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Emmeline Pankhurst tells her own story here: how she came to lead the fight for women's votes in Britain, and why peaceful pleading turned into bold action. You will march with her to meetings, stand with her deputations at Parliament, and sit with her in prison, where she refused food rather than give in. She wrote it in 1914, proud and unbowed, sure that women would win the vote and that the fight was worth it.
Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1858 into a family that cared about reform, and she married a barrister who supported women's rights. Widowed young with children to raise, she worked among the poor of Manchester and saw daily how the law left women unprotected. In 1903 she founded the Women's Social and Political Union, whose motto was deeds, not words, and this book, first published in 1914, is her account of what followed.
Its three books tell the story plainly. First comes the making of a militant, then four years of peaceful militancy: meetings, petitions, and deputations that were promised much and given nothing. Then comes the women's revolution, when the tactics hardened into marches on Parliament, window breaking, arrests, and hunger strikes in prison, met by forcible feeding and by the law that released starving women only to arrest them again.
The foreword was written in late summer 1914, as Europe went to war and the militants declared a truce. Pankhurst insists the struggle is set aside, not abandoned. The book lasts as a leader's own record of a movement that changed what women could claim as citizens.
Emmeline Pankhurst published My Own Story in 1914, telling how a Manchester widow became the leader of the militant campaign for women's votes. In three parts she traces the making of a militant, four years of peaceful militancy, and then the women's revolution: meetings, arrests, prison, hunger strikes, and deputations met with force. The foreword, written as Europe went to war in 1914, insists the struggle is only paused, not abandoned.
The title page of this 1914 Eveleigh Nash edition calls the book Mrs. Pankhurst's Own Story, and its contents lay out the architecture plainly: three books. Book I, The Making of a Militant, runs in four chapters. Book II, Four Years of Peaceful Militancy, runs in eight. Book III, The Women's Revolution, runs in nine, and carries the story through the hardest years of the suffrage campaign to the eve of the European war.
The illustrations list is a history in itself: Pankhurst addressing a by election crowd, hiding with Christabel from the police on a roof garden in 1908, the three leaders in the dock at the first conspiracy trial, the head of the deputation on Black Friday in November 1910, women sleeping in empty houses on census night, and her arrest at the King's gate in May 1914. An acknowledgment thanks Rheta Childe Dorr for editorial services, especially on the American edition.
The foreword, written in late summer 1914, frames everything. The militants have proclaimed a truce, the government is releasing suffrage prisoners, and Pankhurst closes by insisting that the struggle for full enfranchisement has not been abandoned, only placed in abeyance. First published in 1914, the book is both memoir and manifesto.
Edition: Edition of 1914. Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 34856.
The first chapter
The author wishes to express her deep obligation to Rheta Childe Dorr for invaluable editorial services performed in the preparation of this volume, especially the American edition.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1914. Author died 1928. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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