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This guide will help you to find records of the women’s suffrage movement and of the women and men who campaigned for the cause in the early part of the 20th century. Mary Humphry Ward argued the case against women's suffrage at debates at Newnham College and Girton College. Once a role model for educated young women, she received a hostile reception from the students when she told them that the "emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women". She recorded in her diary after the Girton debate that "the fire and the rage were immense" and blamed the staff who she accused of being "hotly suffrage". An anti-suffrage postcard published in 1906. Despite coming from different organisations, there are similarities in style and political message across the collection of posters, says Delap. They use fictional characters well known at the time, such as Mrs Partington, a famous, satirical, outspoken Conservative woman, and Mrs John Bull, a tongue-in-cheek female equivalent of the character John Bull – a fat, suited man that was meant to symbolise England. 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.
By the summer of 1914 the positions of suffragettes and Liberal government were deeply entrenched: the W.S.P.U. was determined to force the government to give women the vote, and the establishment equally stubbornly refused to comply. Over a thousand British suffragettes had acquired a criminal record and many were imprisoned for demanding the vote. These records show that suffragettes were denied the status of political prisoners and treated as ‘common criminals’. In protest many went on hunger-strike and were force fed with terrible consequences for their health. The W.S.P.U. awarded women who experienced this torture with ‘For Valour’ medals: ‘in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship, a great principle of political justice was vindicated.’ Dr. Diane Atkinson There is no denying that deeds helped the suffrage cause, however they were not the only mechanism through which Suffragettes demonstrated their politics and resisted the British government’s attempts to silence them and keep women outside of politics. By 1903, despite multiple requests by those pursuing women’s suffrage, a women’s vote had been repeatedly denied. As such, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union (WSPU), a militant organisation. She argued that drastic action was necessary because the peaceful words of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage (NSWS) and National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) were no longer helping the cause. While split on the best means to achieve suffrage, pro-suffrage groups were similar in their use of a new type of political spectacle (posters) and the production of a visual campaign that served their mutually desired end: the women’s vote. During this time, Lucy Delap and others will be coordinating efforts to replace some of the longstanding and overwhelmingly male artworks displayed across collegiate Cambridge with art produced by women. What did one find when one got into the company of women and talked politics? They were soon asked to stop talking silly politics, and yet that was the type of people to whom we were invited to hand over the destinies of the country.
Suffragettes in the Daily Mirror
The posters also use colour schemes associated with the different suffrage groups; red, white and green was used to depict the more “peaceful” or constitutional suffrage movement, while white, green and purple were the colours of the militants.
Of course, the fear mongering campaign ultimately failed. In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave American women the same voting rights as men, and in 1928, the Equal Franchise Act gave UK women full suffrage as well. The postcards remain around today, a footnote to the obstacles and prejudices around, which predicted a total societal collapse should women to be given equal say in how their countries should be run. The aim was to portray women as feminine and fluffy – and incapable of understanding political debate. It was implied that you might as well give the vote to a cat. Why was it so important for the suffragettes to be viewed as political prisoners? [sources: photographs, prison document on treatment of prisoners, leaders’ statements] This act became popularly known as the “Cat and Mouse Act,” as the government was seen as toying with their female prey as a cat would a mouse. Suddenly, the cat takes on a decidedly more masculine, “tom cat” persona. The cat now represented the violent realities of women’s struggle for political rights in the male public sphere. What methods were used by the police to detect suffragette activities? [sources: surveillance, cameras, finger printing]Image credit: Alfred Pearse for WSPU, The Modern Inquisition (1910). Source: Museum of London, image no. 001313′. LSE Library; Museum of London Picture Library.
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