Sylvia Pankhurst
(And Her Friends)

Sylvia Pankhurst was a British, yes, a British advocate of women's rights. In her time and era that also meant she was a suffragette. For those who have lived in a paper bag for nearly a century, a suffragette is someone who says women should have the right to vote.

Women were not permitted to vote in England until 1918. Since England has been an independent country since 410 AD, Americans smile that this was a long time for John Bull to drag his feet. But the citizens of Albion can point their fingers and snort that the so-called "Land of the Free and Home of the Buck" didn't let the ladies in the booths until 1920. That's when United States adopted the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Weeeeeelllllll, hold on there, cousins. In the United States there was never any actual prohibition against women voting. People in smaller nations - England's about the size of Minnesota - don't quite understand the logistics in running a country about 3000 miles wide and 1500 miles tall. Particularly since it's a country where no one really gets along.

The Founding Fathers decided that who can and cannot vote was a states' rights issue. Although it wasn't necessarily intentional, in some of the states, the wording of their individual constitutions allowed women to vote. When the all-male legislatures realized their faux pas, they closed the loopholes, and during the first half of the 19th century no women in America could vote.

The point to remember is in the US virtually all issues related to office holders - who can vote, how votes are tabulated, and such - are dictated by state laws. In that sense there are really no federal elections. Even how you select the electors for the President is entirely up to the states. They could choose them by lot if they wanted.

However, before the Civil War a number of abolitionist had been women - Harriet Tubman and Ida Wells for instance - and after the war the ladies took up the issue of women's rights. Bowing to the inevitable a number of states soon granted women voting rights - sometimes even before they were states. Wyoming and Utah gave the ladies the vote in 1869 and 1870, and yes, the Mormon patriarch Brigham Young supported votes for women.

Sadly, though, claiming something is a state issue is historically a way to allow politicians to waffle out of controversial issues. Stephen Douglas was notorious is using popular sovereignty to say different things to different audiences regarding slavery. More recently state's rights has been cited when it comes to the topic of ...

Well, we'll let that go for now.

In any case, what you eventually have is a situation where if you move from one state to another you may find yourself prohibited from what you took for granted. On the other hand, states are also required to recognize a status granted to a citizen of another state. So you end up with a mess.

Eventually the Federal Government has to step in, whether by Constitutional Amendment or legislation. For instance, the 14th Amendment was supposed to enable the former slaves and their descendants to vote. But because of - quote - "state's rights" - unquote - certain states (of which region we will not name) managed to pass laws that more or less kept the Americans of African descent out of the polling booths. These were the conditions that prevailed (to quote Jimmy Durante) until 1965 with the passage of the recently de-activated Voting Rights Act.

But what the 19th Amendment did was to remove all prohibitions of voting based on gender in any election in the United States. In other words, the amendment said that if the states wanted to set up elections, they had to let women vote.

Of course, nowadays most countries permit women to vote - including Saudi Arabia (where they only have municipal elections). You'll hear that the one country remaining today where women are not enfranchised is Vatican City. Technically this is true, but Vatican City is also an absolute monarchy where the only voting is to elect the Pope. So no one votes unless you're a cardinal. So when the Church updates the rules and allows lady prelates, women will be able to vote in VC as well. And when that happens we should thank Sylvia Pankhurst and her friends.

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was born on May 5, 1882, in Manchester, England. Always interested in art, she enrolled in the Manchester School of Art and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. Her paintings show considerable ability and - especially those she painted of working class women at their jobs - are similar in style to the American "Ashcan" School of Robert Henri, John Sloan, and others.

But a talented young lady wanting to pursue an artistic career was something of an anomaly chez Pankhurst. From what we read it seems that the household was more interested in achieving social and political change to better the world and had little time left over to be a family.

Sylvia's dad was Richard Pankhurst - whom Sylvia adored - and he was pretty much an all around professional reformer and human rights advocate - particularly of rights that the British government didn't approve of. He also ran for Parliament and was unsuccessful.

Sylvia is (arguably) the best known suffragette today, but at the time her mom, Emmeline, and sister, Christabel, eclipsed her fame. Other famous suffragettes were Elizabeth Candy Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Ida Wells, and Emily Davidson, who was actually killed when attempting a spectacular protest at the Epsom Derby horse race in 1913.

Mother Emmeline had formed the Women's Social and Political Union usually abbreviated as the WSPU. This was formed for the general purpose of promoting women's rights and the specific purpose of getting women the vote. The ladies of the WSPU were not content to simply bide their time until society would be open to the idea of women voting, and their tactics quickly became fraught with controversy.

The controversy is pretty easy to understand. Emmeline had no hesitation in using violence to effect change. Usually the violence was limited to damage to property - smashing windows was popular - and resisting the orders of police officers to disperse. Later though some of the suffragettes began to set fires to buildings and in some cases attempted to injure public figures.

Of course, the men simply nodded and said, see, we told you so. How can you give women the vote when their behavior clearly shows they are irrational and go around smashing windows and setting fires? Said by men who were about to start a war that no one today can agree why it started.

