragists on Pennsylvania Avenue in a first-of-its-kind protest organized by an activist named Alice Paul and led by a woman riding a white horse. Cassidy weaves together the trajectories of Alice Paul and Woodrow Wilson, two apparent opposites. From solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and mental institutions to ever more determined activism, the journey to the vote was spearheaded in no small part by Alice Paul's leadership. -- adapted from jacket

A Quaker from New Jersey -- Password: kitchen -- A southern boy -- From Princeton to public office -- The suffrage procession -- Where are all the people? -- In the Oval Office -- The siege of the Senate -- A house divided -- Dark days -- Submarine warfare -- The advancing army -- The silent sentinels -- Fighting for democracy -- The Russians -- The Bastille Day protest -- Behind bars -- The hunger strikes -- The watch fires of freedom -- The amendment -- The vote.