Women’s+Suffrage+Movement

=Women Suffrage Movement=

By Peter Schlafly
The women suffrage movement was the movement made by the women to give them the right to vote towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the strongest movements made were in the United States and in England, but there were still strong movements in the rest of Europe and the world. One of the reasons that the women's suffrage movement started around the time of the Industrial revolution was that the women were getting more jobs out of the house than they had before and getting more opportunities, which led them to want to have more rights and opportunities. One of the rights and opportunities that women wanted was the right to vote. In Britain women finally got the right to vote in 1928. This was 8 years after the US had given women the right to vote. Both of these countries were far behind New Zealand who granted women's suffrage in 1893.

Before the movement, women had very limited rights. They could not vote, in many countries they were unable to have a job, and generally they were often unable to own property.

Important Figures
One of the first women recorded to actively support women's rights was Mary Wollstonecraft. She was for London, and she was a writer and teacher. Wollstonecraft had published a work titled "Vindication of the Rights of Women". This was considered very controversial at the time because it stated that women should have the same education opportunities as men. Wollstonecraft lived from 1759-1797, which was earlier than most of the women's suffrage movement started.



One of the main leaders of the women's suffrage movement during it's peak was Millicent Garret Fawcett. She was from Britain and had siblings who where successful as well; her sister was the first female doctor in Britain. Fawcett did a great amount of public speaking on womens suffrage. She was the first president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Another group was the Womens Social and Political Union led by Emmiline Pankhurst, but Fawcett disagreed with the tactics the union used to make their point. She dies in 1929, but not before she had achieved her goal of womens suffrage.

Emmeline Pankhurst was also a very influential women in the movement. She was involved in several organizations and was the head of the Women's Social and Political Union. She lead a more extreme union than the others, she had militant tactics. The women of this union would go to jail, and serve time for their protests.

John Stuart Mill was an important male representative for the women. He had an important role on a petition that many women signed.

Effect on the 19th and 20th Century
The women's suffrage movement had a large impact on the 19th and 20th centuries.Part of the impact was that for a long period of time, the women had been thought of as inferior to men. They had much fewer rights than men, and they were generally though of as less than men. There were women in history and in the middle ages who were prominent figures, but almost all women were not. When the movement started and there were men starting to back up the movement, women began being heard and respected more than before. It also created a controversy in the 19th and 20th centuries because political groups would argue over what tey belive in.

Primary source
This is a picture of a postcard from the tiem of the movement. It shows how there was controversy in the subject of women's suffrage because it shows a women being arrested by a police officer for protesting for women's suffrage. This was a problem at the time, there were many women who were arrested and even spent time in jail for the militant like ways they would protest. It also shows that the women were not going to quit until they got what they wanted.

There was also a speech given by Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a large advocate of the movement and beleived in militant like protests, in which she said "Now, I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative; either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote". This quote proves that women found it very important to be able to vote, and have an impact on the society and politics.

=Bibliography=

"British Suffrage Postcard" //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>.

"Emmeline Pankhurst: speech on militant suffragism (1913)." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>.

"feminism." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>.

"Mary Wollstonecraft." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>. "Millicent Garrett Fawcett." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>.

"woman suffrage movement." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2009. <[]>.