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This week we begin the tumultuous story of the suffragettes. In 1903, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union. Sick of waiting in vain for women’s suffrage, they decided to secure it by hook or by crook. By 1906, the so-called suffragettes were the most exciting, audacious activists in the land, with their banners of purple, white and green. They then took on the might of the British state with ingenious protests and hunger strikes before agreeing to an uneasy two-year ceasefire while parliament wrestled over whether to give women the vote. We conclude part one at the end of 1911, with political failure and the dawn of a new phase of militancy.

Who were the Pankhursts and their inner circle? How did they interact with Millicent Fawcett’s moderate suffragists? Why were Liberal politicians so determined to deny women the vote? And could it all have worked out very differently? 

It’s a fiery story of courage, conflict and missed chances, as British women found their political voice for the first time.

Origin Story will be live at the Tabernacle in London on the 7th of November for a special post-US election show. Tickets here.

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Reading List

Diane Atkinson – Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes (2018)

Helen Lewis – Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights (2020)

Joyce Marlow (editor) – Suffragettes: The Fight for Votes for Women (2015)

Glenda Norquay (editor) – Voices and Votes: A Literary Anthology of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign (1995)

Christabel Pankhurst – Pressing Problems of the Coming Age (1924)

Christabel Pankhurst – Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote (1959)

Sylvia Pankhurst – The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement 1905-10 (1911)

Sylvia Pankhurst – The Suffragette Movement: An Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals (1931)

Mary R. Richardson – Laugh a Defiance (1953)

Fern Riddell – ‘Sanitising the Suffragettes’ (2018)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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