Sylvia Pankhurst
Sylvia Pankhurst: suffragette, socialist, and anti-colonial activist.
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Sylvia Pankhurst was an English feminist, socialist, activist, artist, and writer. After seeing women-led labour activism in the United States, she focused on organising working-class women in London's East End. Her refusal to agree to a wartime political truce with the government in 1914 led to a split with the suffragette leadership of her mother, Emmeline, and sister, Christabel.
She supported the Russian Revolution and met with Lenin in Moscow, but as a believer in workers' control, she opposed the Leninist party line and criticised the Bolshevik government. Pankhurst openly backed Irish independence, anti-colonial struggles across the British Empire, and anti-fascist solidarity in Europe. After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, she devoted herself to that country's cause, and following World War II, she spent her final years there as a guest of the restored emperor, Haile Selassie.
Lore & Background
In June 1914, supporters carried her to the entrance to the Strangers' Gallery of the House of Commons where she announced that she would continue her hunger strike until Asquith agreed to receive a deputation of East London women. Asquith met the deputation of six working mothers. After listening to them pay tribute to the work Pankhurst had done 'in arousing the women of the East End to the importance of the vote in their daily lives', and describe their hardships, the Prime Minister reiterated the government's position: votes for women would have to await a general democratic reform of the franchise.
Reader's Guide
Pankhurst undertook two speaking tours in the United States: in the first three months of 1911 and again at the beginning of 1912. In Chicago, she visited strikers in their police cells. In New York City, she addressed a rally in Carnegie Hall and met Margaret Sanger and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Returning to London with Zelie Passavant Emerson, she sought to replicate the settlement house outreach she had seen in America in London's East End.
Did You Know?
- Pankhurst devised the WSPU logo and various leaflets, banners, and posters.
- She was arrested eight times for protest actions in London between February 1913 and August 1914.
- Her pan-Africanist weekly The New Times and Ethiopia News was regarded by British colonial authorities as a factor in the development of African nationalism and the Rastafari movement in Jamaica.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Sylvia Pankhurst?
Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960) was an English feminist, socialist, and grassroots organizer who championed working-class women in London's East End. She also worked as an artist, writer, and anti-colonial activist, particularly advocating for Ethiopia.
Why did Sylvia Pankhurst break with her mother and sister?
She refused to join the wartime political truce that her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel accepted during World War I. Her insistence on continuing to organize East End working-class women and her socialist convictions created an irreconcilable split with the WSPU leadership.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Sylvia Pankhurst (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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