Overall in conclusion I think that source b does support the evidence of source c about the suffragette campaign because they both are showing it’s wrong to violently protest, also they both tell us that if you was too protest in a violent way you won’t get anywhere.
3) Despite the Suffrage activity before 1914, women had not been given the vote by the outbreak of the First World War. This was a surprise to the Suffragettes, as they believed that suffrage activity would have won them the right to vote before the outbreak of the First World War. Emeline Pankhurst says in her book my own story, ‘the campaign made woman’s suffrage news -it had never been that before. Now the newspapers are full of us’. Emeline Pankhurst believed that the suffrage activity had helped the cause of votes for women to be recognized by members of government and the general public. She and the other suffragettes believed that without the suffrage activity and their forms of propaganda, people wouldn’t have taken notice of the suffragettes and their campaign. The newspapers being filled with the news of the suffragettes was not always good publicity. From 1908 onwards the suffragettes held a series of major strikes and demonstrations. In 1911, Emily Davidson began setting light to letterboxes in a demonstration for the female right to vote. Also on 1 March 1912 the suffragettes broke almost every window in Regent Street, Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus. Also Emiline Pankhurst threw stones at the Prime Minister’s house in Downing Street. These methods certainly did get them publicity but for solely the wrong reasons. The suffragettes behaved appallingly using violence and vandalism and this is why they were not given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War. The parliament didn’t want to give the vote to a group of hooligans.
One main reason to why women were not given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War was because Queen Victoria herself believed that women should not have the right to vote. The queen herself said that having the right to vote will ‘unsex’ women. The fairer sex i.e. women are designed to make voters than rather to be voters themselves.
One last main reason as to why women were not allowed
the right to vote was that the members of Parliament and the government were extremely sexists. Source E is a speech made by a Member of Parliament in 1913. It reads, ‘In giving the women the right to vote we will ultimately put the control of this country into female hands’. This speech is basically saying that women should not be given the vote because they are incapable of running the country as they are not as politically minded as men.
4) Source F is a primary source; it is a poster made during the war. It was produced by the government to get women to enrol as munition workers to help the war effort. The poster uses two photographs, one of a male soldier fighting on a battlefield and one of a woman over the top wearing a factory uniform. Photographs are a useful source as they show the truth, especially early photographs like those used in Source F as they cannot have been tampered with using computers. Government produced posters are often used as propaganda, meaning they do not always tell the truth, rather what the Government would like to be the truth. The line “On her their lives depend,” at the top of the poster was to encourage women to join the war effort. This worked, as the suffrage campaigners had given up their protest at the start of the war in 1914 to channel their energies into helping the country. This is shown in Source G. The poster shows a woman in factory clothing, this means she was working in a man’s job during the war. This would have been used to attract other women to help and maybe the picture has been taken out of context or distorted in some way for propaganda purposes.
Source G is a table of statistics from a text book published in the 1980’s. It shows female employment in Britain in July 1914 and July 1918 and the statistics show the large increase in women’s employment as a result of the war. For example, the amount of women working in Government offices multiplied by over 100 through the four years. The source shows women worked a lot more over the war years than previously by using statistics. It is useful in that it is quantitative, so therefore more likely to be correct fact, not opinion. The source states actual numbers instead of descriptive amounts. This makes it more plausible.
The headings in the table are “metal industries”, “chemical industries”, “government offices”, and “food, drink and tobacco.” These are quite broad definitions, making the data quite crude because it does not actually say what the women did at all, just that they worked in those areas. There is no indication apart from the dates that the women were actively contributing to the war effort; this is only inferred because of the years mentioned. However it can be deduced that they were helping the war effort as these areas of employment were essential to it. For example, the metal industries would make munitions, the chemical industries would make ammunition, the government offices kept records and helped the situation politically and the food, drink and tobacco industry would provide for soldiers and also people at home.
The source may not be entirely correct as all the numbers appear to be rounded up or down to multiples of a thousand, but this does not make much difference when looking to it as evidence of general female employment. Its origins of a school textbook in the 1980’s imply that the statistics are correct, because there is no reason for that type of publication to distort the facts or use them to an advantage.
Many social and political changes happened during the First World War, as described in Source I. This source urges for the changes in women’s social position not to be separated from other changes happening at the time, but the progress made by women over the four war years should not be overlooked as unrelated to the war because there were little other reasons for their parliamentary success in 1918. It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote.
Many women were recruited to work in men’s jobs during the war, because by the end of 1915 over 2.5 million men were in the armed forces. They left factory jobs which needed filling, and then more were created on top of these as the demand for supplies grew. Women worked in textiles factories to make troops’ uniforms and in munitions factories to produce weapons, military vehicles, ammunition and planes. Many left domestic service to work in the war industries, earning themselves high wages but often ill health. Gunpowder and other explosives were dangerous to work with and often gave women diseases and prevented them having children. Some women trained as mechanics to work in the motor industry, making tanks and Lorries to send out to Europe.
In my Opinion these two sources are, in some respects useful as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918. The two sources combined show that women were needed to work in factories to make ammunition for the soldiers and that there was an increase in the number of jobs that women could now seize in the place of men, as they were away fighting in the battles. However the sources do not show that women had to vacate their jobs when the conflict was over, so that the men could repossess their jobs once again.
5) Some historians argue that it was the work that women did in the First World War that led to them acquiring the vote. Other historians argue it was a strategy to divide the women’s movement. This was because only the ‘safe women’ who were over the age of 30 that were awarded the vote. The main reason was that these women were seen to be sensible and likely to vote the same way as their husband. This essay will examine all sides of the argument.
