Modern and Postmodern Timeline

Founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies

On October 16, 1896, approximately twenty leaders of women’s suffrage organizations in Britain gathered together at the Birmingham Conference to discuss the possibility of merging their individual societies into one joint organization. Because each society was fighting for the same overall goal-- women’s suffrage-- they decided that uniting their organizations would be a beneficial and powerful strategy (Hume 4, Vellacott 1). Thus, one year later, on October 14, 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, commonly acronymized as NUWSS, was founded. At its founding, the NUWSS had seventeen member societies, including many of the largest and most influential women’s suffrage organizations in Britain at the time (Hume 4). The seventeen member societies branded themselves-- and the NUWSS as a whole-- as a non-militant, constitutional, and non-party-affiliated organization united to achieve women’s suffrage (Holton 1, Hume 5, Vellacott 1).

In the early years, the role of the NUWSS was limited. Because each member society still functioned independently in its designated location and the NUWSS had no funds to support its members, the organization had little control over how the individual societies functioned. Instead of managing its members, the main duty of the NUWSS was to communicate with the Committee of Parliamentary Supporters of Women’s Suffrage (Hume 6, Vellacott 2). Direct communication with Members of Parliament was the first step in getting the government to hear and consider the idea of women’s suffrage (Hume 6).

Spearheading the NUWSS after its founding was Millicent Garrett Fawcett who served as the president of the organization from 1898-1919 (Holton 1, Hume 7-8). Fawcett had experience with women’s rights, as she grew up with a father who was a strong believer in feminism and a sister who helped to pave the way for women in the medical field (Holton 1). Fawcett and many other members of NUWSS were described as women whose personalities closely resembled that of a typical Victorian woman. They were kind wives and mothers and gentle, loving figures all around (Hume 13). While this helped create a sense of camaraderie among the societies in the NUWSS, it was not helpful in their quest to have their issues heard or considered by the government.

In general, 1897-1903 were building years for the NUWSS and were not as successful as perhaps the organization had hoped. The NUWSS tried to advocate for their cause, but they were often too gentle and did not fight to break the sex barriers to have their voices heard by Members of Parliament (Hume 9-11). After years of not having a single concern of theirs talked about in the House of Commons, the Committee of Parliamentary Supporters of Women’s Suffrage suggested that the individual member societies of the NUWSS directly approach Members of Parliament who lived in their area to communicate to them the importance of women’s suffrage (14). If Members of Parliament could be convinced women’s suffrage was an important cause, perhaps the entire Parliament would listen to the issue.

In 1903, after the Boer War was over and a General Election was approaching, the NUWSS had a change in strategy. In late 1903, two-hundred women from the NUWSS and other women’s rights societies met for a convention in London (Holton 1, Hume 20-21). What is argued to be the most important aspect of the 1903 convention was the idea that going forward, the NUWSS would establish new committees in every county in Britain and Ireland (Hume 21). These new committees would commit themselves to consistently speaking with Members of Parliament and electoral candidates about the women’s suffrage issue as well as informing the general public about the importance of women’s suffrage and encouraging them to only support candidates who supported the cause (Hume 21, Vellacott 2). These actions helped to establish the NUWSS as a united, governing body rather than a collection of individual societies (Hume 21-22).

After the 1906 election where the Liberal party secured its place in office, the NUWSS was hopeful that its campaigning efforts would lead the House of Commons to discuss women’s suffrage, but they were, once again, overly optimistic (Hume 23). After having no success in having their concerns heard, in July 1906, the NUWSS started a movement to speak to individuals in Parliament who were against women’s suffrage to try to convince them to rethink their position. Then, in October of the same year, the NUWSS announced it would sponsor a candidate who supported women’s suffrage (26).

While all of these efforts were steps in the right direction in the overall goal of achieving women’s suffrage, the NUWSS was still a fairly new and growing society. In the following years, the organization had its share of ups and downs. It organized public events to further campaign for this cause, and it was eventually renamed the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (Holton 4). The fight for equal voting rights for women continued into 1928 when it was finally achieved thanks, in part, to the work of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

Works Cited

Holton, Sandra Stanley. “National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (Act. 1896–1918).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 24 May 2008, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96378.

Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies 1897-1914. Vol. 3, Routledge, 2016.

Vellacott, Jo. Pacifists, Patriots and the Vote: The Erosion of Democratic Suffragism in Britain During the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

On the twenty-eighth of June, 1914, a young man toppled the fragile structure of world order with two bullets—one for Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, the other for the Archduke’s wife, Sophie. 

