Alice Paul, one of the nation’s most outspoken suffragists and feminists in the early twentieth century and beyond, was born to a Quaker family at their Paulsdale estate in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, on January 11, 1885. Her religious background is relevant because the Hicksite Quakerism the family practiced placed a great deal of emphasis on gender equality. She came from a prominent family, with ancestors who included William Penn on her mother’s side and the Massachusetts Winthrops on her father’s. Her maternal grandfather was one of the founders of Swarthmore College, where Paul earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1905. After attending the New York School of Philanthropy, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907 and then went on to study at England’s University of Birmingham and the London School of Economics before returning to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a PhD in sociology in 1912.