Photographer Unknown, Making banners for a Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) Rally (1910)

This event is part of our Past Programme

A group of women in Victorian dress, some standing, some seated, creating fabric banners.

The Women’s Social & Political Union was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. As a campaigning group for social reforms, whose motto was “Deeds, not words”, over 1,000 of its members were imprisoned as suffragettes fighting for English women to have equal voting rights.

This photograph forms part of The Women’s Library Collection. The Collection grew out of the London Society of Women’s Suffrage, founded in 1867. Housed in the Library at the London School of Economics since 2013, it holds a range of photographs, letters and other material on Suffrage, Peace campaigns and other themes related to women’s history in the UK.

The photograph featured as part of the Touchstone programme (2012-2020). Each display consisted of a single photographic work on the Eranda studio floor where visitors were invited to respond to the question 'What do you see?' using the cards and pencils provided. A bench was placed in front of the work, encouraging people to spend a little longer than they might usually. The programme was part of a wider series of projects and activities related to visual literacy.

A man seated on a bench looking at a framed, black and white photograph.