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Kimberly Wahl
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the color white became a fundamental and central keystone in the symbolic language of the British Suffrage Movement. Countering and complicating the Edwardian taste for white as merely a simple indicator of feminine delicacy and “fashionability,” the organizing members of the Women’s Social and Political Union, or WSPU, chose white as one of their official colors in 1908, although in practice it was already widely worn by both supporters and non-supporters of the women’s movement alike. For members of the WSPU, white stood for purity, green for hope, and purple for dignity. While these three colors adorned and embellished a range of political ephemera and fashion accessories, from suffrage banners for political marches to seemingly innocuous green and purple ribbons and sashes for hats and blouses, white was the dominant color worn, and its symbolic framing within the movement is perhaps the most complex. This text explores the artistic and literary framing of the color white in the mid-to-late nineteenth century and examines its strategic use in first-wave feminism to communicate a range of cultural meanings. These ranged from spiritual and moral values in connection with notions of purity to its implied cultural critique as a perceived cipher of classical antiquity among dress and design reformers of the period.
Historically, fashion has not been widely discussed in academic histories of the Suffrage Movement, yet its role was far more significant than the existing literature might suggest. The connection between clothing and embodied notions of female agency was linked in fascinating ways through the visual and metaphorical languages of artistic practice, as well as the conventions of spectacle that were central to suffrage demonstrations and processions. However, aside from fashion’s integral role in the daily activities of campaigners, the visual and symbolic function of clothing in the iconography of the movement was far more complex, functioning on a number of levels to define and inform the motifs and iconic signifiers of suffrage ephemera and print culture.
Richly imbricated with a range of sartorial and cultural meanings, the white dress of the British Suffrage Movement was both performative and strategic. Its visual iconography drew on a long history of symbolic conventions linking the color white with a range of positive cultural associations. Aside from the obvious popular affiliation between the color white and an assumed purity and innocence embodied in the traditional wedding gown, white in this context was a marker of class and gender difference. Edwina Ehrman, a fashion curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, has traced the increasing usage of the color white among the upper classes in England, where it was the most popular choice for women’s bridal wear from the late eighteenth century onwards (2011: 37). The pristine and precious nature of white garments, together with their rarity and difficulty in cleaning where extremely hot water or various bleaching agents were required to remove stains, made them markers of social mobility and cultural capital. This was particularly true before the advent of gas and electricity, which made cleaning white garments more affordable and convenient through the use of mechanization (Ehrman 2011: 10). This would have been true even toward the end of the nineteenth century when the ready-to-wear market allowed for white dresses and shirtwaists to be made widely available and democratically priced. However, the symbolic and ritual function of the color white goes far beyond indications of class or social capital; indeed, as Ehrman has noted, “White garments were associated with spiritual rites of passage long before they became conventional for bridal wear” (2011: 9).
More importantly, at the time of the most active and militant phase of suffrage activism, from 1909 to 1913, the visual importance of the white dress became increasingly polemical, particularly in terms of its visible and defining presence in large-scale political marches and demonstrations (Figure 2.1). Drawing on the fashionable trope of the Edwardian lingerie dress, its up-to-date status signaled a rarefied and refined delicacy, as well as knowledge of appropriate and conventional dress. Additionally, in contrast with the darker masculine colors of the period, it offered itself as a purified and visible marker of difference, conforming to gender binaries of the period, and was thus reassuringly feminine. To further emphasize the inherent femininity of the color white and its connection with tradition, in 1907, in the pages of Votes for Women, the official publication of the WSPU, suffragette, artist, and writer Sylvia Pankhurst contributed an article outlining the history of agitation in Britain for universal suffrage—including women’s rights—focusing specifically on the 1817 demonstration in St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester (which later became known as the Peterloo Massacre). In describing this early demonstration of political agitation for universal suffrage, she wrote: “There were 1,000 women and girls in this company, most of them dressed in white, and many of the women carried babies in their arms” (Votes for Women, October, 1907: 8).
Figure 2.1 Suffragette March in Hyde Park. July 23, 1910. © Museum of London.
