A Suffragette

This illustrated series aims to introduce children to the lifestyles of ordinary people in history. It explains what their working lives were like, what food they ate and what clothes they wore as well as providing background information on the period. This book considers the everyday lives of suffragettes at the height of the movement from 1905-1914. Unlike earlier suffragists, who wanted to gain the vote for women through conventional law-abiding methods, the suffragettes used more "militant", dramatic ways of highlighting "the cause". They held public meetings, petitioned Parliament and used other tactics such as interrupting political meetings, marching to Downing Street, battling with police, burning and bombing property and protesting on street corners to attract publicity. The author guides the reader through the actions of these women, some of whom suffered starvation and incarceration in the name of their cause. She also looks at their lives at home and at work, and examines the differences between working-class and middle-class suffragettes.