Alice Paul House - Mt. Laurel Twp., NJ - Satellite Imagery Oddities on Waymarking.com

This was the family home of Alice Stokes Paul. She was a 20th century international women's rights leader and founder of the National Woman's Party. She was instrumental in the women's suffrage movement and wrote the Equal RIghts Amendment in 1923 which she fought for until her death in 1977. She passed away in a nursing home in Moorestown, NJ.

The Paul Family lived on this 176-acre farm from 1883-1958. The Alice Paul Centennial Foundation owns the 6.5 acre property. Today, the house is home of the Alice Paul Institute. Paulsdale is located at 128 Hooton Road, Mount Laurel, NJ, 08054. I was told by the president of the Institute the house was renovated to its 1900 status, even though it was built in 1800. I noticed lots of Victorian features which were obviously added much later. The iron railing which surrounds the porch was put there to meet code as this is now a public place.

"Paulsdale was the birthplace and childhood home of Alice Paul, a leader in the Women's suffrage movement in the United States. The Paul family had purchased 150 acres (0.61 km2) and the 1880 farmhouse around 1883. They sold the house in the 1950s which led to the Alice Paul Institute purchasing the house in 1990. It has been restored to the condition when Paul lived in the house. It now serves as a Historic house museum and a home for the Institute." SOURCE

The Alice Paul has an excellent website which can be found HERE. The Garden State Preservation Trust Fund has a site just for this house HERE. Finally, and interestingly enough, there is no waymark category for National Historic Landmarks Program (also run by the Dept. of the Int.), but this site has attained that status as well. This is a separate status from the NRHP. This distinction is important as not all NRHP sites qualify as Landmarks. The National Historic Landmarks are nationally significant historic places designated by the Secretary of the Interior because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. The Alice Paul home is one of these. The site for this landmark can be found HERE.

There is also an interpretive for this site as well. This interpretive is part of the New Jersey Women's Heritage Trail interpretive program and can be found at the Alice Paul House in Mt. Laurel, NJ. This is the second interpretive in this series I have discovered in my Waymarking travels. The first one I found was in 2009. That interpretive is for Jarena Lee and can be found in Lawnside, NJ.

The New Jersey Women's Heritage Trail emerged from collaborative work done by the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation, the New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office and Preservation New Jersey when they helped to organize the first annual conference on women and historic preservation in Bryn Mawr, PA, in 1994. These groups saw the need to tell the story of the important contributions of New Jersey women through the historic sites and places they left behind. In 1999, legislation provided the initial funding to begin research to identify historic sites associated with New Jersey women. With additional funding from the New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office, and support from the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation, work was begun in the summer of 2000. Preservation Partner, a historic preservation consulting firm, carried out this groundbreaking project, with additional scholarly contributions by the Women’s Project of New Jersey. New Jersey is the first state in the country to undertake a statewide comprehensive survey of women’s historic sites. SOURCE

The interpretive is one of the nicest ones I have ever seen. The marker with its blue border is held in place by two upright, metal slabs, the sign between them. Usually, the interpretives are held in frames low to the ground but this one is upright and easy to read as it is right in your face. The entire interpretive program can be found HERE. The marker is at the driveway leading to the house, along the main road. The sign reads:

Alice Stokes Paul (1885-1977) was born and spent her childhood years in this farmhouse, Paulsdale. She grew up in a Quaker family with a tradition of activism in education and public service and a strong belief in equality. Alice Paul dedicated her entire life to the single cause of securing equal rights for all women. She founded the National Women's Party in 1914 and led the first picketers to the White House gates in the name of women's suffrage. When women won the right to vote in 1920, Paul turned her focus to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). From her wheelchair in a nursing home in nearby Moorestown, she lobbied Representatives to pass the ERA until her death in 1977. Paul worked for women's rights nationally and internationally and founded the World Women's Party in 1938 with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Alice Paul's legacy lives on here at Paulsdale, through the work of the Alice Paul Institute.

"I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality." --Alice Paul (in an interview from 1972)

Paulsdale is on the New Jersey Women's Heritage Trail because of the significant contributions of suffragist Alice Stokes Paul to women's voluntary organizations and reform movements.

The New Jersey Women's Heritage Trail highlights a collection of historic sights located around the state that represent the significant contributions women made to the history of our state. The Heritage Trail brings to life the vital role of women in New Jersey's past and present.