Natalie Hill

One of the first woman to vote in my family was my grandma. My grandmother, Marjory Larsen, is the sweetest, nicest and most caring person you will ever meet. She was born April 19,1938 in Pennsylvania. That would have meant the first time she voted was for the re-election of Dwight Eisenhower. When she was a teenager, she was the only girl on the roller derby team, and she was also one of the best on the team as well. When she got married she and her husband –she is now divorced– built their own house from the ground up. Not long after, she became a mother of three. She was a great mother to all her kids. She encouraged them to do what they wanted. My mom was similar to my grandma. My mom did roller skating.

Not only is my grandma the sweetest person I know but she's also the strongest woman. She defeated breast cancer. I remember when I was younger, she would come over to my house and let me try on her wigs. No matter how much pain and treatment she went through, she was able to laugh and be happy. I think what helped her the most throughout that journey was her determination. One thing she is determined to do is to make it to 90 years old. She is 81 now and has survived cancer and two strokes. Another reason I think she has been able to survive through all those things is her faith in Jesus. Every single Sunday she goes to church no matter the weather or even if she's the only one there she would stay. Things for her have been tough lately because the older a person gets the more complications a person has. Because of the most recent stroke, she has lost a lot of sight and because of that, she can't drive so she has a lot of trouble getting around nowadays, but she still manages because of the strong determined person she is.

If you don't know who Alice Paul is, you should. Alice Paul is a very important woman of American history. She was born in 1885 on January 11th in Mt Laurel, New Jersey. Her father was a successful businessman. Growing up, everyone was treated equal because of the lifestyle she lived and the rules she was raised by. She was a Quaker. Quakers are generally raised and taught that both genders are equal so that's why she had a childhood where everyone was equal. 

Compared to the rest of the world, her childhood wasn't the same as everyone else's; hers was better. In the world around her, other woman were being forced to stay home and work and care for kids and that's all the women would do all day. When Alice left and went to college in Pennsylvania, she started to notice that the men and women were being treated differently and not equally. In 1907, Alice left America for England. When she was in England, she came across a woman who was speaking and being yelled at in an unruly way. That woman was Christabel Pankhurst. She was the daughter of one of England's most rebellious suffragette. The Pankhursts got their message across by being more on the violent side. For example, they would smash windows and throw rocks. Though this way of gaining attention was aggressive, Alice Paul found it interesting, and it was intriguing, so she joined their movement. On the website, it says she personally broke 48 windows and was arrested multiple times.
  
After returning to America, Alice Paul joined the National American Woman's suffrage Association, NAWSA for short. Not long after, she became the head of the congressional committee. The head of that was in charge of trying to help make the amendment. In 1912, Alice and her friends went to Washington, D.C. and had a march for women. Not long after, it turned violent and police had to watch over. The next day, Alice and the other women involved made headlines in newspapers and unsurprisingly, managed to gain lots of attention. In 1917, many suffragettes were sent to prison and ended up getting abused there. Because of this happening, the government had no choice but to listen to Alice and the others. Also, after some suffragettes were released, they tried a new strategy and instead of being violent and causing chaos, they tried silent protesting which is why the government was now willing to listen to them and hear them out.
  
At last, in 1919, Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment which is now known as the Equal Rights Amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment is also known as the Alice Paul Amendment because of all the hard work Alice and other women put in to create this amendment. All the attention and protesting had finally paid off. If it wasn't for Alice Paul and many other influential women, U.S. women today wouldn't have the rights we do and because of the 19th amendment, it also allowed women to gain many more rights in the future.

My reflection on this project is that women are stronger than most people think. Being a woman, I already knew how strong I am and how strong I can be. This project is inspirational in my opinion. I think this is inspirational because suffragettes showed women of the future that you can accomplish what you want. For example, I researched Alice Paul when she was protesting, she would be chaotic while doing so because she knew it was the only other way to get people to notice her and to get her message across. This project brought to my attention how important it is for women to support each other because the more people supporting one thing the more likely it is to gain attention whether the thing the people are trying to promote is negative or positive. With this project it was a positive subject. The allowing of women to vote allows diversity and different views on topics that others might not have thought of. Another thing this project made me realize is the history of the women in our family. Through this project, I learned so much about my relatives that I didn't know before. An example would be that before, I had no idea that my grandma was the only woman on the roller-skating team when she was younger or the fact that she and my grandfather built the very home my grandma lives in today. I am glad to have done this project because of the many things I learned, not only about women history in general but also my own family's history as well.