The women’s suffrage movement was a contentious battle in both America and the United Kingdom. The political/cultural practice of excluding women from voting was anything but new, finding its roots in ancient Greece and Republican Rome, as well as in the few democracies that had emerged in Europe by the end of the 18th century.

Attitudes in the United Kingdom and Colonial were aptly summarized by English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony John Winthrop in his famous address on civil liberty in 1645: “The woman’s own choice makes such a man her husband; yet being so chosen, he is her lord, and she is to be subject to him, yet in a way of liberty, not of bondage; and a true wife accounts her subjection her honor and freedom, and would not think her condition safe and free. But in her subjection to her husband’s authority.”

Winthrop’s quote registers within the context of the 17th and 18th centuries; but, by the 19th century these man-made notions were beginning to be contested.

The American women’s rights movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning, in Seneca Falls, N.Y., where the “Declaration of Sentiments” were drafted. Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of Independence as a framework for writing the proclamation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

From that moment, women such as Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth traveled the country lecturing and organizing for the next 40 years.

The dawning of the 20th century brought new technology that enabled pinback buttons to be manufactured to espouse their cause. Lithographed posters and signs began to flourish, china was being “branded” with suffrage messages, tin die-cut signs were nailed to telephone poles, barn doors and fence posts. There were even suffrage playing cards; of course, with activists admonishing the public they were not to be used for gambling purposes.

For the past 35 years, Dr. Kenneth Florey has passionately acquired one of the best collections of British- and American-items related to the women’s suffrage movement. Numbering around 3,500 pieces, comprised of post cards, buttons, sheet music, posters, ceramics, jewelry, advertising cards and ribbons, his collection tells the often-overlooked story of women’s fight for voting rights from 1848 to 1920.

Now a professor emeritus from the English Department at Southern Connecticut State University, Florey has written two books on the suffrage movement, American Woman Suffrage Postcards: Study and Catalog (2015, McFarland Books); and Women’s Suffrage Memorabilia: An Illustrated Historical Study (2013, McFarland Books).

As a scholar and educator, Florey has focused on a collecting woman suffrage movement memorabilia with a keen eye to enhancing our understanding of a women’s right movement which finally culminated in the 19th Amendment. The Amendment passed in 1920, which granted American women the right to vote.

“This was time that was ripe for change,” Florey said. “There were very, very intelligent and well-educated women (Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Clara Barton, to name a few) who were demanding equal access to the polls. This was during a time – up until the 1880s – when women were not used to being in the public world. But, they used tactics that proved effective, many of which had never been implemented.”

Florey’s collection includes items from the bitterly fought women’s suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, which was partially resolved by the Eligibility of Women Act in November 1918, which allowed women to be elected to Parliament. Ten years later, the Representation of the People Act granted women the right to vote.

Among his dizzyingly collection of women’s suffrage memorabilia, Florey does have a favorite piece. Although it is an English piece, it illustrates the prevalent attitude of the era and points to just what the movement was up against.

It is a medal, with a silver bar, engraved “For Valour,” With a green, white and purple vertical striped ribbon attached to a medallion inscribed “Hunger Strike.” The reverse side of the medallion has “Lavender Guthrie” engraved into the medal.

The medal rests inside a presentation box, which is inscribed, “Presented to Lavender Guthrie” in large type. Below, it reads: “By the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship, a great principle of political justice was vindicated.”

Lavender Guthrie, according to newspaper accounts, was born in 1889 to a well-off couple in Southhampton, England. She was described by her mother as, “ … not quite a normal girl. She studied very hard and had ideas of Socialism and of giving her life and her all to her more unfortunate sisters.”Although she was a member of the WSPU from the age of 18, she did not take part in any militant activity until 1911 when she was 21 years old.

“She thought we were too luxurious in our life,” her mother told British authorities. “All her ideal was to work and work very hard. She found that the wages of unskilled women labour would not support life.”

It was only after she found employment as an actress, acting on stage as Laura Grey, that she was able to earn sufficient money to leave home.

In March 1912, Lavender took part in a WSPU-organized window-smashing campaign and was sentenced to six months in the Holloway Gaol for willful damage. The window she had broken was that of Garrards, the renowned jewelers, perhaps targeted as a protest of the luxurious lifestyle she abhorred.

While in the Holloway Gaol, Lavender went on a hunger strike and was forcibly fed by prison workers. Unfortunately, that forcible feeding caused pain-related issues that she chose to ease with veronal.

Veronal was the first commercially available barbiturate, commonly used as a sleeping aid from 1903 until the mid-1950s.

On the morning of June 8, 1914, Lavender was found lying unconscious on the floor of her flat, close to the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus. A doctor attempted to resuscitate her to no avail. Surrounding her corpse were seven empty veronal bottles and 23 loose tablets.

Not only did Lavender die young, but she died pregnant, according to period accounts. There also were suggestions she turned to prostitution during lean times.

The attending coroner listed her involvement with the suffragettes as her cause of death. At an inquest, he read in full the letter that accompanied the award of her hunger-strike medal, sent to Lavender by Mrs. Mabel Tuke of the WSPU.

The coroner confiscated the medal, pontificating: “Could anything be more calculated to upset the mind of a young girl than receiving this document and this travesty of a medal. The effect was quite clear. She leaves her home, her sister, her mother, for a garret in order to earn her own living and probably devote herself to this cause. She is next on stage as a pantomime girl. Next, we find her in the company of men frequenting night clubs and taking money from them. There is no more about the suffragist movement. The girl seems to have been absolutely degraded, and from then her whole history is one of drink, drugs, immorality, and death from her own hand.”

The jury consequently returned a verdict of “suicide during temporary insanity.”

The push-back from authorities against the women’s suffrage movement in the United States was just as brutal as events in the United Kingdom.

Contact: womansuffragememorabilia.com