The Big Draw

Artists' Suffrage League

This image was created by painter and cartoon maker Mary Lowndes (1857-1929), one of the founders of the Artists' Suffrage League and the designer of many of the banners which were carried in the suffrage parades which took place before the First World War. Her album is held with the ASL papers.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies was engaged in campaigning for votes for women. Their lack of immediate success led others to adopt different tactics to their own parliamentary work. Increasing numbers of women took part in the civil disobedience organised by the Women's Social and Political Union, who were engaged in window smashing and arson attacks as well as hunger strikes in prison. The National Union preferred to persist in using constitutional means but also extended their public activities, organising marches, demonstrations, rallies and pageants. Their use of visual images increased and banners designed by artists such as Lowndes were carried in several NUWSS processions. Several of those, including the ones representing heroines of the past such as Susan B Anthony, are now held in The Women's Library collections.

Image copyright The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

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