Emmeline Pankhurst

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Emmeline Pankhurst (born Emiline Goulden, 1858 – 1928) was a British political activist and activist who fought for women's right to vote.

"She shaped an image of women for our time," Pankhurst wrote in 1999, "she shook culture into a new pattern from which there could not be any going back."

Pankhurst was widely chastised for her militant methods, and historians disagree about their accuracy, but her work was recognized as a central component in the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom.

She founded and became active with the Women's Franchise League, which advocated for equality for both married and unmarried women.

She attempted to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her acquaintance with socialist Keir Hardie, but the local branch refused to accept her due to her gender.

She was shocked at the difficult conditions she encountered in Manchester's workhouses when working as a Poor Law Guardian. Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an all-women political party dedicated to "deeds, not words" in 1903.

Early life

Emmeline Goulden was born on Sloan Street, Manchester's Moss Side district, on July 15th, 1858. Emily, a nickname she preferred to be named, was a teacher at school. Despite her birth certificate's otherwise, she believes and later claimed her birthday was a day earlier, on Bastille Day (14 July). The majority of biographies, as well as those written by her children, repeat this assertion. In 1908, she expressed her sympathy with the female revolutionaries who wreaked havoc on Bastille: "I've always believed that the fact that I was born on that day gave me some sort of control over my life." The family into which she was born had been steeped in political activism for decades; Sophia, her mother, was a Manx woman who was descended from men accused of social unrest and slander.

In 1881, the Isle of Man became the first country to guarantee women the right to vote in national elections. Robert Goulden, her father, went from errand boy to manufacturer, as a result of a humble Manchester family's lack of political involvement. When cavalry charged and dispersed a crowd demanding political change, Robert's mother, a fustian cutter, and his father were press-ganged into the Royal Navy and killed him at the Peterloo massacre.

The Gouldens' first son died at the age of three, but they had ten other children; Emmeline was the eldest of five children. The family moved to Seedley, where her father had co-founded a small business shortly after she was born. He was also interested in local politics, and he served for many years on the Salford town council. He was a devoted promoter of exciting organizations, including the Manchester Athenaeum and the Dramatic Reading Society. He owned a Salford theatre for many years, where he appeared in several Shakespeare performances. Goulden acquired an appreciation of drama and theatrics from her father, which she later used in social activism. The Gouldens took their children on social activism. When Robert arrived in Manchester, he welcomed American abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. Sophia used Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Beecher's sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, as a regular source of bedtime tales for her sons and daughters. Goulden's book My Own Story, a 1914 autobiography, recalls visiting a bazaar at a young age to procure funds for newly freed slaves in the United States.

Emmeline began reading novels as a child, with one source claiming that she was reading as early as three years old. At the age of nine, she read the Odyssey and admiring John Bunyan's 1678 book The Pilgrim's Progress. Thomas Carlyle's three-volume treatise The French Revolution: A History a History, and she later said that the book "remained [her] life a source of inspiration." Despite her avid reading of books, she was not given the educational benefits enjoyed by her brothers. According to their parents, the girls must first learn the art of "making home beautiful" and other skills that could be useful to future husbands. The Gouldens deliberated over future plans for their sons' education, but they wanted their daughters to marry young and avoid paid work. Although they favoured women's rights and general advancement in society, the Gouldens believed their daughters were incapable of achieving their male peers' goals. Goulden paused and said to herself, "I'm sorry she wasn't born a lad."

Goulden was first introduced to the topic due to her parents' concern about women's suffrage. Goulden grew fond of its editor Lydia Becker, who read and enjoyed the Women's Suffrage Journal. She returned home from school one day to find her mother on her way to a public meeting on women's voting rights at the age of 14. Becker's mother was insistent on attending despite finding that she would be speaking. Goulden was captured by Becker's words and later wrote, "I left the meeting as a conscious and confirmed suffragist." She arrived in Paris a year later to attend the École Normale de Neuilly. In comparison to traditionally feminine crafts such as embroidery, the school offered classes in chemistry and bookkeeping. Noémie, Victor Henri Rochefort's daughter, who had been detained in New Caledonia for his support of the Paris Commune, was her roommate. The girls told tales of their parents' political exploits, and they remained good friends for years. Goulden was so fond of Noémie and the school that she and her sister Mary Jane joined the school as a parlour boarder after graduating. Noémie married a Swiss painter and found a suitable French husband for her English friend. When Robert refused to provide a dowry for his daughter, the man turned down his invitation of marriage and Goulden returned, miserable, to Manchester.

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