Periodicals, newsies, and suffrage: Votes for Women in Suffragette Sally

Abstract

ABSTRACT While recent academic study focuses on the importance of periodical culture to the British women’s suffrage movement, comparatively little study focuses on the representation of periodical culture within fiction. With its emphasis on Sally’s narrative voice and plot, Gertrude Colmore’s 1911 novel Suffragette Sally foregrounds a working-class woman’s experience joining the movement and carrying out militant acts. The WSPU newspaper Votes for Women features heavily in the novel, being read by all three protagonists and sold in the gutters by Sally. In this essay, a close reading of the novel alongside research investigating suffrage periodicals grants a new understanding of how such papers were used to promote the movement. Exploring Sally’s time as a female newsy builds on the periodical trend of highlighting the positives of selling the paper and underplaying the negative experiences of these suffragettes. Additionally, the power of the periodical positions words as a form of deeds.