History Cafe - Ep 3 The Secret History of the Suffragettes - #36 The Pankhursts didn’t want the poor to get the vote

Ep 3 The Secret History of the Suffragettes - #36 The Pankhursts didn’t want the poor to get the vote

03/08/24 • 30 min

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REPEAT FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMAN'S DAY The WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes - begin in the Manchester Labour Party in the 1890s and learn their publicity-grabbing tactics from Labour. But these tactics turn out to have the worst possible effect – making women’s votes even less likely than before. They are so bad, in fact, it makes you wonder whether the Suffragette leadership had some other agenda.

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Ep 4 The Secret History of the Suffragettes - #37 Hunger strikes and forced feeding

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REPEAT FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMAN'S DAY The militant strategy of the WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes - is delivering them headlines. It gets them nowhere with the government but it makes enormous sums of advertising revenue from fancy retailers, and funds Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst’s society lifestyle. Rich London ladies in silks and satins pour in the money, while working-class activists take all the risks. WSPU officer Theresa Billington drafts a constitution to give everyone a say but Emmeline Pankhurst tears it up and manoeuvres anyone with a socialist agenda out. Who exactly is this organisation for?

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Ep 2 The Secret History of the Suffragettes - #35 Most women didn’t want the vote

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REPEAT FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMAN'S DAY We go back to the great number of unsung women and men who made great strides towards women’s votes and female emancipation by 1900. Emmeline Pankhurst sets up her Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903 as a pressure group for votes for poor working-women in the cotton mills. By then a majority of MPs is already consistently in favour. But the public are uninterested and no government will therefore act. The question is whether the WSPU can find a formula for making ministers give votes to women.

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