On the surface, examples like this appear to affirm, rather than challenge, the Victorian legacy of separate spheres, where public spaces were perceived as the dominion of men and women were relegated to domestic settings. Yet the strategic wearing of white in public demonstrations also stood as a constructed model for ascendancy and respect, a visual affirmation of parity and equality. This was in line with one of the reoccurring arguments in more conservative factions of the women’s movement, where a gendered bid for power might result in separate but equal roles for men and women. Thus, politically active women in this period acknowledged that conventional forms of fashionable dress did much in persuading public opinion of the respectability and validity of the women’s movement.
Despite this fashionable respectability, however, radical suffragettes were often characterized in the press as unwomanly, frumpy harridans wearing ill-fitting masculine clothing. To combat negative public opinion, leaders of the WSPU sought to emphasize the importance of appearance and self-care among followers of the movement. In an article entitled “The Suffragette and the Dress Problem” in the July 30, 1908, issue of Votes for Women, the author writes:
The Suffragette of to-day is dainty and precise in her dress; indeed she has a feeling that, for the honor of the cause she represents, she must “live up to” her highest ideals in all respects. Dress with her, therefore, is at all times a matter of importance, whether she is to appear on a public platform, in a procession, or merely in house or street about her ordinary vocations (348).
Dress practices were therefore central to first-wave feminism, and though fashion was often a silent and unacknowledged factor in the shaping of the movement, it has often been presented in reductive terms, or not at all. Mobilized strategically to enhance the status and worth of suffragettes in the public eye, a repertoire of codified principles and military precision were employed in the service of creating a dignified, respectable, and united front. One of the largest political marches of the movement, the Women’s Coronation Procession of June 17, 1911, took place less than a week before the official coronation of George V. It featured twenty-nine united suffrage societies and by then the color symbolism and codified appearance of suffrage supporters were firmly fixed. Often in white, to emphasize the purity of spirit and lofty aims of the movement, typical costumes were accented with key colors of specific suffrage associations—for the WSPU it was purple, green, and white, and in the case of the Actresses’ Franchise League it was green, pink, and white (Tickner 1987: 265). In a foundational text on the visual culture of the Suffrage Movement, Lisa Tickner argued that the Actresses’ Franchise League along with the Artists’ Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier were largely responsible for the sophisticated and nuanced way that spectacle and performance were utilized in these public processions to great effect (1987: 13–29). Similar to the WSPU, the NUWSS (National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies) adopted colors that included white (the alternate being red and green) and the WFL (Women’s Freedom League) took green and gold to complement their use of white as well (Kaplan and Stowell 1994: 169). Regardless of variation, white was always the shared foundational color across the visual iconography of the women’s movement.
Thus, to a large extent, despite differing positions on political policy making, or levels of militancy, suffrage dress-practices across associations were somewhat uniform and even communal; many objects, details, and even commercial sources for clothing and textiles were shared. Within specific organizations, color schemes were often regulated, as was the highly visible advice on clothing and etiquette in relation to the movement in the press of the day, both in mainstream fashionable journals and, more tellingly, in the publications of the movement itself. Advocating the official WSPU colors of purple, green, and white in 1908, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, the treasurer for the WSPU and co-founder of the magazine Votes for Women, suggested that women should adhere to the preferred color scheme in their choice of dress if participating in the planned march for June 21st of the same month:
we ask you to be guided by the colors in your choice of dress. That is very important, too. We have 700 banners in purple, white, and green. The effect will be very much lost unless the colors are carried out in the dress of every woman in the ranks. White, cream, or tussore should, if possible, be the dominant color; purple and green should be introduced where other color is necessary. (June 18: 249)
To further emphasize the importance of a unified and cohesive front, guided by the usage of the Union’s colors, Pethick-Lawrence went on to argue that “If every individual woman in this union would do her part, the colors would become the reigning fashion. And, strange as it may seem, nothing would so help to popularize the Women’s Social and Political Union” (249).
