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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is February nineteen. The day was February nine, nineteen

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Speaker 1: o seven. About three thousand women from more than forty

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Speaker 1: suffrage organizations marched from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall in

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Speaker 1: London to advocate for women's right to vote. The National

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Speaker 1: Union of Women's Suffrage Societies or in u w s

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Speaker 1: S had organized the United Procession of Women, as it

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Speaker 1: was officially called, led by suffragist Milicent Fawcett, Lady Jane Strachy,

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Speaker 1: Lady Francis Balfour, and Kier Hardy, and organized by Lady

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Speaker 1: Jane's daughter Philippus stc The march was the first of

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Speaker 1: a series of open air processions that were meant to

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Speaker 1: bring attention to the cause. Because of the dreary, rainy

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Speaker 1: weather that day, this event became known as the mud March.

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Speaker 1: But even though the marching women had to check through muddy,

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Speaker 1: rain soaked streets, the event was still successful at drawing

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Speaker 1: large crowds of spectators, increasing awareness about the movement and

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Speaker 1: affecting future change. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies

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Speaker 1: formed in and Milicent Fawcett headed up the organization, which

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Speaker 1: created petitions, held public meetings, handed out literature, and used

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Speaker 1: other non confrontational means to sway public opinion and convince

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Speaker 1: governments that women should have the right to vote. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, many others who believed women should be

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Speaker 1: able to vote did not job with the constitutionalist methods

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Speaker 1: of the n u w s S and other organizations,

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Speaker 1: so the Suffragets emerged on the opposite end of the

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Speaker 1: spectrum from the Suffragists. In nineteen o three, imminent Pankhurst

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Speaker 1: founded the Women's Social and Political Union, which grew to

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Speaker 1: include a lot more working class women and used direct

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Speaker 1: action to get their point across. The Suffragetts, as members

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Speaker 1: of this organization came to be known, interrupted political meetings,

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Speaker 1: heckled government officials, chained themselves to railings, destroyed property, staged

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Speaker 1: hunger strikes while they were in prison, and were otherwise

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Speaker 1: super militant in their advocacy. The organization's motto deeds not words,

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Speaker 1: pretty much sums up with the Suffragettes were all about.

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Speaker 1: These women were often decried as violent, called names like

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Speaker 1: shrieking sisterhood, and even assaulted, not all suffragettes agreed with

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Speaker 1: the direct action tactics in the Pancurs leadership, though, and

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Speaker 1: eventually the Women's Social and Political Union split. Needless to say,

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Speaker 1: the movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom was fractured.

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Speaker 1: But despite the differences in thought and approach among all

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Speaker 1: the organizations, suffragists and suffragettes recognize their common goal. That

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Speaker 1: was to get some women the vote. I say some

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Speaker 1: women because the people fighting for women's suffrage often just

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Speaker 1: wanted property owning women to be able to cast their votes. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the suffragists wanted to prove that they too could mobilize

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Speaker 1: a strong, attention grabbing protest, and they wanted to persuade

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Speaker 1: Parliament that women were totally behind the idea yea of

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Speaker 1: suffrage and that it was a good idea to enact

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Speaker 1: legislation around it. So in November nineteen o six, the

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Speaker 1: Central Society for Women's Suffrage proposed a demonstration that would

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Speaker 1: happen around the same time the next session of Parliament opened.

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Speaker 1: In Philippa Strachy, Lady Stracy's daughter, set to work on

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Speaker 1: organizing a march. The goal was to bring together a

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Speaker 1: bunch of suffrage societies to participate in the march, but

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Speaker 1: that was not an easy task because a lot of

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Speaker 1: those groups disagreed with one another on suffrage issues. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the Women's Social and Political Union was not officially invited

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Speaker 1: to the march because groups like the British Women's Temperance

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Speaker 1: Association refused to show up if they were But regardless

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Speaker 1: of hostilities, the show went on. The Artists Suffrage League

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Speaker 1: was established in January nineteen oh seven to create posters,

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Speaker 1: postcards and banners for the procession, and the march started

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Speaker 1: near Hyde Park Corner on February nine, nineteen o seven.

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Speaker 1: There was a band watching, crowds, decorated cars and carriages,

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Speaker 1: scheduled speakers, and women from all walks of life, though

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Speaker 1: I might add that the role of women of color

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Speaker 1: in the British Women's suffrage movement is hardly noted. But

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Speaker 1: the marchers and spectators stuck it out through the ugly weather.

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Speaker 1: Even though the march wasn't as much of a spectacle

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Speaker 1: as say, the smashing windows and setting off bombs that

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Speaker 1: some suffragettes were known for, it still was a very

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Speaker 1: public act of defiance. At the time, the social expectation

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Speaker 1: was still kind of this idea that women should be

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Speaker 1: seen and not heard, and taking to the streets to

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Speaker 1: protest wasn't exactly the most respectable thing to do. Many

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Speaker 1: women expected to lose their jobs, damage their reputations, and

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Speaker 1: be shamed if they marched, which made the march that

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Speaker 1: much more exciting and worthwhile. The march got a considerable

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Speaker 1: amount of press, both positive and negative, and Member of

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Speaker 1: Parliament Willoughby Dickinson did introduce a bill that would extend

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Speaker 1: voting rights to some women that same month, though it floundered,

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Speaker 1: but the march was the largest of his kind at

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Speaker 1: the time, and it spawned other large scale processions in

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Speaker 1: the women's suffrage movement. A segment of women over the

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Speaker 1: age of thirty won the right to vote in the

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Speaker 1: United Kingdom in nineteen eighteen, and suffrage was extended to

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Speaker 1: everyone over age one in nineteen I'm Eve Steff Coote,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. Here's a cool little tipit that

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Speaker 1: I found while I was researching this episode, and that's

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Speaker 1: that the term suffragette was supposed to be this term

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Speaker 1: of derision, but as happens with a lot of terms.

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Speaker 1: The group that it was meant to offend co opted

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Speaker 1: it and made it their own. So the suffix et

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Speaker 1: is meant to be a kind of diminutive, but some

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Speaker 1: Suffragettes switched up the meaning of that suffix. For instance,

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Speaker 1: Lady Hugh Bill said that that et suffix should be

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Speaker 1: turned into jet, which could refer to the jet of

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Speaker 1: enthusiasm and the suffrage movement, and the pank Hurst suggested

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Speaker 1: that jet that suffix could instead be pronounced as get,

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Speaker 1: as in get the vote. See you tomorrow for another episode.

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