Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?: Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to Vote

Tina Cassidy

Simon and Schuster, Mar 5, 2019 - History - 304 pages

In this “heroic narrative” (The Wall Street Journal), discover the inspiring and timely account of the complex relationship between leading suffragist Alice Paul and President Woodrow Wilson in her fight for women’s equality.

Woodrow Wilson lands in Washington, DC, in March of 1913, a day before he is set 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. The next day, The New York Times calls the procession “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.”

Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? weaves together two storylines: 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 to ever picket in front of the White House lawn—night and day, through sweltering summer mornings and frigid fall nights.

From solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and the psychiatric ward to ever more determined activism, Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? reveals the courageous, near-death journey it took, spearheaded in no small part by Alice Paul’s leadership, to grant women the right to vote in America. “A remarkable tale” (Kirkus Reviews) and a rousing portrait of a little-known feminist heroine, this is an eye-opening exploration of a crucial moment in American history one century before the Women’s March.

Contents

• Password Kitchen: 13
• A Southern Boy: 23
• From Princeton to Public Office: 30
• The Suffrage Procession: 43
• Where Are All the People?: 56
• In the Oval Office: 63
• The Siege of the Senate: 75
• A House Divided: 83
• Dark Days: 96
• Submarine Warfare: 112
• The Advancing Army: 121
• The Silent Sentinels: 137
• Fighting for Democracy: 143
• The Russians: 154
• The Bastille Day Protest: 170
• The Hunger Strikes: 190
• The Amendment: 218
• The Vote: 232
• acknOwledgmenTs: 247
• BiBliOgraPhy: 269

About the author

Tina Cassidy is the executive vice president and chief content officer at the public relations and social content firm InkHouse and also a board member at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. She has written two previous nonfiction books, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born and Jackie After O: One Remarkable Year When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Defied Expectations and Rediscovered her Dreams. Previously, she was a journalist at The Boston Globe, where she covered politics, sports, fashion, and business.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?: Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to Vote
• Author: Tina Cassidy
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2019
• ISBN: 1501177788, 9781501177781
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State; Biography & Autobiography / Women; History / United States / 20th Century