To admit women to politics was considered a ‘dangerous leap in the dark’. The Suffragettes were accused of trying to undermine British institutions. OCR – A Level History: England and a New Century c1900-1918: Political issues: the issue of women’s suffrage 1906-1914. The women's suffrage movement made big gains in 1916, when Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress in Montana. Through her position, Rankin helped lobby for a constitutional amendment put forth by suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony, which asserted that states could not discriminate against sex when it came to voting rights for women. London National Society for Women’s Suffragewas founded in 1867, and it is from this, that the Fawcett Society, renamed in 1953, traces its descent. From as early as 1832 attempts were made to introduce legislation to give women the vote. Parliament.uk has a useful timeline of key legislation that you can use to inform your research. Some of the most useful are listed below.

While it is now relatively commonplace for contemporary ephemera to be preserved for posterity – the University Library collected local campaign materials during the EU referendum, for example – for such items to survive from a century ago is rare. In the case of the Suffragettes, a combination of texts, visuals and practices was used to show and tell stories. Each of these mediums gave meaning to the others to constitute the women’s cause and none should be privileged over the others. To do so loses the complexity of the politics at play. Increasingly, we are seeing similar combinations of texts, images, and practices as women and people marginalized because of their non-normative sexuality, gender identity, race, class and/or ability protest their political and social subjugation. If we are to fully understand the threats real people face, articulated in/by (global and local) political movements, we must turn attention to the ways that images show things that may otherwise go unsaid. We must think through the ways that images may just speak, or at least compliment, a thousand words. Read out of context, this poster could easily have been designed by any of the misogynists influencing America’s sociopolitical conscious today.Faced with determined opposition from many politicians, the press and the public (including women), Keir Hardie, M.P. (Independent Labour Party) was a good political friend to the women’s suffrage campaigners. While Liberal politicians consistently voted in support of the Conciliation Bills to grant a measure of women’s suffrage in 1910, 1911 and 1912, their wishes were crushed by the anti-women’s suffrage Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and others who refused to steer a Bill through Parliament. The collapse of the 1912 Conciliation Bill was the trigger which propelled the W.S.P.U. into sanctioning extreme militancy which marked the final two years of the campaign until the outbreak of the First World War. Our collections contain primary source material relating to the campaign for women’s suffrage. The majority of this collection forms part of the Women’s Library, whose roots are founded in the suffrage movement. This collection includes personal papers of suffragists and suffragettes, records of suffrage organisations and the newspapers, journals and pamphlets published by these organisations. There are also badges, postcards, posters, banners and other 3D objects on this subject.

Women’s suffrage and government control 1906-1922: papers from the Cabinet, Home Office and Metropolitan Police files in the Public Record Office (Adam Matthew Publications, 2000) Hold a debate on the case for/against the different tactics used by suffragettes or debate police/authorities responses’ to the campaign. Have any of the documents in this selection surprised you, or altered your original perception of the suffragette movement? Victorian Popular Forms and Practices of Reading and Writing (Colloque SFEVE Paris Est Créteil, 29-30 janvier 2021) ; Renaissances (atelier SFEVE du Congrès Tours, juin 2021)

The leaders of the Anti-Suffrage League claimed that the vast majority of women in Britain were not interested in having the vote and that there was a danger that a small group of organised women would force the government to change the electoral system. 320,000. Girls I Didn’t Marry (1911) Why was it so important for the suffragettes to be viewed as political prisoners? [sources: photographs, prison document on treatment of prisoners, leaders’ statements]

The internal equilibrium of the State also would be endangered by the admission to the register of millions of electors whose vote would not be endorsed by the authority of physical force. While we may be more coded in our anxieties about women’s progress today, America’s most powerful institutions—and the men who run them—still stake their control on the assumption that women do not deserve the right to self-determination. For proof, consider the #MeToo movement, the gender pay gap, or the sheer reality that Donald Trump, who bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy,” was elected president. For women of color, the attempts at degradation are only amplified, as suppression of racial equality—when not presenting itself outright—pulses beneath our politics, culture, and economics as powerfully, and surreptitiously, as it did in that 1920s poster. A surprising ending And we only need to look to social media to see that the suffrage movement’s witty, dry and brutal poster design continues to influence political movements today, she says. Read TheCommon Cause, the journal of the National Union for Women’s Suffrage Societies, and discoverinsights into the suffrage campaign. You can also access physical copies of The Common Cause at The Women's Library.

Many other records of suffrage organisations and activities will be held at local or specialist archives some of which are mentioned in section 6. 2. Overview of our collection 2.1 What you might find Certain government departments were involved in managing the response to the suffrage movement. You can search within records created by these departments by using the associated department code reference in Discovery advanced search.

Victorian and Edwardian Interiors (Colloque SFEVE Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, 27 et 28 janvier 2022) ; Failles (60e congrès de la SAES Université Clermont-Auvergne, 2-4 juin 2022) It’s not just about whether women should be able to vote. It’s far more steeped and emotional and complex; it’s a cultural decision and a societal decision, and for some people, truly a moral decision. It’s much more than just a simple political act, or a simple bill or amendment to allow women to become full citizens. These women say very matter of factly that women’s suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation.”Use the advanced search option in Discovery, our catalogue to search for records relating to arrests, prosecution and treatment in prison. Some of the key protest actions are shown below. The names of the protests and the dates they took place can be useful in searching for relevant records.