Suffragette, The.
Pankhurst, E[stelle] Sylvia. The Suffragette. A History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1905-1910. Boston: The Woman’s Journal, 1911.
8vo., 517 pp.; 31 half-tone illustrations; offsetting to endpapers from dust-jacket; some acid-toning (pp. 34-36); vertically-ribbed green cloth lettered in white at front and spine; pale green dust-jacket; white of title and author at spine flaked; dust-jacket faded with spine lightly browned and some nicks; generally a fresh, bright copy.
First edition thus; Sturgis & Walton printed the first American edition the same year. This edition, with the imprint of The Woman’s Journal, presumably was for distribution by the NAWSA and other suffrage organizations. Pankhurst’s vivid firsthand account of the woman suffrage movement in England during its most radical and controversial years when English politics were roiled by suffrage parades and demonstrations, deliberate provocations of arrest and imprisonment by suffragettes, forced feedings of women hunger strikers, etc. Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960), suffragette, artist and social activist, was the middle daughter of woman suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst. While nearing the end of her course of study at the Royal College of Art, Sylvia realized her family’s dedication to the enfranchisement of women overshadowed all other considerations, even family relations. Though a founding member of the WSPU, she let go of her ambitions as an artist with some reluctance and traces of bitterness. Her artistic talents, however, did prove an asset for the suffrage movement: she designed the cover of Votes for Women, the Holloway Brooch honoring those women imprisoned in Holloway, numerous banners, suffrage insignia, the 1909 Women’s Exhibition in London, Christmas cards and badges, illuminated addresses and other decorations. She became the movement’s key artist. Yet if she experienced mixed feelings regarding her art, she committed herself completely to working class women. Her East London Federation of the WSPU became a distinct force within the overall WSPU (and eventually separated). She wrote as well as designed for the movement, establishing and editing, for instance, Women’s Dreadnaught. Like many suffragettes, she was arrested, imprisoned and suffered force-feedings numerous times.
The Suffragette is Pankhurst’s first full-length book. Her lucid and precise account of the WSPU’s struggles during this brief, tumultuous period “conveys a sense of exaltation and gallantry with a firm grasp on factual detail” (The Feminist Companion). While American suffragists may have been divided on whether or not to adapt the tactics of their English colleagues, they recognized the importance of Pankhurst’s text. Its publication under the imprint of The Woman’s Journal marked it as a key suffrage text to the women’s rights community. The regular Sturgis & Walton edition appears fairly accessible; however, OCLC listings indicate that The Woman’s Journal edition is much less so. While The Woman’s Journal printed leaflets and other suffrage material frequently and in large quantities, books represented a far greater investment and hence are highly unusual.
The Feminist Companion, pp. 828-829., The Women’s Suffrage Movement—A Reference Guide 1866-1928, by Elizabeth Crawford, pp. 515-525.
Sylvia Prankhurst: Artist and Crusader, by Richard Pankhurst, p. 129.
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