Struggle And Suffrage In Nottingham

Struggle and Suffrage in Nottingham is the story of many women across the generations and their struggle for equality. This was not just a struggle for the vote but also for equality in the workplace and even in their own homes. Women gave a great deal to this country and still do. This book is a celebration of just some of those women whose stories as a whole are too many to tell. We owe our privileges today to those many women who struggled for the freedoms we are allowed to take for granted today. The centenary that is the subject of this book covers two world wars where women took on men’s jobs, with many sacrificing their lives along the way. These women suffered humiliation and force feeding in their quest for the vote and yet continued working towards their dream. This is the first book to concentrate solely on this period in women’s history in our county and shows the struggle women endured at a time when equality was rare among men as well. A woman’s job was seen to be purely looking after the house and raising children. Many men felt threatened by any woman who wanted more. Using many primary sources, including minutes of Nottingham women’s many social groups, this book tells of the women of Nottingham and their work, until now largely hidden behind the prominent men of Nottingham and its county. It tells of their welfare work, their war work, their political efforts and the hardships endured in their own homes. Included are the stories of Helen Watts, suffragette; Lady Laura Ridding, wife of the Bishop of Southwell; Lady Maud Rolleston, who followed her husband to the Boer War; as well as ordinary women undertaking war work, some of whom were Canary Girls in the munitions factories who lost their lives in an explosion in 1918. Nottingham is a city known for its rebellious acts, this centenary in women’s history was no different. This book is merely a place to start when looking at this period in our local history. It cannot cover but a small amount of the work carried out in our city by innumerable women over the centuries.

Much has been written about the men of Wakefield, but apart from a couple of well-documented individuals, the women of Wakefield have remained largely ignored. Yet many women in this prosperous West Riding town worked hard to improve their lives and those of other women. Whether this was healthcare, housing, working conditions or providing refuge and training so that girls with no means of support could be made fit for employment, Wakefield’s women worked separately and together to achieve their mutual goals. Some were active campaigners and lobbyists, others chose vocations that quietly improved the lives of the women around them. Struggle and Suffrage in Wakefield uses historical newspaper articles, minutes of meetings, annual reports, first-hand stories and research into census returns to illustrate how women’s lives changed over a 100 year period and reveal some of those Wakefield women whose influence made things happen.

This volume examines different types of women’s creative writing in support of the demand for the parliamentary vote, including autobiographies, memoirs, letters, diaries, novels, and drama. The women’s suffrage movement became far more visible in the Edwardian period. Large demonstrations and militant actions such as destruction of property were widely reported in the press and reached a wide audience. Eager to get their message across, suffrage campaigners not only took collective action but also used women’s creative talents—whether as artists, musicians, or writers—to win hearts and minds for the cause. Through a close reading of contemporary texts, the chapters in this book reveal the diverse nature of the suffrage movement and its ideas, and the complex relationship between the personal and the political. The contributors also highlight the significance of women’s writing as a means to advance the suffrage cause and as a key element of suffrage propaganda. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.

Presents the best of recent feminist scholarship on the suffrage movement, illustrating its complexity, richness and diversity.