Emmeline expected her daughters not only to join in her activities but also to do her bidding. One time Emmeline told Sylvia to burn down Nottingham Castle. Whether Sylvia thought it would be an impossible task - the castle is made out of stone - or if she thought it not a nice thing to do - Sylvia ignored her mom's order.

Not that Sylvia avoided confrontations although her modus was what we now call civil disobedience. She was arrested a number of times. The first time she went to jail was on the 23rd of October, 1906. Sylvia and some of her friends entered the House of Commons. They started a protest and someone called the cops.

The ladies were all taken down to the Bow Street magistrates. The bewigged judge was about to release them on probation without posting bond (called "bound over to be on good behavior" in the Britishpatois), but the ladies demanded that they be allowed to speak. The police simply herded them outside. Immediately Sylvia returned and started griping at the judge who then ordered her arrest. She was sentenced to imprisonment for two weeks with the option of paying a £1 fine. Sylvia refused to pay anything and was taken to the H. M. Prison Holloway. There she slept on a hard mattress, ate meager rations, and did the menial tasks assigned.

Sylvia never married but to use today's trite wordage she - quote - "became involved" - unquote - with an Italian activist - the anarchist, Silvio Corio. At age 45 Sylvia had a son, Richard. Of course, because of Sylvia's busy schedule, Richard was largely raised by nannies. This, though, was pretty typical of the time and even today it's preferred by the posh. Richard himself went on to obtain a doctorate from the London School of Economics and was later awarded an OBE.

Today we think nothing about women going to the polls, standing for office, and even serving as presidents and prime ministers. But the modern attitude was a long time coming, and even intelligent and educated people used to shake their heads at the effrontery of the audacious women who should be tending the home and looking after the servants.

Some women even opposed the women's right to vote, for crying out loud! One of the most vehement of these distaff opponents was Gertrude Bell, the famous expert of Arab culture. Although she was the first woman to complete a degree program at Oxford, Gertrude thought that the ladies she knew were all far too flighty to be given political responsibility. She didn't change her mind for quite a while (if ever), and in 1908, she officially joined the anti-suffrage movement.

There were also men of education and attainment who, if not actually opposing women's rights, had doubts about giving the ladies full equality. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, penned a letter where he wrote about women having natural limits in intellectual ability. But Ronald, we have to admit, was a conservative, and to be fair, we should mention that he had a number of women pupils who he guided to their Ph. D.'s.

And yet therewere even - quote - "liberals" - unquote - who could fall victim to the women-aren't-as-capable-as-men trap. Famed lawyer and iconoclast Clarence Darrow was one, and once remarked (to a woman) that "votes for women would put progress back fifty years". But he voted for suffrage anyway.

After the War to End All Wars - English women finally got the vote - provided they were at least 30 years old. Eventually the proviso was altered to where ladies in England - and in America - all citizens can vote if you're at least 18 years old.

Usually when social or political milestones are achieved, the mainstream citizen leans back in his recliner, opens a fresh bag of chips, takes another swig of beer, and after flipping to the fifteenth sport event of the day, says, "Well, at least that's taken care of." Then they go into spittle flinging diatribes when the rights advocates say that the real work remains to be done.

Of course, once you've been a successful revolutionary, you do have to find something else to do, and Sylvia, though, had no intention of becoming mainstream. And after 1918, there was a lot not to be mainstream about.

Sylvia's family had always advocated socialism. Emmeline is even cited as one of the early members of the Fabian Society, an organization that is virtually unknown in the United States but is still famous and active in England.

Modern articles about the Fabian Society tell us it is a socialist organization. But perhaps knowing that today the word raises a red flag - no joke intended - on their own website, the Fabians refer to themselves as a "think tank". Even on the page detailing their history, they use the word "socialist" only once and "socialism" not at all.

Sylvia, though, had no hesitation saying she was a socialist. But where Sylvia and her mom and sister disagreed was in the way to achieve their socialistic goals. Although Emmeline had no problem with breaking windows and setting the odd fire, as a member of the Fabian society, she thought changes should come through legislation and education of the people. Sylvia, though, began to watch the growing Communist Revolution with interest. On the surface, at least, the Russian revolution worked quite nicely without any of that legislative nonsense, thank you. So she began to believe that revolution was the most expeditious way to achieve political equality for all.

People forget the - quote - "Russian Revolution" - unquote - of 1917 was not one Revolution but (at least) two. The first was in February when the Tsar was kicked out and the government taken over by Alexandr Kerensky (the Russians like to leave out the next to the last "e" in some of their names). Alexandr was a more or less normal politician who simply wanted to set up a representational and democratic republic. Alas, Alexandr found that representational governments tend to take a while to get things done and when you have millions of people starving and an army on the verge of rebellion, time is short. So came the second revolution in October where the Bolshevik's booted Alexandr and his buddies out and Alexandr eventually ended up in the United States at a famous think-tank.

Shortly thereafter Sylvia visited Russia to attend the meetings of the Communist party. She met and became friendly with some of the leaders including Vladimir Ulyanov, who most of us call Lenin.

