This garden party wasn’t about seeing Alice fall into the rabbit hole, but rather, all about how she continues to climb out of it. The Alice Awards, held annually at the Sewall-Belmont House, honored Senators Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe at a luncheon Wednesday afternoon.
The two political powerhouses, much like the award’s namesake – the suffragist, human rights activist and National Women’s Party founder Alice Paul – have broken barriers and set new precedents for women, and thus join the ranks of Alice Award honorees, to include past recipients Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, Cokie Roberts, and Billie Jean King among others. But Senator Snowe’s connection to the movement is even more monumental. “My first year in the U.S. Senate, I was attending a reception here… and a reporter approached me about a statue… commissioned by Alice Paul to commemorate the constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote. It languished in the basement… but it was supposed to be in the rotunda,” she explained to luncheon attendees.
“I didn’t realize how difficult it would become [to move the statue to a more prominent place]. Finally, we did succeed, and at the dedication, I said: ‘It wasn’t about the weight of a statue, but about the weight of an argument and the worthiness of a cause.'”
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