2 - Servants in the Suffrage Movement

Summary

This chapter looks at the participation and representation of domestic servants in the suffrage movement. It seeks to account for their invisibility in much of the official propaganda and public spectacle of all the leading suffrage societies, while, at the same time, uncovering the hidden history of servants’ contribution to the fight for the vote. Class was a contentious issue within the suffrage movement. The various suffrage organisations argued over the basis upon which the franchise should be granted to women, since to ask for votes on the same terms as men was to accept the existing property qualification for male voters and exclude large numbers of working-class women. Historians have also debated the degree to which suffrage included or excluded working-class women. A focus on the role of domestic workers in the campaign for women’s enfranchisement offers a new perspective on these debates. It not only shines a light on the involvement of a different kind of working-class woman, but also raises questions about how the suffrage movement defined the ‘woman worker’.