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Enquiry 2 What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for?

Explore the goals and tactics of suffrage campaigners in the 19th century, including suffragettes and suffragists, and examine the disagreements that emerged within the movement. Analyze the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), their policy of militancy, and the split that led to the Women's Freedom League. Discover whether the dispute was primarily about tactics or representative of a deeper conflict.

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Enquiry 2 What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for?

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  1. Enquiry 2What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for?

  2. Enquiry overview Lesson 1: What were the nineteenth-century campaigners fighting for? Lesson 2: What were the radical suffragists fighting for? Lesson 3: Were the suffragettes and the suffragists fighting for the same things? Lesson 4: What were different people within the suffrage movement fighting for? Lesson 5: What had been won by 1918? Outcome activity: Write an extended explanation answering the enquiry question.

  3. Lesson 3Were the suffragettes and the suffragists fighting for the same things?

  4. Lesson 3 overview • Content covered in the lesson: • The formation of the WSPU in 1903 and the adoption of the policy of militancy in 1905. • The key aims and beliefs of the WSPU. • The move to London in 1906 and the escalation of suffragette tactics. • The split in the WSPU in 1907 and the formation of the Women’s Freedom League. • Criticism of suffragette militancy and the violence and dictatorial style of the Pankhursts. • Was the dispute mainly about tactics or representative of a deeper conflict?

  5. What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for? Recap • Recap: By the end of the nineteenth century, how could working-class women become involved in the fight for the vote? • In the late nineteenth century, more avenues were opening up for working-class women to get involved in politics. Trade unions, the co-operative movement and the Independent Labour Party offered them a platform to make their voices heard. • The 1894 Local Government Act allowed women like Selina Cooper and Harriet Beanland to stand for election to their local Boards of Guardians. This gave them political experience and an interest in joining the campaign for votes for women. • Helen Silcock tried to get the TUC to endorse women’s suffrage. However, the trade unions preferred to support full adult suffrage as they feared that only wealthy women would be given the vote.

  6. The formation of the WSPU in 1903 and the adoption of the policy of militancy in 1905 In 1903, the WSPU was formed in frustration at the lack of progress made towards women’s suffrage, particularly by the radical suffragists and the ILP. In 1906, it moved to London and, in the process, split off from many of the other suffrage organisations. In this lesson, we are going to look at whether the suffragettes and the suffragists disagreed primarily about why they wanted the vote or the tactics they used to campaign for it. WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union Militancy The policy of civil disobedience and violent attacks on property that the WSPU pursued in order to be arrested and gain publicity

  7. What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for? Activity: How far did the suffragettes and the suffragists agree about what the vote was for? Your challenge is to sort out the aims and beliefs of the suffragettes and the suffragists. • Tasks: • Which of these ideas would the nineteenth-century suffragists have agreed with? • Which of these ideas would the radical suffragists have agreed with? • Remember, areas of disagreement might be represented not only by direct conflict in ideas but also by the suffragettes mentioning ideas that the suffragists ignored or by the suffragettes leaving out ideas that either the nineteenth-century suffragists or the radical suffragists considered important. • You should highlight or annotate the quotes when you think you have identified areas of agreement or disagreement.

  8. How far did the suffragettes and the suffragists agree about what the vote was for? Debate motion: ‘The aims of the suffragettes are correct, but their tactics are unnecessary.’ Group 1: The WSPU Group 2: The NUWSS – representing Millicent Fawcett and the more middle-class campaigners as well as the radical suffragists Group 3: The Women’s Freedom League

  9. The move to London in 1906 and the escalation of suffragette tactics Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the suffragists, seemed to approve of the suffragettes in 1906. How far would she have changed her mind by 1914? I take this opportunity of saying that, in my opinion, far from having injured the movement, they (the WSPU) have done more during the last twelve months to bring it within the realms of practical politics than we have been able to accomplish in the same number of years. Millicent Fawcett, 1906

  10. The split in the WSPU in 1907 and the formation of the Women’s Freedom League In 1907, tensions over Emmeline Pankhurst’s leadership style and the tactics used by the WSPU led to a split in the group. Some members of the WSPU were concerned that Emmeline Pankhurst was making decisions without consulting members and that the militant tactics of the group were becoming increasingly violent. These disagreements came out into the open during a WSPU conference in September 1907, when Emmeline Pankhurst made a speech where she announced that she was going to run the WSPU without interference, and called on members to follow her and to devote themselves solely to winning the vote. As a result, a group of women led by Charlotte Despard left the WSPU to found the Women’s Freedom League. The WFL was a militant organisation and its members were prepared to break the law, but it was entirely non-violent. At its height, it had 4,000 members, which was almost twice the size of the WSPU.

  11. The split in the WSPU in 1907 and the formation of the Women’s Freedom League Activity: How far did the suffragettes and the suffragists disagree about how to achieve the vote? Your challenge is to explore how far the division between the suffragists and suffragettes was due to the WSPU’s tactics. • Tasks: • You are going to be assigned a key figure from the WSPU, the suffragist organisation the NUWSS or the Women’s Freedom League (the WFL). • On your sheets, there is some information about the NUWSS and the WFL, as well as a timeline of the WSPU’s activities, to help you to decide where you are going to stand on the continuum line. • Once you have read your character card and the information on the sheet, you are going to stand in a line from one side of the classroom to another, depending on how far you approve or disapprove of each action taken by the suffragettes.

  12. The nineteenth-centurycampaigners People in the suffrage movement The suffragettes The radical suffragists What were the suffrage campaigners fighting for? Plenary: Was the dispute mainly about tactics or representative of a deeper conflict? Which women would be left out of these campaigns by the dawn of the twentieth century?

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