In the weeks following the demonstrations, follow-up reports in Votes for Women noted the careful and consistent use of color in the June 21st march: “Many of the younger women wore the uniform of the cause—a white frock, with a ‘Votes for Women’ sash in the suffragette colors of purple, green, and white” (June 25, 1908: 269). Tellingly, the connection between the official colors of the Union and the commercial aspects of the production and consumption of appropriate fashionable clothing was cited as a factor in the perceived overall effect, popularity, and success of the march:
One of the most remarkable features of the whole demonstration was the unity of the color scheme, displayed not only in the banners, but in the dresses and decorations of the women who were taking part. We are informed that in the various drapers’ establishments in which the special Votes for Women scarves were displayed, several thousand in all were disposed of, and that the whole stock was sold out before the demonstration took place. Fresh orders were given by the Union at the end, but could not be executed in time for the day itself, though a few are now obtainable at Clements Inn (Votes for Women, June 25, 1908: 258).
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was one of the driving forces behind the strategic and promotional use of color within the WSPU. Her understanding of the importance of pageantry, ritual, symbolism, and spectacle continued to inflect her reminiscences of the movement, years later. In recalling the demonstrations of June 1908, in her later memoir My Part in a Changing World (1938), she wrote: “[j]ournalistic imagination” was inspired by “the beauty” as “Youth was largely represented everywhere” (184). Further, she noted how the majority of speakers and members of the procession “wore white summer frocks with sashes or badges of purple and green,” arguing that the spectacle with its “gay crowds” and “great display of colors” resulted in hundreds of new WSPU members being recruited in the days that followed (227). Later, in describing a large procession from 1910, Pethick-Lawrence informs us that due to her position near the front of the march she was able to admire the expansive view of “white summer frocks with sashes or badges of purple and green” and how this color coordination brought women together with “the orderliness of a military force” (184).
That clothing and fashion were ever-present in the mind of suffragists is revealed through an analysis of the print culture of the movement. The prevalence of fashion advertisements in Votes for Women establishes the importance of clothing as part of the management of an abstracted and idealized “body of suffrage.” In fact, selected advertisements specifically targeted women supporting the Suffrage Movement proffering messages and opportunities to promote and communicate mainstream values of respectability and decorum. They also supported the market for fashionable goods largely perceived to be made for, and by, women during this period. In a 1910 issue, two advertisements emphasize a slim and tailored silhouette, one created through corsetry and the other through the use of a skirt grip (Figure 2.2). In these advertisements (which were common and appear throughout the various issues of Votes for Women), themes of modest and appropriate dress are suggested through the promotion of the corset or other garment modifiers as an integral part of the suffrage uniform—implying control, proper attire, and the ability to conform to etiquette and social expectation (Votes for Women, April 22, 1910). The emphasis in the advertisement on “fit” and “comfort” indicates the core value of social acceptability and maintaining a “proper” appearance during marches. While this may seem restrictive on one level, the use of mainstream fashion to maintain a non-threatening and therefore acceptable feminine appearance can also be understood as a potentially disruptive phenomenon in and of itself. It has been argued that it was precisely this strategic convergence of “ladylike” behavior and dress in the furtherance of radical political aims that constituted a reconfiguration of the feminine itself as potentially disruptive. As Victorian literary scholar Wendy Parkins has argued, through conformity and the “subversive repetition of practices which were seen to constitute femininity” while simultaneously engaging in political practice, the performance of “middle-class prescriptions of fashionable femininity was a contestation of the construction of the female subject—as decorative but apolitical …” (2002: 105). Forging new feminine identities and conflating domestic and “traditional” feminine experiences and pursuits with a claim to public space, the perceived borders between public and private, masculine and feminine were increasingly being eroded by women’s increasing visibility and demands to be heard.
Figure 2.2 Advertisements, “Votes for Women,” April 22, 1910. L.S.E. Library, photo by author.
Furthermore, while the color white in the context of mainstream fashion may have had obvious connotations of purity, respectability, decorum, and innocence, it also referenced a more subversive set of cultural meanings as well, having to do with its historical presence in the artistic and literary imagination of the late Victorian period. An earlier and yet often unacknowledged factor in the white dress of the Suffrage Movement is the importance of the color white in artistic and aesthetic circles in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The artist Louise Jopling, who was an active supporter of suffrage, is an important exemplar of the complex role of the color white in both artistic and political settings. Independent and yet married, suitably feminine and often posing for paintings and photographs and yet a professional artist in her own right, Jopling carefully negotiated the roles, constraints, and opportunities open to her as a politically and socially active female artist. Photographed in 1890 by Frederick Hollyer, an image of Jopling in a white dress may appear to simply anticipate the widespread appeal of white in many of the frothy Edwardian conceptions of female dress at the turn of the century. Yet, this photograph also speaks to her knowledge of, and involvement in, earlier artistic and design reform circles of the late nineteenth century, where the color white had a far more complex visual role. Models for aesthetic dress from the 1870s to the 1890s were often historicized, simple in cut and silhouette, and meant to be worn without a corset—features which differed radically from mainstream conventional dress practices (Wahl, 2013). As dress reform and artistic dress practices were often closely allied with British Aestheticism as well as the Arts and Crafts Movement, it is perhaps unsurprising that many of the artists associated with the Suffrage Movement, also still active in artistic circles, would have had a preference for artistic and aesthetic models of dress. These earlier artistic and aesthetic modes appeared throughout the visual iconography and print culture of the Suffrage Movement—sometimes in contradistinction to what was actually being worn by suffragettes themselves. The impact of the “white dress” of the Aesthetic Movement on the Suffrage Movement would largely affect the visual and material manifestations of its print culture rather than in the actual garments that were worn. The fact that historicism and nostalgia were so pervasive in the progressive political messaging of suffrage print culture is highly significant and clearly affixes the visual cultures of the movement to earlier formations in the art and design realm of the late nineteenth century.
Within the movement itself, the personification of positive cultural values in the form of a woman revealed the impossibility of separating the female body from other ephemera in the visual culture of the Suffrage Movement. White clothing remained a central facet of this material manifestation of suffrage ideals, and yet its myriad connections with the body were articulated in differential ways, depending on the context. As an embodied form of protest, clothing was worn in conventional and regimented ways, signaling the power of fashion to signify allegiance, inclusion, respectability, and “fashionability.” However, on a symbolic level, representations of dress served more ephemeral ends, tying the body of the suffragette to a symbolic array of idealizing female stereotypes and tropes that were deemed useful or desirable among politically active women. More broadly, Victorian print culture frequently placed the bodies of women front and center in debates over politics and gender. Both negative and positive depictions illustrate the persuasive power of such images. Interestingly, they also reveal the highly ambiguous nature of the visual realm. A well-known 1912 postcard illustrated by Harold Bird and produced by the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage lampoons the figure of the suffragette who is depicted behind a classically draped “true model” of woman as a shrieking and unattractive extremist wielding a hammer. In response, in her work for the Suffrage Atelier, Louise Jacobs appropriated this earlier image to produce “The Appeal of Womanhood” (Plate 2.1). Inverting the classical attributes to instead reflect suffrage values, she presents the figure of suffrage as more than just a noble and classically garbed woman, but as a figure of virtue and selflessness (Tickner, 1987: 250). In doing so, Jacobs reconfigures the ideal of the suffragette in the popular imagination and regains the support of an easily swayed public. These two images highlight the inherently ambiguous nature of suffrage imagery when viewed without context or explanation. They also demonstrate the discursive importance of corporeal stereotypes in the Victorian framing of gender—in this context the symbolic overlay of classical drapery and the color white are applied to opposite female “types,” whose identity and validity are dependent on artistic representation and the perspective of the illustrators.
As an embodied practice, conventional and mainstream aspects of fashion were incorporated into the repertoire of suffrage identity and visibility. Yet within the symbolic realm, key images of female power and nobility were reliant on an entirely different visual language, mostly drawn from the imagery and artistic authority of the Aesthetic Movement in Britain, which rose in prominence and popularity in the decades preceding the final push for suffrage within first-wave feminism. The color white had a subtle but distinctive role in this setting, particularly in the supportive visual and literary cultures of the periodical press of the late nineteenth century. Classical imagery of dress/drapery adorning the female figure was a constant in the illustrative print culture of the period.
