DISCUSSION TOPIC: SUFFRAGETTES
INTRODUCTION
By 1913, Emily Davison had come to embody the power in the Women's Social and Political Union slogan "Deeds Not Words." Four years earlier, she had been arrested four times. The meekest of her protests had been to attempt to hand the Prime Minister a petition; the most aggressive had been the hurling of a rock wrapped in the words "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God" at Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George. In 1911, she would be arrested again for setting fire to pillar-boxes.
It was in 1913, however, that Davison would commit her most dramatic act. On June 14, at the Derby horse race, she threw herself under King George IV's horse. She received fatal head injuries but would be dismissed by her critics as a mentally-ill fanatic.
British women had been campaigning peacefully for female suffrage since the mind-nineteenth century. Only with the 1903 emergence of the WSPU and its more militant tactics, however, did the movement pick up momentum. Members of the WSPU were responsible for such actions as the burning of public buildings and the damaging of paintings in London art galleries. When activists engaged in prison hunger strikes, the government responded first with forced-feedings and then, after negative publicity, with the so-called Cat and Mouse Act, which provided for the release of inmates once their health had deteriorated.
World War I would prove to be a crucible in England and the United States alike. In 1918, British female householders over the age of thirty received the right to vote. Ten years later, this was extended to all women over 21 years of age. American women gained the franchise through the Nineteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1920.
SOURCES
Britain 1906-1918 -- Early 1900S Women's Suffrage: A British National Archives Learning Curve lesson plan.
History Of The Suffragettes: An October 2003 BBC News overview by Dominic Casciani.
Demanding The Vote For Women: A small section of a virtual exhibit from the Museum of London.
Emancipation Of Women, 1750-1920: This Spartacus education site has extensive information, including biographies and organizational histories, on the British suffragettes.
Historic Figures -- Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst (1858-1928): A concise biography of the famous English suffragettes from BBC History.
Legacy Of The Suffragettes: An October 2, 2003 feature from the BBC's Westminster Hour on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Women's Social and Political Union.
Museum Of London Picture Library: Type in the search term "Suffragette" for 94 historical images.
Suffragettes: A sub-section of a British National Archives Learning Curve lesson plan on Power, Politics and Protest -- The Growth of Political Rights in Britain in the 19th Century.
Suffragettes -- Given Women The Right To Vote: A brief introduction to the British movement.
What Did The Suffragettes Do?: Concise information from a U.K.-based exam revision site.
DISCUSSION QUESTION
In a society in which it is often assumed that women have achieved full equality and it is sometimes deemed that activist females speak in too strident a voice, a look to the past should remind one both of how recently women have gained the most basic of rights and also of the truth of the old adage that "power concedes nothing without a demand." Comment.
