The History Book

262

DEEDS NOT

WORDS

THE DEATH OF EMILY DAVISON (1913)

O

n June 4, 1913, Emily

Davison stepped onto

the course at the Derby,

England’s premier horse race, and

was knocked to the ground by a

horse owned by King George V. She

died four days later. It is unclear if

this was a protest that went wrong

or an active attempt at martyrdom.

However, the intended disruption

was typical of the Women’s Social

and Political Union (WSPU), which

Davison had joined in 1906.

Britain: the suffragettes

Women in the West had begun to

feel that they, and by extension

those elsewhere, should no longer

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Women’s suffrage

BEFORE

1869 In the US, the National

Woman Suffrage Association

and American Women Suffrage

Association are formed.

1893 New Zealand is the

first country to grant women

the vote.

1897 The National Union of

Women’s Suffrage Societies is

formed in Britain. It campaigns

peacefully for the right to vote.

1903 Emmeline Pankhurst

forms the Women’s Social and

Political Union in Britain. Vote

campaigns grow violent.

AFTER

1917 The National Women’s

Party begins a 30-month

protest at the White House.

1918 All women 30 or over are

granted the vote in Britain.

1920 The vote is granted to all

American women 21 and over.

More women are educated and hold professional posts,

raising expectations for them to have the right to vote.

Societies are established to campaign for women’s

suffrage, particularly in Britain and the United States.

Militant campaigners from Britain’s Women’s Social

and Political Union are arrested and imprisoned.

Emily Davison’s death raises the profile

of women’s suffrage across the world.

Women’s war work emphasizes their capabilities. British

women win the vote in 1918; American women, in 1920.

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263

Emily Davison, George V’s horse

Anmer, and jockey Herbert Jones lie on

Epsom race track after Davison’s actions

to draw attention to the cause. The

suffragette was the only one to perish.

See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The Battle of Passchendaele 270–75 ■

The March on Washington 311 ■ The 1968 protests 324 ■ The release of Nelson Mandela 325

CHANGING SOCIETIES

be regarded as second-class

citizens. Extension of the right to

vote to increasing numbers of men

in countries such as Britain and

the United States had left them

asking why women should not be

entitled to vote. In 1903, Emmeline

Pankhurst founded the WSPU with

the aim of using militant tactics

to further this cause. Its slogan

declared “Deeds not words,” and

the tactics of the suffragettes,

as the vote-seeking women were

by now mockingly known, became

increasingly violent. Chaining

themselves to public buildings and

the disruption of meetings escalated

into the smashing of shop windows,

acts of arson, and bombings.

The more active members of the

WSPU were repeatedly arrested and

imprisoned: Pankhurst received

seven prison sentences; Davison,

nine. In 1909, the WSPU began to

stage hunger strikes in prison; in

response they were force-fed—a

painful and degrading process.

The US: the suffragists

The experience of what in the US

were known as the suffragists

had clear parallels. The Women’s

Christian Temperance Union

campaigned peacefully for women’s

rights, arguing that women could

not influence political decisions—

in this case, Prohibition—without

having the right to vote.

However, the National Women’s

Party (NWP), established in 1916,

imitated the militant tactics of

Britain’s WSPU. This was no

surprise, given that its founder,

Alice Paul, had been a member of

the WSPU from 1907 to 1910 and

had been sent to prison three

times. The NWP’s so-called Silent

Sentinels, protesting outside the

White House from January 1917,

were also arrested and force-fed.

Success at last

At the outbreak of World War I,

the WSPU stopped campaigning,

mobilizing itself instead in support

of the war effort. The contribution

made by women during the war

plainly demonstrated just how

much wider their role could be than

that traditionally expected of them

as wives and mothers. In 1918, all

British women aged 30 or over

were granted the right to vote.

In 1928, suffrage in Britain was

extended to women aged 21 or over.

Meanwhile, in the United States,

the NWP continued its protest into

1919, when Congress approved the

Nineteenth Amendment, which

was ratified the following year,

granting women the same voting

rights as men. ■

Emmeline Pankhurst The best known of all the

suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst

(1858–1928) epitomized a new

breed of politically active women

in the early 20th century. She was

born into—and later remained

in by marriage—an eminently

respectable, somewhat left-

leaning middle-class world in

the north of England, which only

served to cement her desire to

further the cause of women’s

rights. This decision would prove

explosive. She was single-minded,

exceptionally active, and wholly

unflinching in her refusal to

compromise. Her leadership

of the WSPU exhibited a

determination to take the fight

for women’s suffrage into the

heart of what she saw as the

enemy camp. Her increasing

readiness to use more violent

methods to secure suffragette

goals alienated many who may

otherwise have been her natural

supporters—women as much as

men. Nonetheless, her absolute

refusal to back down, coupled

with the fervor she inspired

in her followers, introduced a

new mood of feminist militancy

into a complacent masculine

political world.

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