The royal couple were invited to the Bosnian capital of Saravejo, which was annexed by the Austrian empire in 1908, by General Oskar Potoirek to attend a speech in the city hall and inspect imperial military personnel. The shooting occurred just hours after a botched bombing attempt, about which the Archduke is recorded to have said to the military governor, “What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit, and I get bombs thrown in my face. It is outrageous” (The Times). After the failed bombing, the speech and the inspection of Sarajevo’s military parade, riding in the back of a roofless motor-car—as was common for the time—through the streets of Sarajevo among a crowd of thousands gathered to see the royal couple, they were shot dead (The Times). 

After the two shots were fired, the young gunman swallowed a cyanide pill but somehow survived (Jay 19). He was promptly pointed out by the crowd and arrested by Bosnian officials. That young gunman was nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip, misidentified by The Times in London as Nadjeliko Cabrinovitch just a day after it happened. Gavrilo Princip was one of three men involved in the assassination plot directly, and a member of the Black Hand, a group of Serbian nationalist extremists (Jay 19). He was too young to be executed by Austria-Hungarian law, so he was instead sentenced to life in prison in Theresienstadt, where he wasted away in solitary confinement (Jay 19). The Black Hand’s actions, carried out by Gavrilo Princip’s hand, is often considered to be the straw that broke the camels back with regards to stoking the flame of the first world war (Schmitt 70). 

This event is important to highlight when exploring historical examples of “toxic patriotism”, as Gavrilo Princip’s nationalistic mindset is ultimately what led to his involvement with the Black Hand and eventually to his shooting of the Archduke. Moreover, although Princip ultimately died for his actions, he was hailed as a martyr by many who viewed the annexation of Sarajevo and Bosnia as a bad thing, thus further stoking a ravenous nationalistic mindest which spiraled into WW1 (Jay 20). Similarly, this sentiment was mirrored in the attitudes of many of the nations which then involved themselves in the war—this idea of the romanticisation or the idealization of one’s homeland. To Princip, his homeland was under siege by a foreign power, infected and otherwise beautiful, and that is a state of mind which mirrors many contemporary examples of toxic patriotism—namely the January 6th insurrection at the United States capitol building.

In both this event and the insurrection of the U.S. capital building, the party responsible for the violence believed they were engaging in a fight to rid their homeland from an occupying force which tainted its natural goodness.  

Primary Source:

 "Austrian Heir and his Wife Murdered." The Times, 29 June 1914, p. 8. Gale Primary Sources, https://go-gale-com.

Other Works Cited:

 Jay, Martin. "The Manacles of Gavrilo Princip." Salmagundi, no. 106/107, 1995, pp. 14-21. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40548800. 

Schmitt, Bernadotte E. "The Origins of the War of 1914." The Journal of Modern History, vol. 24, no. 1, March 1952. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1871982. 

Start of World War I

A month after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia beginning World War 1. This war involved countries across Europe, the central powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire) against the allied powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Romania, and the United States). WW1 caused a huge shift in society as it meant almost all capable men were sent off to fight in the war and the women were left at home to pick up the factory jobs and labor the men had left behind. This was the first great war and it brought destruction, carnage, and mass loss of life to everyone involved, it is estimated over 16 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives in World War 1.  This bloodshed on the battlefield inspired the work of soldiers such as Wilfred Owen who fought on the frontlines to create such historic poetry and works of art. 

The Russian Civil War

 From the wake of World War I, Russia was divided. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. It is important to add that Lenin believed the only way to bring change was through violent uprising and not peaceful change. Once in power, Lenin had pulled Russia out of the war so the nation could focus on rebuilding, specifically by using Marxism to help build the communist state. This revolution and Lenin’s rise to power threw Russia into conflict quickly. Many different people rose up to push back against these Bolshevik ideals. 

There were two main groups that were opposing Lenin: the non-Bolshevik left, who had been finally alienated from Lenin by his dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the rightist Whites, whose main asset was the Volunteer Army in the Kuban steppes. This “White Army” as they called themselves was the biggest opposition to Lenin. It was composed of many different groups but all to go against the Bolshevik Red Army. Multiple battles erupted all throughout Russia. While many of the smaller armies/movements struggled, The White Army held strong and was holding their own against the Bolsheviks. In late 1918, the Bolsheviks only really held power in the western industrial cities because of Allied Germany, treaties, and the White Army’s advances. 

