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Beware! A Warning to Suffragists
In 1908, actress and writer Cicely Hamilton founded the Women’s Writers’ Suffrage League with Bessie Haton, choosing to fight for suffrage with their pens rather than by direct action. Her suffrage plays were a great success. In Beware!, printed by the Women’s Printing Society, her ironic poems are illustrated with drawings by Mary Lowndes, Dora Meeson Coates, and C. Hedley Charlton. They were all members of the Artists’ Suffrage League, which was founded by siblings Clemence and Lawrence Housman. There are two copies in the collection. -
The Forerunner
Feminist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman launched The Forerunner in November 1909, wanting an outlet to voice opinions deemed too controversial by other editors. She was the sole author, artist, and editor of its essays, fiction, poetry, and humor. The content was meant, in her own words from the first issue, “to stimulate thought, to arouse hope, courage, and impatience . . . to voice the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.” The Forerunner had a modest circulation of around 1,500 subscribers, and Gilman struggled to expand readership in its seven years of publication. -
[“Votes for Women” scarf]
This pristine silk motor scarf was sold in London before the Women's Social and Political Union's “Woman’s Sunday” March on 21 June 1908. The government had challenged the suffrage movement to show numbers, and more than 250,000 activists traveled to Hyde Park to join the demonstration. Women were urged to wear their colors and they flocked to stores for merchandise in the WSPU’s signature purple, white and green. Christabel Pankhurst noted that if the government still refused to act, the WSPU would be obliged to increase its militant actions. -
Prejudice Unveiled: and Other Poems
In this volume of poetry, activist poet Lizelia Moorer, a teacher at South Carolina’s first black college, presents a sweeping portrayal of the nature of racial oppression. She noted that white writers misrepresented the experience of African Americans in the South and set out to tell “the unvarnished truth.” She confronts lynching, debt peonage, rape, segregation, and the hypocrisy of the church. The frontispiece may be the first depiction of an African American woman with a typewriter. -
News of the World: Suffragettes in Gaol, Amazing Scene in House of Parliament [...]
This broadsheet lists the headlines for the Sunday, 28 October 1906 issue of News of the World. On 23 October, 150 WSPU members had arrived at Westminister, each asking to see a member of Parliament. Only twenty were admitted, and during the conflict that followed ten suffragettes were arrested. They were later convicted and sentenced to two months in Holloway Gaol. As hoped, the sentences made the newspapers. -
Women's Suffrage Deputation: Received by the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, on Saturday, May 19th, 1906, at the Foreign Office
British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman agreed to meet with representatives from the suffrage movement on 19 May 1906. This National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies publication reprints the speeches delivered by Members of Parliament and representatives of over 1,000 women from 25 groups and institutions. The organizations listed demonstrate the Women's Social and Political Union’s success in bringing working class women into the movement. At the meeting, the Prime Minister revealed that he could not overcome his cabinet’s opposition to woman suffrage. This item is part of the Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence Papers. -
Mother Earth
Russian immigrant and anarchist Emma Goldman dedicated her life to combatting inequality, repression and the exploitation of workers. She believed in direct action to bring about revolutionary change. Goldman published the journal Mother Earth and served as its editor in 1906. Alexander Berkman assumed editorial duties from 1907 to 1915. Mother Earth served as an outlet for Goldman’s own and her colleagues’ writings on issues deeply connected to the anarchist cause such as education, the labor movement, women’s rights and birth control. -
[Medical students and teacher at dissection]
Note the female medical student present. Women were refused admission to American and British medical schools until the mid-nineteenth century. American women seeking medical training were forced to go abroad to Europe. By mid-century, pressure from social reform movements led to the creation of schools and teaching hospitals specifically to educate women. Boston Medical College for Women, founded in 1848, was followed in 1850 by the Pennsylvania Medical College for Women. In 1870, the University of Michigan chartered the first American co-educational medical school, and others soon followed, but the debate over the merits of “mixed classes” continued. -
[“Woman Suffrage Party” sash]
Sashes were ubiquitous during suffrage parades and demonstrations. Large groups of women wearing sashes, white dresses and hats made a powerful visual statement about public support for votes for women. But activists could wear them at any time or for any occasion. This sash is in the yellow of the American Woman Suffrage Party. The mark near the fold is likely a cigarette burn. -
[Woman’s suffrage campaign realia]
The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection includes a wide selection of American and British suffrage pins. Activists were encouraged to “show your colors all day long” and have the “courage of their convictions.” The black on gold “Votes for Women” button was the most widely used design in the United States. Note the pins for Catholic, Welsh, and men’s organizations. Goods promoting the cause included badges, ribbons, jewelry, and even mechanical pencils. American and British activists borrowed designs from each other and adapted them as needed.
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