votes

Posters announce the Women's Political Union =Votes for Women= ENTERTAINMENT AND BALL to be given on SATURDAY, JANUARY 31

Suffragette gathering in NYC to publicize the upcoming Suffragette Ball and Dance Exhibition, to be held at the 71st Street Armory on January 31, 1914. Other Bain/LOC photos of this event:

First thing I thought of was that opening scene in Mary Poppins, "Votes For Women!"

Albert Kahn has a very similar autochrone (colour photograph) of the damage done to a shop in Piccadilly Circus by the Suffragettes in 1911. Heroes to the last ! The damage was aimed at shops who supplied the king (by appointment to HRH).

It seems almost certain that this photo and www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163047923 both show the aftermath of the same event, which had occurred on March 1, 1912. It may also be that the photo in this collection titled "London - arrest of a suffragette" is also showing a consequence of the same event, but there isn't enough context to say. The event was the subject of a news story on page 8 of The Times for the following day. Its title was "Suffragist Outrages | Wholesale Window Smashing in London | Attack on the Prime Minister's House". Included in the story were express references to the smashing of shop windows in Bond Street and in Regent Street. This photo is showing shops in Bond Street, while the other photo I mentioned in the first paragraph is showing a shop in Regent Street, as was pointed out by the third commenter on that photo.

In the US the women were suffragettes, but in the UK they were called suffragists

revans1953: Thanks for the comment. Interestingly, the term suffragist has also become the accepted subject term in our cataloging here at the Library, rather than suffragette. In the case of this photograph, we have transcribed an original caption, and since that caption was written by an American agency for the U.S. audience, it reflects the term in common American parlance at the time.

revans1953 says: In the US the women were suffragettes, but in the UK they were called suffragists Actually the militants (the ladies who broke the law and fought back) were called suffragettes on both sides of the pond. The suffragists were a different group altogether who stayed on the right side of the law and thought that debating the issue would win the day. The window smashing would have indeed been carried out by suffragettes, probably members of the WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union) who's slogan was 'Deeds Not Words'

movie poster (movie released in 1911) www.imdb.com/title/tt0175659/

Please see stumblng.tumblr.com/post/25897718, where I've written a mini-essay about this photo.

Poster by College Equal Suffrage League which was founded in 1906 to attract younger women to the Suffrage Cause.

This same photo is in the 2005 "Women Who Dare" desk calendar from the Library of Congress, with the subject identified as Susan Walker FItzgerald (1871-1943); she majored in political science at Bryn Mawr, founded the Student Government Association, campaigned for women's suffrage, and was one of the first two women elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Fitzgerald portrait elsewhere in the Commons uploads: