As the UK-wide lockdown began on 23rd March, the Glasgow Women’s Library team was already working from home. Amazingly, our museum and archive collections continued to grow. Throughout lockdown, thoughtful first-time donors and long-time champions got in touch. All were keen to preserve part of their personal histories at this momentous time.
Collection: Museum
Objects from the Museum collection
Postcards and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage
The GWL collections feature a wide variety of books and objects relating to the Suffrage movement but our range of postcards is arguably the most visually arresting. Both for and against women’s suffrage, they have pictures and slogans that are often shocking and grotesque.
Postcard: “We want our vote!”
Anti-suffragette postcard of two infants in lace bonnets heartily bawling, with the caption “We want our vote!”
Postcard: “Mummy’s a Suffragette”
Anti-suffragette postcard with a crying baby in ruff collar, with the caption: “Mummy’s a Suffragette.”
Postcard: “Dear ‘Ruby’…”
Postcard with an illustration of an old woman with a bolt shot across her lips. Caption: “Dear [Ruby], I wish I could tell you”.
Postcard: “Then they will be satisfied”
Postcard: A smiling lady in a red trouser-suit and high heeled shoes rides a bicycle. In the background a bald, white-bearded gentleman in an old-fashioned farmworker’s smock is so surprised that his hat has popped off and he’s dropping his pitchfork.
Postcard: “This is ‘THE HOUSE’ that man built…” (Pro-Suffrage)
A pro-suffrage postcard that puts a spin on a series of anti-suffrage postcards that are based on the rhyme ‘This is the house that Jack built’.
Postcard: “This is ‘The House’ that man built…” (Anti-Suffrage)
An anti-suffrage postcard with a rhyming poem that ridicules the Suffragettes. It is one from a series that were published based on the children’s rhyme ‘This is the house that […]
Postcard: “I want my Vote!”
Postcard of a mewling kitten against a background of suffragette colours, captioned: “I want my Vote!”
Postcard: “There’s no end to a Woman’s Tongue”
Postcard showing a woman’s tongue going through a mangle and a dog pulling on the end of it. The caption reads ‘There’s no end to a Woman’s Tongue’