First Wave Media Portrayal and Photography
The use of media, be it the written word or photographic images, was vital to the progression of suffrage movements both in the U.S. and the U.K.
Today, the media continues to play a key role in the progression of the modern women's movement. Videos of empowering speeches are spread via video-sharing platforms. Women's advocacy groups have an online presence with individual, informative websites.
Media Portrayal in the U.S.
For the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movement, media portrayal was wildly important in the success of the movement. In the early 20th century, newspapers were the main source of information. Newspaper portrayal of the Women's Suffrage Movement was varied, sometimes positive, sometimes criticized. Nonetheless, portrayal of public suffrage events, such as parades, have been noted as influencing political outcomes for suffragists. For instance, in 1913, the National Women’s Suffrage Parade ended in a violent riot. Many scholars note the press’s influential role in reporting this violence. Some scholars conclude that such widespread reporting helped suffragists finally gain ground to secure suffrage in the following years.
Media portrayal was often influenced by a variety of factors. Scholars suggest newspaper staff tendencies and political affiliations, as well as the surrounding local opinion moderated newspaper/media portrayal.
To the left, a digital image of an archived newspaper provides an example of such newspaper portrayals during the Women's Suffrage Movement. This article outlines the argumentation used by a suffragist during a lecture held in Austin, TX in October of 1912. Notes created by the Austin Woman Suffrage Association are also present on the page. These notes point out some inaccuracies in the reporting of the event.
Photography in the UK
Christina Livingston Broom was the UK's first female press photographer. She often photographed the women's movement in London, street views, sporting events, military figures, and the royal family. Many of her photographs also show women in professional environments, as she documented women nurses, women police officers, and women in positions within the British military. The photograph shows the first women police officers in London. Broom's documentation of these women allows us to see the changing societal positions of women in the UK during the suffragette movement and World War One. Broom's own occupational position, as female press photographer, signaled a change in the place of women, professionally.
On one hand, within the suffragette movement, suffragettes utilized photography for purposes of gaining public support through media portrayal. During the early years, the suffragettes often used photographs of their demonstrations and processions to spread awareness of their movement. The suffragettes also used particular strategies, which when photographed, created sympathy for them. During the 1910 Census, suffragettes avoided their homes for a full 24 hours to avoid accounting themselves in it and the penalities for failing to do so. During the "No Vote, No Census" political action, the women photographed themselves sleeping in large numbers under their protest signs, displaying the two realities of their existence, with the goal of recieving symapthy from the public.
On the other hand, the opposition to the suffrage movement also used photography for their own agenda in media portrayal. The countered with photographs of suffragettes protesting, and suggested that their facial expressions proved their emotional state. With captions to photographs in journals such as the Anti-Suffrage Review, with captions like, "Rather emotional," opposition groups tried to discredit suffragettes by dismissing their desire for suffrage as an emotional overexaggeration.