WOMEN, SUFFRAGE AND POLITICS

The Papers of Sylvia Pankhurst, 1882-1960

From the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam

Part 1: Inventory Numbers 1-224

Part 2: Inventory Numbers 225-362

Publisher's Note

With the kind permission of the International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, we have added a listing of contents of reels for both Part 1 and Part 2 of the microfilm edition of The Papers of Sylvia Pankhurst to the original inventory prepared by M Wilhelmina H Schreuder and Margreet Schrevel.

This inventory has been reproduced on Reel One of the microfilm project. The Contents of Reels listing provides details of the inventory numbers of the material appearing on each reel.

Suffragette and leading international socialist Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) was at the forefront of the social struggles at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1906, she moved to London and became actively involved with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) founded by Emmeline Pankhurst, and Sylvia herself founded the East London Federation of the Suffragettes.

Her personal archive is reproduced in full in the microfilm edition along with Minute Books and Records of the East London Federation of Suffragettes 1913-1920 and Minute Books of the Executive Committee of the Women’s Franchise League 1896-1897.

In particular, it features Personal correspondence with E C Wolstenholme Elmy, 1907-1910; James Keir Hardie, 1905-1915, Dora Russell, 1931, 1939-1940; Emmeline Pethck-Lawrence, 1929-1932, Christabel Pankhurst, 1898 and Ramsay MacDonald, 1930-1931. Substantial sections of Correspondence and papers documenting her activities in the suffragette movement 1905- 1913. Further important material concerns her political activities, especially anti-militarism, international and Russian communism and the Communist Party, the British Section of the Third International and anti-fascism throughout the inter-war period. There is much material on Soviet Russia, 1917-1924, the Russian Revolution 1917 and papers of the Worker’s Dreadnought 1917-1924.

Papers on social activities during the First World War include the East London Toy Factory, and files on relief of local distress, the National Relief Fund, Food Supplied and correspondence with the Ministry of Food. Other fascinating sections include manuscripts of Sylvia’s journeys to Scandinavia, the USA and Soviet Russia; draft notes and manuscripts on Rumania; her Sketches and Drawings; materials on Ethiopia, 1936-1952 and the Pan-African Movement, particularly Haile Selassie, the Italian invasion and the ‘new Ethiopia’ after 1945; her Literary Writings, Fiction, Plays and Prose; Family Papers; and Papers 1863-1898 covering local politics and the early years of the suffrage movement.

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