Emmeline Pankhurst's Suffrage

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Emmeline Pankhurst was a British suffragette and activist whose political advocacy won women voting rights. She organized the Women’s Social and Political Union and actively participated in the Independent Labor Union party for most of her life. She focused on establishing legal gender equality and, later, supporting Britain during World War I.

==Young Life and Education==

Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst was born in Moss Side, Manchester, England on July 15, 1858 to a family of political activists. Sophia Jane Craine, her mother, came from the Manx people on the Isle of Man. Robert Goulden, her father, grew up in large, political charged family from Manchester as well.Bartley, 2003 Pankhurst became fully immersed in her parent’s activist lifestyle. …show more content…

Pankhurst chose to join the second, but disagreed with the organization’s limited goals in only getting single women and widows the right to vote since a husband could vote for a married woman. The Pankhurst's decided to found a new group to advocate for universal women’s suffrage. The Woman’s Franchise League (WFL) held it’s first meeting at their home on July 25, 1889, but only survived one year due to it's extremely progressive ideals of labor unions and legal gender equality.Purvis, …show more content…

Arrested in February 1908 for the first time, Emmeline Pankhurst gave a speech after and discovered incarceration helped publicize her cause. She prompted her own imprisonment several times.Emmeline Pankhurst fully supported the violent tactics used by WSPU members even if she did not give the orders herself. In 1908, WSPU began using more aggressive tactics, including smashing windows, vandalism, and hunger strikes. WSPU members across the nation use the latter to protest their imprisonment and many were force fed bringing attention and condemnation from doctors and fellow suffragists. Pankhurst staged several hunger strikes during her seven incarcerations and, although force-fed at first, prison officials stopped and released her to recover. Their aggressive strategies increased in 1912 with members using axes, acid, and arson. Emmeline Pankhurst gave her famous “Freedom or Death” speech on November 13, 1913, addressing the desperate reasons behind WSPU’s violent tactics.Bartley,

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