Sewall-Belmont House

The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum on Capitol Hill explores the evolving role of women and their contributions to society through the continuing, and often untold story of women's pursuit for equality. The museum is the headquarters of the historic National Woman's Party (NWP) and was the Washington home of its founder and Equal Rights Amendment author, Alice Paul. Alice Paul dedicated her life to securing equal rights for women. The political strategies and techniques of Alice Paul and the NWP became the blueprint for civil rights organizations during the twentieth century. Paul is known internationally as a humanitarian; she was a great revolutionary and pioneer in the fight for women's equality.

Today, the Sewall-Belmont House works to preserve the history of the National Woman’s Party through educational programs, tours, exhibits, research and publications. One of the premier women's history sites in the country, this National Historic Landmark houses an extensive collection of suffrage banners, archives and artifacts documenting the continuing effort by women and men of all races, religions and backgrounds to win voting rights and equality for women under the law.

In 2013, the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum will begin celebrating a series of one-hundredth anniversaries related to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that gave women the right to vote. We will kick off the 10-year celebration with the anniversary of the March 3, 1913 pre-inaugural suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C. and end in 2023 with the one-hundredth anniversary of the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment. The goal is to partner with major museums and women’s organizations throughout the United States to sponsor traveling exhibits and programming that will inspire institutions across the country to acknowledge these major milestones in the fight for women’s equality in the United States, a fight that continues today.