Women's Suffrage

Women's Suffrage as a Middle Class Liberal Cause 1867-1903

roamer state the mid-19th degree centigrade women's suffrage movement "was essenti every(prenominal)y a semipolitical movement run by middle-class women." A ample liberal cause of the day was the extension of the franchise to males upshot to fewer and fewer property qualifications under the Great tame Act of 1832 and the Second Reform Act of 1867. Mary Wollstonescraft with her defence of the Rights of Women in 1792 and William Thompson, believed to be a pseudonym for an Irish leave behind named Mrs. Wheeler, with his Appeal in 1825 had called for the emancipation of women but they were well in the lead their time. By the 1860s and 1870s, economic and social changes had taken place in the position of middle class Victorian women which Lewis described as follows:

As land gradually ceased to be a study source of middle class wealth, and as salaries became more important, so marriage ceased to be an essentially dynastic settlement in the midst of two kin groups and it became possible to grant women more freedom, both emotional (to marry whom they wished) and legal, within marriage

Under the get married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 women gained legal domination over their earnings and die property, respectively. The other property of the married couple remained, however, under the control of the husband. Fr

Atkinson, Diane. Votes for Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Mrs. Pankhurst's decision to move the HQ of the WSPU to London and to link forces with Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence was decisive. The latter provided the needed funds and, jibe to Sylvia Pankhurst, "the spectacular side of the propaganda, advertising the cause by kites, boats, poster, comprehensive and horseback parades." WSPU organized Women's parliaments at Caxton Hall which then marched to Parliament Square at the opening of Parliament each February from 1906 forth resulting in confrontations with the police and many arrests. According to Sylvia Pankhurst, "literally thousands of policemen on horse and foot were, time and again, turned out to disregard a few thousand women.

" The pageantry of the demonstration in Hyde Park in June 1908 which was attended by more than 500,000 was outstanding and undoubtedly helped publicize the cause.

Romero, Patricia A. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. New harbor: Yale University Press, 1987.

In 1897, all the suffragist organizations were brought together under the banner of the subject field Union of Women's Suffrage Society (NUWSS) which operated all over the expanse under the leadership of Mrs. Millicent Fawcett, its President. By 1904 a majority of 114 in Parliament was in favor of women's suffrage. In the meantime, there had been a substantial increase during the last quarter of the 19th century in the number of women in the labor force. By 1901, Rover says 5.3 million women or more than 25 percent of all adult women (as compared with 12.9 million men) were gainfully employed outside of interior(prenominal) service.

A group of women in Manchester and later the East finish up of London, known as the radical suffragists, which included Sylvia Pankhurst, the daughter of Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leave behind of an earlier male suffragist Richard Pankhurst, sought to expand the mass subaltern of the movement among working women by holding open phone line meetings
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