Then in November 1918, World War I officially came to an end and the line of Eastern Europe were redrawn. Other countries pulled their troops out and the Bolsheviks saw their chance to push. The Bolsheviks sought dominance over the East and West. Their push east was not too successful, but into the east they spread quickly. With this push the Bolsheviks took dominance fast. This is largely due to the fact that the Bolsheviks had a singular, united goal and a strong leader behind it, while the White Army was more disjointed with many goals throughout the leaders. 

In 1919, the White Army was making progress towards Moscow but the Bolsheviks then made an alliance with the Black Army in Ukraine and stopped their advancement and pushed them back. By 1920, the White Army was all but destroyed in the East. The Whites could no longer effectively fight the Black and Red Army. Late 1920 saw Poland and Ukraine form an alliance and launch an offensive against the Bolsheviks in hopes to reunite the Ukrainian State. While they captured Kyiv they were met by a numerically superior Red Army. The Red Army then kept advancing farther into Poland but were halted and the Bolsheviks made a treaty with Poland. This guaranteed Polish independence but left Ukraine under Bolshevik control. With this, the remnants of the White Army fled. Even in this, Lenin saw more opportunity for power and control. With the White Army fleeing, this allowed Lenin to break his alliance with the Black Army and turn on them. They would eventually surrender in 1921. The Bolsheviks would then take over Georgia and Romania to finish off the White Army. The Bolsheviks annexation of the Far Eastern Republic in 1922 effectively ended the war and created the Soviet Union. 

The revolution and war displayed the ruthless power-grabbing mindset under Lenin and the Bolsheviks that has led to so much of what modern Russia has become. Lenin’s ideals and effect on history still have weight and repercussions in the present. Russia and Ukraine are still dealing with the trickle-down effect of this complex history. The grasping for power at the expense of others is still something that weighs on these countries as we can see in Ukraine today. 

Works Cited

 Reiman, Michael. “About the Russian Revolution of 1917.” About Russia, Its Revolutions, Its Development and Its Present, Peter Lang AG, 2016, pp. 13–24, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2t4dn7.4. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022

Clemence Housman Completes her Last Wood-Engraving Commission

Clemence Housman began engraving Frederick Landseer Griggs's architectural drawings of Chipping Campden during World War I and continued the series until 1923, after which she retired from wood engraving.

World War II

World War II was fought from 1939 to 1945, with the United States fighting with the Allied powers, Italy with the Axis powers under Benito Mussolini.  

Exodus of Working Women After WWII

After World War Two, millions of men returned home following the aftermath of the war. The men returned to the normalcy of their lives, going back to their jobs, and providing for their families; however, who was there to support the men whilst they were overseas, or fighting in their own countries? That answer is none other than the women of their nations, who stepped into action, providing the men at war with the rudiments required to win the war for the allies. When the men returned, the women enjoyed their newfound powers. They enjoyed working and making something of themselves: living without the help of the man. When the men returned, some women were outright fired. Others tried to stay, and people actively revolted. Employers would make unfair working situations, favoring the men, and the men would convince their wives to simply provide for the family and live at home. As a result, thousands of strikes occurred after World War Two to the 1970’s. One such strike was in 1956, where thousands of fish curers walk out after having been treated unfairly by their employer.

“The women complain that while men workers have already been awarded the five-day week and an increase in pay, there was no increase in pay for many women workers last Saturday.” Reads the body of a Times publication, titled “1,000 FISH CURERS ON STRIKE.” This was not abnormal for women to experience during this period. People did not like the empowerment that working at a job gave the women who were previously expected to simply work for the family. Many employers, men, and sexists rioted at working women, causing a sharp exodus of women from the work force. Many stayed, however, to mark their place, and economic fairness between men and women still appears to be a problem today (Women and Work After World War II). What started as an empowering movement for women to provide for their families alongside the men, turned into a violent conflict that saw many women leave the work force or suffer while in it.

While many women left the work force after the war, it seemed to stagnate in the 1950’s leading to an increase in the percentage of overall women in the workforce by the 1960’s, where 51 percent of working age women were in the labor force (Striking Women). Many women left the workforce due to “Marriage bars,” which prevented married women from working a host of different occupations (Striking Women). While many fought in strikes, many acquiesced, contributing to the problem of societal gender roles, and keeping women in a lower position of power compared to men. However, the efforts of the diligent women who stayed were not in vain, as now, women and men are practically equal in the labor force because of them, and while women work some jobs disproportionately compared to men, at least they are encouraged by society to participate in whatever they desire. One day may women all over the world don the same position as men no matter what they try to do, in labor, or in the home, and vice versa for the men who simply wish to work for the household.

