Women's History Month: Suffragettes

EMMELINE PANKHURST - (1858-1928). English Woman-suffrage Advocate. Mrs. Pankhurst Arrested Outside Buckingham Palace, London, While Trying To Present A Petition To King George V, 21 May 1914.. Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 7 Mar 2012.http://quest.eb.com.proxygsu-scre.galileo.usg.edu/images/140_1678023

Yesterday, thousands Georgians headed to their local voting booths to choose a Republican candidate.  Voting is such a simple process that it's hard to imagine the hard-fought - and sometimes violent - battle that went into assuring that 50% of the current population could take part.

Even looking at just one suffragette's history shows a full range of the challenges and brutalities these protesters faced.  Emmeline Pankhurst, from the photo above, was fifty years old the first time she was arrested. Over the course of her career, she would experience more arrests, degrading prison conditions, rocks and mud hurled at her in the streets, sexual assault from the British police, force feeding during hunger strikes, and numerous other abuses.  She - and other members of the Women's Social and Political Union - endured these attacks just to achieve the simple liberty of participating in politics.

To learn more about these courageous women, you can check out:

• Profiles of Suffragettes on Biography.com (link)
• A digital collection of newspaper clippings, banners, and memorabilia from the suffragette movement in the Miller Suffrage Scrapbook (link)
• "Women Who Dare," a video profile of the women - including suffragettes - who helped shape America (link)
• Through GALILEO, you can access Britannica's online visual history of women's suffrage (link)