Week One – Dance Exploration

In our first session of Dance, Catherine spoke through her most prominent/favourite
members of the Suffragette movement. She then went on to set us all some research
tasks to prepare us for the FMP and for (if we choose it) the dance pathway.

The four subjects that she wanted us to focus our research on were The Cat and Mouse
Act, Sylvia Pankhurst and Kitty Marion.

The Cat and Mouse Act

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-
heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/case-study-the-right-to-
vote/the-right-to-vote/winson-green-forcefeeding/cat-and-mouse-act/cat-and-mouse-act-
3/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_(Temporary_Discharge_for_Ill_Health)_Act_1913

"The government sought to deal with the problem of hunger striking suffragettes with the
1913 Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act, commonly known as the Cat and
Mouse Act.

This Act allowed for the early release of prisoners who were so weakened by hunger
striking that they were at risk of death. They were to be recalled to prison once their
health was recovered, where the process would begin again."

After the act was introduced force-feeding was no longer used to tackle the hunger
striking Suffragettes. Instead, they were kept in prison until they became extremely weak
and frail, at which point they would be released to recover. This allowed the government
to say that any harm or in serious cases death, which resulted from the starvation was
only the fault of the Suffragette.

• The Suffragette's were released from prison to get well and then rearrested when
they had eaten/recovered.
• The act only lasted until 1914 and the outbreak of the war.
Sylvia Pankhurst
http://sylviapankhurst.com/her_campaigns/sylvia_east_end.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Pankhurst

"In 1906, Sylvia Pankhurst started to work full-time for the Women's Social and Political
Union (WSPU) with her sister Christabel and their mother. She applied her artistic talents
on behalf of the WSPU, devising its logo and various leaflets, banners, and posters as well
as the decoration of its meeting halls. In 1907 she toured industrial towns in England and
Scotland, painting portraits of working-class women in their working environments. She
spent time in Leicester where she was welcomed by Alice Hawkins who she knew through
the Independent Labour Party. They were soon joined by Mary Gawthorpe and they
established a WSPU presence in Leicester.

In contrast to Emmeline and Christabel, Sylvia retained an affiliation with the labour
movement and concentrated her activity on local campaigning. She and Amy Bull founded
the East London Federation of the WSPU. Sylvia also contributed articles to the WSPU's
newspaper, Votes for Womenand, in 1911, she published a propagandist history of the
WSPU's campaign, The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage
Movement.

By 1914, Sylvia had many disagreements with the route the WSPU was taking. It had
become independent of any political party, but she wanted it to become an explicitly
socialist organisation tackling wider issues than women's suffrage and aligned with the
Independent Labour Party. She had a close personal relationship with the Labour politician
Keir Hardie. On 1 November 1913, Pankhurst showed her support in the Dublin Lockout
and spoke at a meeting in London. The members of the WSPU, particularly her sister
Christabel, did not agree with her actions, and consequently expelled her from the
union.[8] Her expulsion led to her founding of the East London Federation of Suffragettes,
which over the years evolved politically and changed its name accordingly, first to the
Women's Suffrage Federation and then to the Workers' Socialist Federation. She founded
the newspaper of the WSF, Women's Dreadnought, which subsequently became the
Workers' Dreadnought. The federation campaigned against the First World War and some
of its members hid conscientious objectors from the police."

• Daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst

• Pulled out of the Suffragette movement in 1913
• She set up mother and baby clinics and helped the poor
• She saved 800 Women's lives
• She was openly a pacifist
• She opened a restaurant to give food to the homeless or ones who couldn’t afford
• In 1915, she served over 400 meals daily
• She was a known supporter of the Labour party.
A labour party was set up by Kier Hardie, which supported the Suffragette movement and
their militant approach. This approach included setting fire to buildings, breaking
windows, interrupting parliament and going on hunger strike. Going on hunger strike led
the Suffragettes to be force fed in prison and in turn caused bad press for the Liberal
Party.

This was the opposite of the Suffragist movement, which was started by Millicent Fawcett
who was married to an MP. The Suffragists would peacefully speak to the MPs, but it
didn’t get them anywhere.

Kitty Marion
http://spartacus-educational.com/WmarionK.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Marion

"Marion joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908. She became a
prominent activist in the women's suffrage movement and often engaged in protests,
which sometimes turned violent. Marion was known as 'a prolific bomber and arsonist for
the suffragettes'. She was arrested numerous times in England for her activism.
Marion and Clara Elizabeth Giveen planned a reprisal after the death of Emily Davison at
the Derby. On 13 June 1913, the two of them set alight to the Hurst Park Grandstand.
Giveen was given three years in jail for arson but released under the Cat and Mouse Act
after going on hunger strike. Marion was also released but she had been force-fed 232
times during her imprisonment.

In 1914 Marion suffered some persecution for being German. Ada Wright together with
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Lady Constance Lytton and Rose Lamartine Yates raised the
money to pay her fare to emigrate to the United States, to avoid the anti-German
sentiment in the United Kingdom.

In the U.S., she worked with Margaret Sanger in publishing the Birth Control Review.
Marion sold the Review at US$.20 per copy in Times Square, Grand Central Station, and
Coney Island. Standing on street corners, she endured heckling, death threats, physical
abuse, and police harassment. Over the course of ten years, Marion was arrested nine
times for her birth controladvocacy. In 1921, Marion joined Sanger in establishing the first
birth-control clinic in the U.S. Located in Brooklyn, it was closed by the police.

Marion died in the Sanger Nursing Home in New York City on 9 October 1944."

• She was a militant Suffragette

• Born in Germany in 1871
• She was a dancer, and this was considered risky because of their clothing/skirts
• She set up Actresses Franchise League
• She joined the Suffragettes in 1908 and was first arrested in 1909, for throwing
stones at a post office and was in jail for 1 month
• Whilst in prison, she set fire to her mattress in protest