Related Links

The Stonewall Riots, The Stonewall Uprising, The Stonewall Rebellion, or Simply, Stonewall

Works Cited

American Experience. “Women and Work After World War II.” American Experience | PBS, 14 Feb. 2018, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-work.

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT. "1,000 Fish Curers On Strike." Times, 15 Aug. 1956, p. 4. The Times Digital Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS68769551/TTDA?u=iulib_iupui&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=5e8641c9. Accessed 1 May 2022.

“Post World War II: 1946–1970 | Striking Women.” Striking Women, www.striking-women.org/module/women-and-work/post-world-war-ii-1946-1970. Accessed 1 May 2022.

The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear detonation took place during the last year of World War Two. The names of the two bombs used are “Little Boy” (used on Hiroshima) and “Fat Man (used on Nagasaki). Many believe this to be a controversial moment in the history of the United States of America and the Allied forces near the end of the world war. The two common thoughts are that the bombings were necessary to quickly stop the fighting and further death on both sides and that the bombings were unnecessary and Japan would have surrendered anyways. The two bombs had a combined death toll of at least 200,000 civilian casualties and resulted in many slow and agonizing deaths for many years to come after the events. Considering that Japan was mostly defeated, and that the death toll was so high for civilian casualties through bombing, the idea that the bombs were used to limit the deaths of the war seems like a stretch and sounds like the United States trying to justify a horrible act and terrible order. It furthers this idea that we would rather kill thousands and thousands of other civilians than lose one more American or Ally. We put our lives over the lives of hundreds of thousands of other innocent civilians who did not participate in the war. While this is the case, many were celebrating this display of power and destruction and glorifying it. Take for example this newspaper story posting from The San Francisco Chronicle, titled “Japan Hit By Atom Bomb---Mightiest Weapon in History! Tokyo Admits Heavy Damage” (San Francisco Chronicle 1945). This title shows how we are proud about the nuclear attacks and idolizing their power. While we can conclude how these bombings murdered hundreds of thousands of people, news outlets were ignoring this and feeding the public with headlines like these that celebrate these killings and attacks. This further fires up people to the point that we start to believe we are better than all those other nations and people, who are simply just people living on earth like Americans. This mindset and narrative that these headlines put out contributes to toxic patriotism and is similar to how propaganda and news outlets were used to spread misinformation that led to the January 6, storming of the United States Capital Building riots. According to Gar Alperovitz and Martin Sherwin in an article that discusses how the nuclear attacks were unnecessary, “However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.” We can see how there was evidence that Japan was going to surrender regardless of the attacks or not. Yet, without looking further into it, the United States and the Allies decided to kill hundreds of thousands of people. We can further see the terrible fallout of the attacks in Hayo Kromback’s The Meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the quote “Many of us today who also survived face a harder task: that of imagining and internalizing an all-incinerating blast. It is difficult to manage such a mental leap” (Kromback 4). In this quote, we see how the terrors of the bombings went past the enormous death toll but have affected people mentally for years after the event. We see how toxic patriotism led to the horrible aftermaths of the nuclear bombings during World War Two. The mindsets that led to this happening are not much different than the minds that those who stormed the capital. Similar to how we see the Allied Forces justifying the horrible action of annihilating two major Japanese cities full of innocent people, we see how then President Trump causes his supporters to storm the Capitol Building, take it by force, and threatened the lives of many innocent people (law makers, police officers, civillians etc.). This 'false' justification that we see the Allied Forces make is similar in mindset to the justifications Trump made to basically order his people to take the Capitol Building, to try to overturn a lost election. 

Related Links:

WW2 Propaganda: Influence of Racism. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/ww2-propaganda-influen…

Park Street Riot 1944. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/historical-event-1914-…

Exodus of Working Women After WW2. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/exodus-working-women-a…

Primary Source:

San Francisco Chronicle, Japan Hit By Atom Bomb---Mightiest Weapon in History! Tokyo Admits Heavy Damage. 1945. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/561120434797283790/

Secondary Sources:

Alperovitz, Gar., Sherwin, Martin. Dropping Atomic Bombs On Hiroshima And Nagasaki Was Unnecessary. Common Dreams, 2020.

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2008/S00071/dropping-atomic-bombs-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-was-unnecessary.htm

Krombach, Hayo. The Meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 1997.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20378?searchText=bombing+of+hiroshima+and+nagasaki&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbombing%2Bof%2Bhiroshima%2Band%2Bnagasaki%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ade274febafe8399a9d1abfcf1375f4c7&seq=3