Coming out of the context of the visual culture of the Victorian period, and more specifically drawing on the artistic and erudite language of the Aesthetic Movement, the white dress at the turn of the century can be viewed as a complex and internally contradictory sign of subversion and experimentation. From the iconic “White Girl” series painted by James Abbott McNeill Whistler in the 1860s, to the army of insistent maidens who parade through Edward Burne Jones’s paintings of the 1880s, to the literary framing of white dressed women in Victorian fiction as unknowable, mysterious, or even sometimes threatening, women wearing white occupied a fluid and iconic role in the collective Victorian imagination. Whistler’s The White Girl of 1862 depicts one of the clearest portrayals of early aesthetic dress, and despite his emphasis on the static and material nature of the image, the reception of his painting in press circles tended to emphasize the enigmatic and mysterious nature of the figure, some even equating it with Wilkie Collins’s famous 1859 novel The Woman in White (Prettejohn, 2007: 164).
Further links between the iconography of suffrage art production and past artistic dress principles can be identified through an analysis of both the visual culture of the Aesthetic Movement—and key political imagery of the Suffrage Movement, particularly in the pronounced interest in classical dress—and the use of personification to signify key tropes conveying artistic or moral values. In this context, the dress reform practices and aesthetic modes of dress from the 1870s to the 1890s become central in shaping iconic suffrage images of female beauty, nobility, and achievement. Here, the color white can be seen as a subtle critique of culture, its fluidity and resonance with past classical ideals falling in line with selected social and sartorial reform tendencies of the period.
By way of example, a prominent dress reform society, the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union of the 1890s cited the artistic and moral superiority of the classical age as an appropriate template for design and dress reform. In a series of tableax vivants entitled “Living Pictures” and performed at St. George’s Hall in May 1896, the Victorian imagination conflated performative aspects of social reform, with aspects of classical dress (Figure 2.3). Conceived of by Walter Crane, a member of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union, and a prominent artist, illustrator, and design reformer of the period, these tableaux reflected the values and progressive reform policies for dress and culture first laid out in AGLAIA—the official journal of the Union in the early 1890s. One of the “Three Graces” of Greek mythology, Aglaia was the goddess of beauty, splendor, and glory; in the principles of artistic dress reform of the late nineteenth century, physical and spiritual beauty were conflated in idealized images of femininity drawn from classical sources inflected with notions of Victorian naturalism (Wahl, 2013: 29–32).
Figure 2.3 Walter Crane “Living Pictures” Series performed at St. George’s Hall, May 1896. © Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester.
Such imagery, and more particularly the performative aspects of reform based on historic dress, would inform much of the visual and symbolic language of first-wave feminism. Thus, within the suffrage campaign of the early twentieth century, the symbolic and material expressions of clothing culture were functioning on different levels. While women in politically active circles were careful to conform to the standards and preferences of mainstream fashion, the visual and literary framing of suffrage often referred back to the experimental and critical practices of the dress reform movement and the sartorial expressions of British Aestheticism, which formed a persistent and pronounced alternative to mainstream Victorian dress practices. The color white was significant in both of these contexts, and the contiguous role of these differential legacies in the Suffrage Movement points to the complexity and richness of the color white as a cipher of cultural meaning. The dual and strategic use of dress to communicate a range of crucial social values may partially explain the success of the movement, where the iconography of suffrage art production and the embodied conventions of dress in practice were able to coexist in two distinct yet complementary visual realms.
The myriad and imbricated meanings of the color white in the visual culture of the Suffrage Movement leads one to question the overtly fashionable appearance of the Suffragette. An analysis of the material and visual cultures of the movement reveals instances of reform, change, and artistic experimentation with regard to clothing during this time. The interest in historical figures from the past alludes to the perception of medieval and classical dress as timeless and therefore valuable. Yet at the same time, there are also references to some of the more avant-garde dress reform aspects of the Aesthetic Movement in the 1870s and 1880s—widely perceived at the time to provide an embodied form of emancipation for women who felt that mainstream fashion enslaved and restricted women’s freedom of movement, mentally and physically. It could be said that by the end of the First World War, the women’s movement had begun to address themes beyond the goal of suffrage. Artistic freedom and female autonomy started to have a more overt impact on clothing culture, including mainstream fashion.
