Deeds, but words too. The cultural production of the British suffrage movement

Abstract

A review of the historiography about the British suffrage movement allows us to trace a genealogy that alludes to the coexistence of two strands of social demand, represented mainly by the modus operandi of the NUWSS, a suffragist organization with a constitutionalist tendency, and, in the other hand, by the WSPU, deeply militant and oriented to direct action. However, a deeper analysis of the sources sheds light on an element shared by all the groups that were part of the movement, regardless of their methods: the commitment to a series of cultural and propaganda strategies focused on transmitting the message in a creative and pedagogical way. Thus, the different suffragette groups actively produced their own press, literature, theatre, art, memorials and even their own music.

This article intends to delve into some of these cultural proposals which the different feminist associations bequeathed to the world in their campaign to obtain the female vote in the United Kingdom, specifically those related to speech and voice. For this, I have consulted extensive literature and press elaborated by the protagonists of the movement, and I have researched about some of its most prominent figures.