Later Sylvia and Lenin exchanged some correspondence. In one letter from 1919, Sylvia was complaining a bit about the the lack of unity among the various communist organizations. But as the Soviet Union began to evolve into (chuckle) what it was for most of the twentieth century, Sylvia herself began to think the Bolsheviks were becoming too compromising. In 1922 the things had gotten so bad (in Sylvia's opinion) that she expressed her concerns in an open letter to Lenin where she specifically asks why he and the other communists are actually (gasp!) working with capitalists. However, Lenin, recovering from a stroke suffered earlier that year, never responded and died two years later.

Sylvia didn't give up on the Russian communists, though, and in 1920, the members of the WSF had rebranded itself as the Communist Party, British Section of the Third International (the "Third International" being the name of the Russian Communist Party and its worldwide affiliates). Clearly, this was too long a name to use, and soon Sylvia and her friends joined ranks with the recently formed British Communist Party, which was a surprisingly long-lived organization which finally fizzled out in the early 1990's.

As we know, most Europeans and Americans didn't really go for what Lenin and his friends were touting, even those who were willing to give it a chance. Will Rogers visited Russia in the mid-1920's and wrote up his impressions in a series of articles that became the book, There's Not a Bathing Suit in Russia. Although not unsympathetic to the Russian people, Will was less impressed with the government and its programs. "Communists have some good ideas, of course," he wrote, "but they got a lot that sound better than they work." In the end, though, Will thought Russia had changed very little since the days of the Tsars who like the Communists, shipped dissenters off to Siberia.

Sylvia's strong advocacy of communism began to lose her support, including that of mother Emmeline and sister Christabel. Christabel had in fact gone about as far as you could from Marxism. Soon after the war Christabel moved to the United States and entered the religious revival movement as an Adventist where she warned everyone how the Second Coming was nigh, which we now know was not correct.

As the 1930's moved in, Benito Mussolini began flexing his muscle and realized that if he began his quest for world domination in Africa, neither Americans nor the British would lift a finger to stop him. And indeed when he invaded Ethiopia, no one did lift a finger. The Ethiopian leader, Haile Selassie, then appealed to the League of Nations, which likewise didn't lift a finger.

Sylvia knew she could not herself fight a war, so she spent her even then considerable energy (she was in her mid-fifties) in raising money for the refugees. She also started a newspaper specifically dedicated to keeping the public aware of what was happening in Ethiopia. Naturally, virtually no one read the paper, but the Ethiopians themselves, including Haile, were quite grateful.

Finally with the declaration of War in 1939 the the Allies - mostly Britain - sent troops to Ethiopia. In 1941, they had successfully taken the country from the Italians, although sporadic fighting continued until 1943.

In 1950, Sylvia was 68 years old and of course was slowing down. Then when Halie, restored to power, invited her to visit him. So she and Richard, now in his forties, went to Addis Ababa and in 1956 she settled there for good. Richard, became a teacher at Addis Ababa University and and lives in Ethiopia to this day.

Sylvia died in 1960. She was given a state funeral and is buried at Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa.

Today you'll see some places on the Fount of All Knowledge that advocate repeal of the 19th Amendment. The problem is you can't tell when they're joking or if they're real nutballs. Some publications are in fact satirical, and the stories (see the famous article "B-29 Found on the Moon"). But today you can access an articles from a satirical site without going through the home page. So if you're searching for articles about the history of women's voting rights, your search might lead you directly to the article saying how a contemporary political figure is advocating the repeal of women's right to vote. After all, he's quoted as saying that women not voting was good enough for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, and so it's good enough for him. Perhaps it's simply an indication of how crazy our times have become that a lot of the readers take the writing as legitimate news.

Orson Wells, move over.

 

References

Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical Politics, Mary Davis, Pluto Press, 1999.

Sylvia Pankhurst: The Rebellious Suffragette, Shirley Harrison, Golden Guides Press, 2012.

Sylvia Pankhurst: From Artist to Anti-Fascist, Ian Bullock and Richard Pankhurst, Macmillan, 1992.

SylviaPankhurst.com, http://www.sylviapankhurst.com.

Spartucus Educational. Biographies of Emmeline, Christabel, and Sylvia. Web.

Letter, Sylvia Pankhurst to Vladimir Lenin, reported in The Guardian, October 27, 1920.

Letter to Lenin, Sylvia Pankhurst, Workers' Dreadnought, November 4, 1922.

"Centuries of Citizenship", National Constitution Center, http://constitutioncenter.org/timeline/html/cw08_12159.html.

Queen Victoria: A Personal History, Christopher Hibbert, Harper-Collins, 2000

Clarence Darrow for the Defense, Irving Stone, Doubleday, 1941. In addition we read that at age five Clarence met the famed abolitionist John Brown, who had come to visit Clarence's dad about the Underground Railroad. Quite a feat since the same book tells us (correctly) that Clarence was born in 1857 and John Brown was executed for treason in 1859.

The Fabian Society, http://www.fabians.org.uk/.

"Sylvia Pankhurst", The Mark Steel Lectures, Mark Steel (Presenter), BBC, 2004.

A Doomed Democracy", Bernard Butcher, Stanford Magazine, January/February 2001.