The presence of the color white in the complex visual cultures of suffrage served as a reminder of the complex nature of color symbolism and the ways in which cultural meanings could accrue through processes of signification. In some visual and literary views of the movement, the color white gestured toward modernity, fashion, and contemporary taste. Prominent suffragette Christabel Pankhurst was often seen as the embodiment of this new spirit. Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence recalled her popularity with the press, remembering her as the “embodiment of youth and charm” and in recounting her appearance at a routine legal proceeding wrote: “Christabel, in a white frock with a sash of purple and green, looked like a flower in that dingy Court” (1938: 200).
While Christabel Pankhurst’s youthful and fashionable appearance in public was often commented on in the press, as a visual and iconic figure of suffrage, she was sometimes pictured in romantic and historicized ways—in line with typical images of female suffragists in postcards, banners, and memorabilia of the movement. By way of example, in a post card entitled “Saint Christabel” illustrated by Charles Sykes, sometime between 1908 and 1914, a trajectory of history and tradition is invoked by the depiction of Pankhurst in a white dress modeled along medieval and archaic lines. Shown framed by a stained glass window and encumbered by chains, this image portrayed Pankhurst clasping her hands and gazing upwards, in a pose invoking a plethora of art historical references linking female sainthood with religious fervor. Simultaneously, this image referenced earlier incarnations of artistic dress which were shaped by mid-Victorian medievalism and the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Finally, this image clearly allied Pankhurst’s popular image with other images of Joan of Arc, a shared symbol of female virtue and purity found across a range of suffrage ephemera; Pankhurst personally identified “with the ‘virgin saint’ and [quoted] her in speeches” (Betterton 1996: 74).
In the visual iconography of suffrage ephemera and its attendant print culture, the color white can also be seen as a kind of cultural critique, at once historicist and classicizing, but at the same time heralding an as yet unseen level of spiritual and physical equality between men and women. Pushing the ritual and symbolic significance of the color white further into the realm of martyrdom, Pethick-Lawrence emphasized the powerful spectacle of those members of the movement who had been imprisoned marching in the Coronation Procession of 1911:
[T]he most significant and beautiful part of the pageant was the contingent of those who had been in prison. They marched in white, a thousand strong, each one carrying a small silver pennant, and in their midst was borne a great banner depicting a symbolic woman with a broken chain in her hands and in inscription: FROM PRISON—TO CITIZENSHIP (1938: 254).
Pankhurst herself described this particular demonstration as “the most joyous, beautiful and imposing of all our manifestations” (1959: 184).
In conclusion, the white dress of the Suffrage Movement functioned as a composite visual signifier, overdetermined, symbolically rich, and capable of cultural critique. Yet at the same moment, on the surface it often appeared to be reassuringly feminine and conventional. It could be said that therein lay its power as a political tool for change, as well as an exemplar of the power of color in fashion.
References
Betterton, Rosemary (1996), An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body, London: Routledge.
Ehrman, Edwina (2011), The Wedding Dress: 300 Years of Bridal Fashions, London: V&A Publishing.
Kaplan, Joel and Sheila Stowell (1994), Theatre and Fashion: From Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pankhurst, Christabel (1959), Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote, London: Hutchinson & Co.
Pankhurst, Sylvia (October 1, 1907), “The History of the Suffrage Movement Chapter I—the Battle of Peterloo,” Votes for Women, 8–9.
Parkins, Wendy (2002), “The Epidemic of Purple, White and Green’: Fashion and the Suffragette Movement in Britain 1908–14,” in Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship, 97–214, Oxford: Berg.
Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline (June 18, 1908), “Women’s Sunday,” Votes for Women, 249.
Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline (1938), My Part in a Changing World, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Prettejohn, Elizabeth (2007), Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Tickner, Lisa (1987), The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907–14, London: Chatto & Windus.
Votes for Women (July 30, 1908), “The Suffragette and the Dress Problem,” 348.
Wahl, Kimberly (2013), Dressed as in a Painting: Women and British Aestheticism in an Age of Reform, Lebanon: University of New Hampshire Press.