Week 7
Feminism, class and suffrage 1900-1928
Questions to ponder whilst you read…
 To what extent did the suffrage movement represent the interests of all
women?
 To what extent was the suffrage movement part of a broader movement for
social change?
 Was militancy an elitist tactic? If so, why?
 How great a threat to the social order did the suffragettes represent?
Documents
‘Imprisonment of Teresa Billington for alleged assault…’ from Women in the
National Archives Collection HO 45/10345/141956 [download these for greater ease
of reading]
‘Suffragists: Outrage at the National Gallery’, from Women in the National Archives
Collection, AR1/38
‘Suffragists: Descriptions and Photographs’, from Women in the National Archives
Collection, AR1/528
‘Song Sheet sold by the East London Federation of Suffragettes’ (nd), MRC
MSS.240/R/5/5/4 [available as part of digitised MRC documents at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Caroline E. Martyn, ‘Women in the World’ (July 1895) [available as part of digitised
MRC documents
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Lily Gair Wilkinson, ‘Woman’s Freedom’ (1914) [available as part of digitised MRC
documents
at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Histories
Jill Liddington, Rebel Girls (2009)
J. Liddington, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women’s Suffrage
Movement (1978) [important for working-class element]
J. Purvis, ‘Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), Suffragette Leader and Single Parent in
Edwardian Britain’, Women’s History Review 20:1 (2011) 87-108
C.J. Bearman, ‘The Legend of Black Friday’, Historical Research 83:222 (2010) 693718
M. Joanou & J. Purvis, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives
(1998)
S.S. Holton, Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement (1996)
[chapter 5] digitised
J. Purvis, ‘The prison experiences of the suffragettes in Edwardian Britain’, Women’s
History Review 4 (1995), 103-33
S.S. Holton, ‘Silk dresses and lavender kid gloves: the wayward career of Jessie
Craigen, working Suffragist’, Women’s History Review 5:1 (1996), 129-50
A.V. John, ‘Radical reflections? Elizabeth Robins: the making of suffragette history
and the representation of working-class women’, in Owen Ashton, Robert Fyson and
Stephen Roberts (eds.), The Duty of Discontent: Essays for Dorothy Thompson (1995)
S.S. Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in
Britain 1900-1918 (1986) [chapter 3] digitised
J. Purvis & S.S. Holton (eds.), Votes for Women (2000)
E. Crawford, ‘Police, Prisons and Prisoners: The View from the Home Office’,
Women’s History Review 14:3-4 (2005), 487-505
A. Schwan, ‘“Bless the Gods for my Pencils and Paper”: Katie Gliddon’s Prison
Diary, Percy Bysshe Shelley and the Suffragettes at Holloway’, Women’s History
Review 22:1 (2013), 148-167