Blog Post #2 - Primary Source by Sylvia Pankhurst

     This week for my blog post I received one of my sources through MOBIUS, it is a primary source written by Sylvia Pankhurst. It is her memoir of the women’s movement her mother and sister led. The name of the source is The Suffragette Movement an Intimate Account of the Persons and Ideals. This source is especially important to my work on my thesis because it not only offers specific accounts of what happened to these women, but it also offers information from Sylvia’s perspective on the more militant actions of her sister Christabel. Another helpful aspect of this source is how Sylvia quotes newspaper articles from the period as well, directly, thereby giving a fuller picture of the different protests and events going on. The source itself is divided into nine books within the larger text, within each book there are about five to seven chapters devoted to the topic. Some of the chapters I have begun to analyze include those written on their militant tactics, forced feedings, the flight of Christabel Pankhurst, and arson.

     Sylvia’s chapter on the militant tactics of the Suffragettes begins rather early in her memoir, before the fracturing of the WSPU [Women’s Social and Political Union]. Christabel and Sylvia had a fractured relationship later during the movement due to Christabel’s desire for more militant tactics. Her desire came in response to the lack of accomplishments done by the mere protests and rallies. Christabel first responded more actively during a meeting where Annie Kenney asked when women would receive the vote. The men moved to remove Annie from the meeting, so Christabel stood and attempted to defend Annie. She told the officials, “I shall assault you! I shall spit at you,” (Pankhurst 189). Christabel responded exactly how she said she would, by spitting in the face of the police superintendent and hitting others. Sylvia also refers to Annie Kenney regularly in her writings. Annie Kenney became the first working class woman to join the WSPU and fell into an easy friendship with Christabel. The other important aspect about these militant women that one must remember is the pain they endured, especially during their imprisonments and forced feedings.

     The forced feedings of women imprisoned during the movement represent a much darker side of this time. Yes, women acted more violently and destroyed buildings and mail, but they never intentionally harmed people. Yet when they were imprisoned instead of letting them die as martyrs for their cause via a hunger strike the government forced the wardens and nurses to feed these women. Eventually doctors came out to stand against such traumatic experiences stating how much damage this actually caused to the women physically to endure. Sylvia quotes Dr. Forbes Winslow on the results of forced feeding, “seriously to injure the constitution, to lacerate the parts surrounding the mouth, to break and ruin the teeth…to cause dangerous chronic symptoms,” (Pankhurst 317). As evidence from this one quote and the rest of the chapter, I will certainly be exploring the impact of forced feedings on the militancy of the movement. I hope that I will receive other sources from inter-library loan soon. I also plan to begin looking at JSTOR and other databases for newspaper articles and journals discussing these topics.

Here is the Chicago citation for the source:

Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Suffragette Movement an Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals. London: Virago Limited, 1977.