It is unknown why Phillips sent the posters to Cambridge. The Sanskrit scholar C.M. Ridding, Girton graduate and member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, was working at the Library at the time – the first woman to be employed there – and may have encouraged the delivery. First large procession, known as the Mud March, organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies Until March 31, 2018, a selection of these rare and riveting posters will be on display in The University of Cambridge Library. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act,Cambridge University Library is exhibiting its striking women's suffrage poster collection. Before dealing with the campaigns’ caricatures, this paper will define the historical context: of the women’s movement and the formation of Suffragist and Suffragette (militant) organizations, and evoke the foundation of the Anti-Suffrage Leagues. This will be followed by the examination of the Anti-Suffragists’ utilization of caricature in contrast with Suffragette imagery. There is no denying that deeds helped the suffrage cause, however they were not the only mechanism through which Suffragettes demonstrated their politics and resisted the British government’s attempts to silence them and keep women outside of politics. By 1903, despite multiple requests by those pursuing women’s suffrage, a women’s vote had been repeatedly denied. As such, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union (WSPU), a militant organisation. She argued that drastic action was necessary because the peaceful words of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage (NSWS) and National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) were no longer helping the cause. While split on the best means to achieve suffrage, pro-suffrage groups were similar in their use of a new type of political spectacle (posters) and the production of a visual campaign that served their mutually desired end: the women’s vote.

By visualising women’s experiences, posters emphasised the poor treatment of women and Suffragettes’ while also showing the extremes Suffragettes went to in confronting patriarchy. They made visual moves to construct the government as threatening to suffragette prisoners’, and more generally women’s, lives. These posters circulated nationally and communicated to the public women’s experiences to a greater degree than talk of force-feeding alone could. It rendered the unimaginable imaginable by showing events. It also inspired action. Posters of force-feeding and women’s suffering became crucial to revealing women’s insecurities by calling attention to the pervasiveness of patriarchal controls over their bodies and the definitions of acceptable femininity that constrained women to the domestic, private, sphere. In an article that appeared in The Times on 27th February, 1909, Ward wrote: "Women's suffrage is a more dangerous leap in the dark than it was in the 1860s because of the vast growth of the Empire, the immense increase of England's imperial responsibilities, and therewith the increased complexity and risk of the problems which lie before our statesmen - constitutional, legal, financial, military, international problems - problems of men, only to be solved by the labour and special knowledge of men, and where the men who bear the burden ought to be left unhampered by the political inexperience of women." Anti-suffragette postcard (1909) As a campaign tactic, we think this is particularly important, recognising the value of both young people and the education system in championing a more gender-equitable world, placing advocacy in the hands of the next generation. Read Votes for Womenand the Woman’s Dreadnoughtwhich provide insights into the campaign. You can also access physical copies of Votes for Women and the Woman's Dreadnought at the Women's Library.The Transformative Power of the Arts in Victorian and Edwardian Culture and Society / 58 e Congrès de la SAES, atelier de la SFEVE, Utopia(s) and Revolution(s) What did one find when one got into the company of women and talked politics? They were soon asked to stop talking silly politics, and yet that was the type of people to whom we were invited to hand over the destinies of the country.

The women's suffrage movement was alive in both 19th-century America and Britain. The movement was begun by middle-class white women in Britain in the mid-1800s, but the issue of women's voting rights remained largely ignored by the general public and Parliament. William Cremer was one of the leading opponents of women's suffrage. Hansard reported a speech he made in the House of Commons on women's suffrage on 25th April, 1906, he argued: "He (William Cremer) had always contended that if we opened the door and enfranchised ever so small a number of females, they could not possibly close it, and that it ultimately meant adult suffrage. The government of the country would therefore be handed over to a majority who would not be men, but women. Women are creatures of impulse and emotion and did not decide questions on the ground of reason as men did. He was sometimes described as a woman-hater, but he had had two wives, and he thought that was the best answer he could give to those who called him a woman-hater. He was too fond of them to drag them into the political arena and to ask them to undertake responsibilities, duties and obligations which they did not understand and did not care for." An anti-suffrage postcard published in 1900. This act became popularly known as the “Cat and Mouse Act,” as the government was seen as toying with their female prey as a cat would a mouse. Suddenly, the cat takes on a decidedly more masculine, “tom cat” persona. The cat now represented the violent realities of women’s struggle for political rights in the male public sphere.such as the Women's Social and Political Union, believed in taking ‘direct action’ to achieve the right to Explore the women’s rights collection on LSE Digital Library. It contains two sets of suffrage newspapers and journals, pamphlets and leaflets and the annual reports of suffrage groups, covering the campaign from the late 19th century to 1928 when women achieved equal voting rights with men. Here are the three main suffrage newspapers: Militant suffrage supporters were known as suffragettes and non-militant campaigners were known as suffragists. Often, the government used the terms interchangeably or not at all. Our records cover the whole of England and Wales, but the only police records we hold are from the Metropolitan Police force. Records of other police forces are held in local archives 3. What can I view online? 3.1 Suffragette collection

Moreover, the then Librarian, Francis Jenkinson, was known to value “unconsidered trifles” such as flyers and postcards. He gathered a vast collection of this ‘disposable literature’ during the First World War.Hold a debate on the case for/against the different tactics used by suffragettes or debate police/authorities responses’ to the campaign. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA. Anti-suffrage propaganda was more about keeping women domesticated rather than equal voting rights. It is important that students recognise that the same document can serve as evidence for more than one line of enquiry. Encourage students to interpret the records, spot inferences and try and detect any unwitting testimony. Here are some general guidance questions to help them evaluate and understand documents. Teachers may wish to print these out and discuss with the students before looking at the material. In the summer of 1908 the famous author, Mary Humphry Ward, was approached by Lord Curzon and William Cremer and asked to become the first president of the Anti-Suffrage League. Ward agreed and on 8th July, 1908 the organisation published its manifesto. It included the following: "It is time that the women who are opposed to the concession of the parliamentary franchise to women should make themselves fully and widely heard. The matter is urgent. Unless those who hold that the success of the women's suffrage movement would bring disaster upon England are prepared to take immediate and effective action, judgement may go by default and our country drift towards a momentous revolution, both social and political, before it has realised the dangers involved." Anti-Suffrage Postcard (1908)