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Alice Hawkins:
Leicester's Sister of Freedom
Dr Richard Whitmore
The campaign for the suffrage is perhaps the best-known
aspect of women's political fight in the early part
of the 20th century, yet little is known of the local
women who engaged in this struggle. Indeed, the assumption
that only wealthy women were involved in the militant
campaign has led not only to the distortion of the
WSPU membership, but it also neglects the significant
contribution made by working-class women within it.
Previously, few investigations have been carried
out into local organisations of the Women’s
Social and Political Union, and as a consequence
our understanding of local women within the party
has been limited.
Focusing on this central omission, this book, through
the life and times of Alice Hawkins, seeks to redress
the balance and add to our understanding of who the
suffragettes were. But, more importantly, this book
is about a woman who gave her life to the cause and,
through her personality, shaped the lives of thousands
of women.
The importance of this book is that it is now slowly
being recognised that history cannot shut away the
lives and experiences of thousands of women like
Alice Hawkins to concentrate on what was, to all
intents and purposes, the public sphere. Her history,
and those women like her, is an important omission,
and without it the social composition of the movement
will always remain unclear and the extent to which
working women were involved will always remain hidden.
Thus, the story of Alice Hawkins and the Leicester
WSPU is, without doubt, crucial to our understanding
of the organisation.
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