Source H is a secondary source taken from an educational history book ‘Women suffrage in Britain, 1928-1967’ written in 1980.
Initially the author appears to agree with the statement that women acquired the vote due to their contribution during the war. For example when the author states that someone with ‘a very simplistic view would see the vote as a reward for loyal wartime service.’ The author is stating here that the suggestion that women were given the vote due to the work they did during the war would be a simple, basic, straightforward way for other historians to summarise the reason why women acquired the vote in 1918.
In actual fact on closer inspection the author actually disagrees with the statement that ‘women acquired the vote due to their contribution during the war’. Instead the author states that ‘women workers received a warm welcome; but in farms hospitals and factories they were greatly resented.’ The author goes on to state that ‘men felt happiest if women became nurses, providers of refreshments for the troops and brought up fighting men of the future.’ While the men were fighting and the women were helping, some men did not welcome women in various jobs and industries. This was because the men felt threatened by the women. This view is understandable, as men had been brought up to disregard women. However due to the war women were doing ‘male’ jobs and this led men to believe that women were taking over their jobs and the British jobs and industries.
The author indicates that politicians partially agreed with men when the author comments on the view that ‘politicians themselves agreed with the idea that the women who brought children up successfully had performed a service for the government.’ This political view backs up the working men’s view because the politicians are simply saying that women’s work was making babies and that was enough.
The author of the book believed that women did not acquire the vote due to their contribution throughout the war. Instead the author believed this, as it was only women aged 30 and above that were awarded the vote. This was because they were seen to be sensible and likely to vote in the same way as their husbands. Also it was only women that were married or owned a property that were allowed to vote. This was important because it meant that men would still have their power and would still control society. This was because the vote was only awarded to a few women.
From the use of my own knowledge I know that many politicians were still not convinced by women’s war effort. For example Sir George Barnes MP argued that women should be rewarded by losing their jobs. ‘There are still a good many young women who are now at work only for “pin-money.” They should be replaced by the ex-soldier in all cases where he could do the work.’
From the use of my own knowledge I also know that in 1921 there were actually less women workers than in 1911. This suggests that when men came back from the war they took back their old jobs and in many cases women’s war efforts were rewarded with redundancy.
Source I is a secondary source, taken from a section of a book called ‘Women at War, 1914-1918’ written in 1980.
This source partly agrees with the statement that women acquired the vote due to their contribution during the war. The author stated, ‘‘to say that the war brought votes for women is to make a very rough generalisation.’’
However the author believes that the main reason that women were awarded the vote was because of the great political and social changes that were happening.hese changes created a change in public opinion, one that was sympathetic to awarding women the vote.
The author disagrees that women acquired the vote due to their contribution during the war. It was other changes that wartime had created that led to limited female suffrage.
From the use of my own knowledge I know that if it wasn’t for women’s war effort then Britain may not have won the First World War. For example when Germany blockaded food supplies the British women were the one that prevented Britain from starvation. By supporting the governments call for women to join the ‘Land girls.’
Source J is a primary source taken from a speech made by former Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, an influential man. The speech was made in the House of Commons in 1917.
Herbert Asquith had been Prime Minister from 1908-1916, during this period he was against any form of female suffrage. This was because his usual view of the suffragettes was one of great hatred because of their ‘horrible campaign of violence.’
However in his speech Asquith changes his view of the suffragettes from one of hatred to one of admiration because ‘they have contributed to every service during the war except that of fighting.’ Asquith was beginning to sympathise with the women and was deliberating upon whether to grant women the right to vote.
Herbert Asquith agrees with the statement that women acquired the vote due to their contribution during the war. The reason Herbert Asquith gives for why women acquired the vote is that instead of there ‘horrible campaign of violence’, they supported Britain’s war effort.
Source J, indicates that the reason why women acquired the vote was because of the exceptional contribution that they made during the war. This source asserts that another reason women were awarded the vote was because Herbert Asquith changed his and a lot of others views of women to that of admiration.
From the use of my own knowledge I know that women’s war efforts had convinced many MP’s such a Herbert Asquith, but on the other hand those who weren’t convinced were won over by giving women a limited franchise.
The first reason women were awarded the right to vote was because as the author of source H says, women were awarded the vote due to their contribution throughout the war. The author believed that it was only women aged 30 and above those women were awarded the vote as they were seen to be sensible and likely to vote in the same way as their husbands. It was only women that were married or owned a property that were allowed to vote. This was important because it meant that men would still maintain power and would still control society.
The second reason women were awarded the right to vote was because of political, social and economical changes.
The third reason women were awarded the franchise as source J indicates due to the exceptional contribution that they made during the war and. Herbert Asquith changed his and others views of women not being responsible enough to vote, they were considered sensible enough to vote. This applied only to women aged 30 and above.
There are similarities between sources H and I as both sources state that, a minor reason why women were awarded the vote was due to the war. In contrast to this view point source J states that the only reason why women awarded the vote was due to their contribution during the war.
From my own knowledge I can see that source H is the most useful source as it indicates that by granting women over the age of 30 the vote was a way to divide the women. It was not all the women that were 30 and over, it was all the women that were married and had a house. So this meant that it was only the first class and some second-class women that got the vote. I believe that Herbert Asquith granted women the vote as a way of keeping them happy for sometime. I also believe that this may also have been an attempt to get his party more votes in the general elections so that he could be Prime Minister for another 5 years. Finally I have concluded that all this meant that although women did all the work, men still had all the power and authority in Britain.
Lastly, it was not the work that women did during the war that led to limited female suffrage. It was instead a manipulative and cynical plot to divide the women’s movement, thereby weakening it whilst maintaining male domination of society.