Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument
Tucked behind the U.S. Capitol, this 200-year-old house stands as a testament to our nation's continued struggle for equality. Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument tells the story of a community of women who dedicated their lives to the fight for women’s rights. The innovative tactics and strategies these women devised became the blueprint for civil rights progress throughout the 20th century.
Home to the National Woman's Party for nearly 90 years, this was the epicenter of the struggle for women's rights. From this house in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court, Alice Paul and the NWP developed innovative strategies and tactics to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and equality for women. President Barack Obama designated the national monument on April 12, 2016.
Built on Capitol Hill in 1800, the house that today is Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument is among the oldest residential properties in Washington, D.C. The original house was destroyed by British forces during the War of 1812. In the 20th century, the house became the headquarters of the National Woman’s Party, a political movement that fought for equal rights for women.
Robert Sewall, a member of one of Maryland’s most influential and prominent families, built the original house at 2nd Street and Constitution Avenue, NE in 1800. Sewall rented the house to Albert Gallatin from 1801 until 1813. Gallatin served as Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Jefferson and Madison. During the War of 1812, the house was destroyed by fire during the British invasion of Washington in August 1814. It was one of the only buildings from which the occupants made an attempt to resist the British Army. Sewall rebuilt the house by 1820.
The Sewall family descendants owned the house for over 120 years. In 1922, Senator and Mrs. Porter Dale of Vermont purchased and rehabilitated the house after it had been vacant for a decade.
The Dales sold the house to the National Woman’s Party (NWP) to use as their headquarters in 1929. The NWP renamed the property the “Alva Belmont House” in honor of Alva Belmont, NWP President from 1920-1933 and its primary benefactor. Belmont donated thousands of dollars to the women’s equality movement and gave the NWP the ability to purchase the new headquarters. The house also functioned as a hotel and second home for some members up until the 1990s.
National Woman's Party
Alice Paul founded the NWP in 1916 to address women’s suffrage and equality. Under Paul’s leadership, the NWP refocused the women’s suffrage movement from a state-by-state effort to a push for a constitutional amendment. In 1923, the NWP introduced the Equal Rights Amendment and launched a campaign to win full equality for women. They successfully pushed for the inclusion of gender equality language in both the United Nations Charter and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 1997, the NWP ceased lobbying activities and became a 501(c)3 educational organization. Today, the NWP focuses on educating the public about the women's rights movement.
Alice Paul was one of the most prominent members of 20th-century women's rights movement. An outspoken suffragist and feminist, she tirelessly led the charge for women's suffrage and equal rights in the United States. Born to a New Jersey Quaker family in 1885, young Alice grew up attending suffragist meetings with her mother. She pursued an unusually high level of education for a woman of her time, graduating Swarthmore College in 1905 and receiving her master's in sociology in 1907 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1912 from the University of Pennsylvania.
While continuing her studies in England, she made the acquaintance of militant British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia. Paul was arrested and imprisoned many times for her involvement with Pankhurst’s group, whose disruptive and radical tactics included smashing windows and prison hunger strikes. Forever changed by her experiences, Paul returned to the United States in 1910 and turned her attention to the American suffrage movement. After the deaths of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1902 and Susan B. Anthony in 1906, the suffrage movement was languishing, lacking focus under conservative suffrage organizations that concentrated only on achieving state suffrage. Paul believed that the movement needed to focus on the passage of a federal suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In 1916, Paul founded the National Woman’s Party (NWP). Paul adopted the Pankhursts’ imperative to “hold the party in power responsible.” The NWP would withhold its support from existing political parties until women had gained the right to vote and “punish” those parties in power who did not support suffrage. Through dramatic protests, marches, and demonstrations, the suffrage movement gained popular support.
In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote. Paul believed the vote was just the first step in the quest for full equality. In 1922, she reorganized the NWP with the goal of eliminating all discrimination against women. In 1923, she wrote the Equal Rights Amendment, also known as the Lucretia Mott Amendment, and launched what would be a lifelong campaign to win full equality for women. Concerned not only with the rights of American women, but the rights of women around the world, Paul founded the World Woman’s Party, which until 1954 served as the NWP’s international organization. In 1945, she was instrumental in incorporating language regarding women’s equality in the United Nations Charter, and in the establishment of a permanent U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Alice Paul is remembered as a tireless, devoted pioneer in the fight for women’s rights, and her legacy is still felt by women around the world today.
Women's Suffrage
Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument tells the story of a century of activism by American women. In 1929, the National Woman’s Party (NWP), with financial support of suffragist Alva Belmont, purchased the house to establish a Washington base of operations. Alice Paul founded the NWP in 1916 as a lobbying organization to promote women's suffrage. The house served not only as the headquarters for the massive political effort to obtain equality, but also as a second home for the hardworking women of the organization.
Nonviolent, dramatic protests were the hallmark of the NWP’s operations in Washington. Suffrage marches, daily picketing and arrests at the White House, and speaking tours raised the public profile of the movement. Protesters faced daily violence from both passers-by and the police, including having their banners ripped from their hands and being physically attacked and arrested. While imprisoned for their activism, some women protested through highly-publicized hunger strikes that resulted in forced feedings and even worse prison conditions. The brutality with which the women were treated created enormous public support for suffrage.
In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote. With this hard-won, long-awaited victory, the NWP focused on the next step: complete equality of the sexes under law. The group’s headquarters at the Alva Belmont house provided the backdrop for many of the defining moments in this struggle. Alice Paul authored the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923, which reads simply, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States on account of sex.” In 1972, Congress passed the ERA, but the amendment remains three states short of ratification today. For over 50 years, the ERA has been introduced in every session of Congress.
In 1997, the National Woman's Party ceased its lobbying efforts and became a nonprofit educational organization. Today the NWP continues to occupy the house, along with its historic library and archives, to educate the public about the women’s rights movement. Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument is one of the premier women’s history sites in the country, housing archives as well as one of the most important collections of artifacts from the women’s suffrage and equal rights movements.
Physical Address›
144 Constitution Ave NE
900 Ohio Drive SW
Washington, DC 20002
Mailing Address:
900 Ohio Drive SW
Washington, DC 20024
(Link: https://www.nps.gov/bepa/index.htm)