Blog Post #4 - Another Secondary Source - WFL

     This week for my blog post, I analyzed another secondary source. The book The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866-1928 by Sophia A. van Wingerden gives a full explanation of the women’s movement in Britain, specifically dividing it into sections chronologically. Most of the beginning of the book is devoted to things before what my topic discusses so I will not analyze those. Instead, I focused on the later parts of the book beginning with Wingerden’s chapter on the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). This source is helpful due to its nature of being a more well-rounded compilation of women’s suffrage in Britain. Instead of being centered on the WSPU, this source offers details of the many women’s organizations in Britain. Wingerden also includes the interactions between these organizations in her analysis. With this, a better understanding of the public is achieved. Before the WSPU, none of the organizations had acted in a militaristic way. Therefore, the shock and disgust for these women who decided to stand up makes sense, even if now it seems drastic.

     Specifically Wingerden refers to the first act of militancy within the suffrage movement. This happened in October 1905. Two WSPU members, the passionate Christabel Pankhurst and the working class heroine Annie Kenney asked a question in a Liberal meeting; following this, the men erupted in anger, with the police arresting both young women. Annie Kenney remembered the incident saying, “The old life had gone, a new life had come,” (Wingerden 72). This began the very common theme of women, especially WSPU members being arrested regularly and frequently on repeated occasions. Yet for the militant movement the violence happened in a gradual escalation. In the first few years of usage, it did not include the window-smashing, painting slashing, or hunger strikes. Instead, these women used an anti-government policy, disrupting meetings, and sending groups of women to see the prime minister. These early tactics proved also to be ineffective, which led to the escalation of outward violence.

     The other major point this source gave me centers on the Women’s Freedom League. Up until this point, I thought that the Women’s Freedom League developed independently from any of the other women’s organizations. Reading Wingerden’s work instead tells a different story. The Women’s Freedom League came from the WSPU. The roughly 75 members who broke away wanted a different organization that held a more democratic leadership than the WSPU. Within the WSPU, the leadership centered on the Pankhursts and their close friends the Pethick-Lawrences, although specifically the leaders for all intents and purposes were Emmeline and Christabel. This internal fracturing shows that not all the women could accept Emmeline’s and Christabel’s leadership. Instead the women’s suffrage movement had yet another organization add its voice to the fray, hoping to be heard above the rest. Yet the one organization and voice that continued to stand out among all the others can only be the one which  used something different, something more aggressive, those things could be found in only one organization, the WSPU.

Wingerden, Sophia A. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866 – 1928. London: MacMillian Press LTD, 1999.