The Connell Short Guide to The Suffragettes

The campaign for female political suffrage which erupted in the years before World War One was the most significant expression of feminist activism in British history. But the suffragettes were divided in their aims: should they try and win the vote for all women, or only for those in the middle and upper classes? They were divided, too, about tactics. Were the militants vital to the campaign’s success, or did peaceful activism, in the end, prove more effective? And how important was World War One itself in finally securing women the vote? Here Zoe Thomas examines both the arguments – and how historians have interpreted them.