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Female's Suffrage & The Women's Movement (Back to Sylvia:…
Female's Suffrage & The Women's Movement
Biography as a method for GH
Individual biographies intersect w/ large concepts & processes
Analytical tool to explain the micro-processes within large concepts
Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960)
Born Manchester, Died Ethiopia
Mother & sister were suffragists as well
Members of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the late 19th century (some colonies had already introduced women's suffrage)
1903: form the women's social & political union as the previous organisation wasn't militant enough
Violent response on part of the authorities
1912: period of the Great Unrest in Britain, usually referring to male trade unionists
How to tell the story?
Rise of the West - but suffragette movements were taking place earlier in colonies
Diffusion - but in-out/out-in pattern
Enlightened Europeans - but radicalised
Can biography help?
Brief timeline of suffrage
1893: New Zealand (first self-governing territory to give women the vote)
later that year: Colorado
1894: South Australia
1918: UK, propertied women and men
1928: UK, full adult suffrage (21+)
Back to Sylvia: Other Struggles, Other Relations
Against middle class suffrage -
increasing interest in class issues
International engagement -
increasing interest in racial issues
Comes together in concerns over fascism and Ethiopia
SP founds
East London Federation of Suffragists & Dreadnought as reaction to middle-class orientation
of movement
Anti-war, focussed on workers
Increasing attention to
socialism & communism
Falls out w/ communists over two issues: attitude towards race & suffrage
Struggle for women's suffrage was typically racialised > SP was strongly opposed to racism
1928: UK, full adult suffrage
1945: Italy invades Ethiopia > European states refuse to help
Sylvia supports the Ethiopian cause
1954: Independence
1956: Sylvia moves there & dies 3 years later
Broad historical trends (intersect w/ SP's biography)
Global migration & settler colonialism
Communication: print & radio revolutions
Industrialisation & urbanisation
Mass political movements
War & militarism
Imperialism & inter-imperial competition
Anti-colonial revolt & decolonisation
Sylvia's biography reflects the interrelation of all these historical trends