That same year, 15 states granted women the right to vote on the municipal level. With support from President Woodrow Wilson, Congress voted on the federal amendment five times between January 1918 and June 1919. To illustrate the power of posters and their prominence in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, I now discuss two posters available from the London School of Economics’ Picture Library. These two posters – one anti-suffrage, the other pro-suffrage – touch on two key themes in pro- and anti-women’s suffrage imagery: self-sacrifice and monstrosity, respectively.

As suffragettes increasingly found themselves jailed, many resisted unfair or inhumane imprisonment with hunger strikes. In response, jailers would often force-feed female prisoners with steel devices to pry open their mouths and long hoses inserted into their noses and down their throats. This caused severe damage to the women’s faces, mouths, lungs, and stomachs, sometimes causing illness and death. Newspapers would ridicule suffrage campaigners, depicting them as ugly, bullying harridans or infantile children. However, public opinion began to change as more forceful methods were used to control suffrage demonstrations. The aim was to portray women as feminine and fluffy – and incapable of understanding political debate. It was implied that you might as well give the vote to a cat. Many books are available in The National Archives’ reference library. You can search the library catalogue for titles of interest.Action to draw attention to the cause took place across the UK. It included refusing to complete the 1911 census, protest rallies and marches and destruction of property. Many suffragettes were prosecuted and some were imprisoned. In the U.S., the women's suffrage movement really came to fruition following an 1848 convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The meeting of 100 people, two-thirds of them women, was the first of its kind in the country. But with a pervasive patriarchy and the rise of the abolitionist movement at the onset of the Civil War, the suffrage movement in the U.S. briefly stalled. While pro-suffrage organizations and some commercial postcard publishers produced postcards that advocated for the women’s right to vote, many American and British commercial publishers created their own propaganda against the movement in their postcard sets. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA. It’s not just about whether women should be able to vote. It’s far more steeped and emotional and complex; it’s a cultural decision and a societal decision, and for some people, truly a moral decision. It’s much more than just a simple political act, or a simple bill or amendment to allow women to become full citizens. These women say very matter of factly that women’s suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation.” Image credit: Anonymous, We Want the Vote (1908). Source: Museum of London, image no. 010260. LSE Library; Museum of London Picture Library.

Some posters explicitly call for ‘law-abiding’ meetings. Delap explains that the movement became divided on tactics, as many felt the continued denial of rights forced more drastic action. Wikimedia Commons The 19th Amendment reads: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." Men’s League for Women’s Suffragewas founded in 1907 and supported the work of the WSPU and Women’s Freedom League. Records of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage and other men’s suffrage societies are dispersed throughout the collection. 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. OCR – A Level History: England and a New Century c1900-1918: Political issues: the issue of women’s suffrage 1906-1914.

LSE and the suffrage movement

Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the Census, Jill Liddington (Manchester University Press, 2014) Our collections contain primary source material relating to the campaign for women’s suffrage. The majority of this collection forms part of the Women’s Library, whose roots are founded in the suffrage movement. This collection includes personal papers of suffragists and suffragettes, records of suffrage organisations and the newspapers, journals and pamphlets published by these organisations. There are also badges, postcards, posters, banners and other 3D objects on this subject. Material relating to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, is dispersed throughout the collection. Papers relating to the WSPU can be found in the personal papers of suffragettes. The Daily Mail photos can be contrasted to some of those taken by the police in secret. Number 13 is a photo of Christabel Pankhurst.