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The image of middle-class women chaining themselves to the rails of 10 Downing Street, smashing windows of public buildings, and going on hunger strikes in the cause of "votes for women" have become visually synonymous with the British suffragette movement over the past century. Their story has become a defining moment in feminist history, in effect separating women's fight for voting rights from contemporary issues in British political history and disconnecting their militancy from other forms of political activism in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawing upon private papers, pamphlets, newspapers, and the records of a range of suffrage and political organizations, Laura E. ...
This edited collection examines the campaign for women's suffrage from an international perspective. Leading international scholars explore the relationship between suffragism and other areas of social and political struggle, and examine the ideological and cultural implications of gendered constructions of 'race', nation and empire. The book includes comprehensive case-studies of Britain, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Palestine.
Honorable Mention for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical AssociationChosen by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title of 2003 In 1891, newspapers all over the world carried reports of the death of H. P. Blavatsky, the mysterious Russian woman who was the spiritual founder of the Theosophical Society. With the help of the equally mysterious Mahatmas who were her teachers, Blavatsky claimed to have brought the "ancient wisdom of the East" to the rescue of a materialistic West. In England, Blavatsky's earliest followers were mostly men, but a generation later the Theosophical Society was dominated by women, and theosophy had become a crucial part of feminist pol...
'Votes should be weighed, not counted', Nineteenth-century liberals argued. This study analyzes parliamentary suffrage debates in England, France and Germany, showing that liberals throughout Europe used a distinctive political language, 'the discourse of capacity', to limit political participation. This language defined liberals, and they used it to define and limit full citizenship. The rise of consumer culture at the end of the century drove the discourse of capacity from politics, but it survives today in education and the professions.
Feminism has dramatically influenced the way literary texts are read, taught and evaluated. Feminist literary theory has deliberately transgressed traditional boundaries between literature, philosophy and the social sciences in order to understand how gender has been constructed and represented through language. This lively and thought-provoking Companion presents a range of approaches to the field. Some of the essays demonstrate feminist critical principles at work in analysing texts, while others take a step back to trace the development of a particular feminist literary method. The essays draw on a range of primary material from the medieval period to postmodernism and from several countries, disciplines and genres. Each essay suggests further reading to explore this field further. This is the most accessible guide available both for students of literature new to this developing field, and for students of gender studies and readers interested in the interactions of feminism, literary criticism and literature.
London's Soho district underwent a spectacular transformation between the late Victorian era and the end of the Second World War: its fin-de-siècle buildings and dark streets infamous for sex, crime, political disloyalty, and ethnic diversity became a center of culinary and cultural tourism servicing patrons of nearby shops and theaters. Indulgences for the privileged and the upwardly mobile edged a dangerous, transgressive space imagined to be "outside" the nation. Treating Soho as exceptional, but also representative of London's urban transformation, Judith Walkowitz shows how the area's foreignness, liminality, and porousness were key to the explosion of culture and development of modernity in the first half of the twentieth century. She draws on a vast and unusual range of sources to stitch together a rich patchwork quilt of vivid stories and unforgettable characters, revealing how Soho became a showcase for a new cosmopolitan identity.
This is the most comprehensive analysis to date of women's involvement in British political culture in the first half of the 19th century. Innovative in its attention to both urban and rural experiences of politics, the volume also challenges many assumptions about contemporary politics, including fresh insights into the Reform Act of 1832.
Emmeline Pankhurst was perhaps the most influential woman of the twentieth century. Today her name is synonymous with the 'votes for women' campaign and she is remembered as the most brave and inspirational suffrage leader in history. In this absorbing account of her life both before and after the campaign for women's suffrage, June Purvis documents her early political work, her active role within the suffrage movement and her role as a wife and mother within her family. This fascinating full-length biography of Emmeline Pankhurst, the first for nearly seventy years, draws upon new approaches to feminist biography to place her within the context of her family and friends. It is based upon an unrivalled range of primary sources, including personal interviews with her surviving family.
Annotation This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the campaign for women's suffrage to appear for over thirty years. It challenges the conventional chronology of the subject by arguing that the Victorian suffragists did not undergo a decline during the 1890s but, on the contrary, hadeffectively won the argument about votes for women by 1900. This view is supported by evidence of the ineffectiveness of Anti-Suffragism, and especially the difficulties it encountered in trying to reconcile female Antis, who were often feminists, with male Antis, who opposed all forms ofemancipation. The author adds a new dimension to the argument by discussing the beneficial impact on the British camp...
Before he fell in love with Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII had fallen in love with America. As a young Prince of Wales, Edward witnessed the birth of the American century at the end of the First World War and, captivated by the energy, confidence, and raw power of the USA as it strode onto the world stage, he paid a number of subsequent visits: surfing in Hawaii; dancing with an American shop-girl in Panama; and partying with the cream of New York society on Long Island. Eventually, of course, he fell violently in love with Wallis, a Southern belle and latter-day Scarlett O'Hara. Forceful, irreverent, and sassy, she embodied everything that Edward admired about modern America. But Edward's fascination with America was not unreciprocated. America was equally fascinated by the Prince, especially his love life, and he became an international media celebrity through newsreels, radio, and the press. Indeed, even in the decades after his abdication in 1936, Edward remained a celebrity in the US and a regular guest of Presidents and the elite of American society.