Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical PoliticsIn a long and active life (1882–1960), Sylvia Pankhurst was a tireless activist for a variety of radical causes, including women’s suffrage, labour movement and international solidarity campaigns. She made pioneering contributions to gender and class politics, revolutionary communist politics and the struggles against imperialism, racism and fascism. In addition, Pankhurst founded and edited four newspapers, and wrote and published twenty-two books, and numerous pamphlets and articles. In this biography, Mary Davis provides a much-needed reappraisal of a woman whose contribution to a wide variety of causes is too often marginalised or overlooked, whether as the employer of the first black journalist in Britain – the activist and writer Claude McKay – or as an early campaigner for pan-Africanism. Pankhurst’s changing affiliations and commitments – from her early suffragette activities, though her involvement with disenfranchised and impoverished women in London’s East End, to her passionate embrace of the Soviet revolution, the cause of communism worldwide and the fight against imperialism and fascism – mirror the history of radical politics in the twentieth century. Mary Davis’s lucid and accessible account of Pankhurst’s political life restores a remarkable woman to her rightful place in twentieth-century history. |
Contents
The Womens Social and Political Union | 20 |
The East End the First World War | 36 |
Feminism and Socialism | 55 |
Communism | 71 |
Antiimperialism Antiracism and Antifascism | 94 |
Assessment | 117 |
Bibliography | 144 |
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Common terms and phrases
activists activity adult suffrage affiliation African anti-racism argued Asquith Belfort Bax Bill Britain British Socialist Party Christabel Christabel Pankhurst Comintern Committee Communist Party conference Congress CP BSTI CPGB critical despite Dreadnought East End East London Federation election ELFS Emmeline enfranchised Ethiopia fact fascism feminism feminist franchise Gallacher George Lansbury Ibid ideological imperialism industrial issue Keir Hardie labour movement Labour Party later leaders Lenin letter Liberal Liddington male Marxist mass McKay ment militancy mother Nellie Cressall NT&EN NUWSS opposed Pan-African paper parliament political position published race racism radical suffragists regarded revolutionary Richard Pankhurst role Russia Russian revolution Selina Cooper social Soviet struggle suffrage campaign Suffragette Suffragette Movement suffragists Sylvia Pankhurst Syndicalist tactics tion trade union unity votes for women whilst Woman's Dreadnought women workers women's movement women's suffrage Women's Suffrage Societies working-class women wrote WSPU