How to Blow up two heads at once

Yinka Shonibare

The art/fashion of Yinka Shonibare, who melds 18th and 19th British aesthetics with “African” prints (his work is incredibly ironic and subversive; just looking at it makes me think) brought to mind the prints of Japanese women wearing Western fashions, yet made from Japanese textiles that I found online a few months ago. They were unaccompanied by text, so I did some digging, and found a few articles discussing the influence Japan (and the rest of Asia) had on America and Europe, and how America and Europe influenced Japan.

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Nancy Langhorne Astor

On paper it looked incongruous: how did a divorced Southern aristocrat charm not only English society but enough rural constituents to make history as the first woman to sit in Parliament? Born into the Langhorne family of Virginia, Nancy was one of the three beautiful Langhorne sisters, but did not want to be known strictly for her physical attributes. She married in haste (and was soon to repent) at eighteen, to Robert Gould Shaw II, who fathered her eldest son Robert, and after the divorce, her restlessness led her to take a trip to England. The country and its people were more amenable to Nancy than America and Americans, and on a voyage across the Atlantic in 1905, she met Waldorf Astor, son of the W.W. Astor who tussled with the Mrs. Astor for social supremacy in the 1880s. The two hit it off immediately, possessing not only similar temperaments but a birthday. Nancy and Waldorf married in 1906 and her father-in-law gifted them his Buckinghamshire estate, Cliveden, which was to be the setting in which Nancy sparkled.

Waldorf Astor was a popular Conservative politician and Nancy threw herself head first into the role of a politician’s wife. During her previous journeys to England, she had garnered the reputation as a biting wit, and her racy conversation, coupled with her natural reticence and moral center, baffled, delighted, and fascinated the British. Of course her beauty and her wealth played a large part in her popularity, but Nancy was no shrinking violet and crossed words with the highest in the land (her most famous jabs were directed at Winston Churchill: “If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea,” to which he responded, “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it!”). Her no nonsense attitude and hard-nosed prejudices could be unbearable, yet, as in the case of her lady’s maid Rosina Harrison, there was something beguiling about Nancy Astor which could draw injured parties back into her web.

Since renouncing his American citizenship to become a British subject, Nancy’s father-in-law, W. W. Astor had long angled for a peerage, a move which his son Waldorf dreaded, since upon his father’s death he would have to move up to the House of Lords. Despite his son’s disapproval, W. W. pursued a title with alacrity, donating millions of dollars to British causes, particularly during WWI, and in 1916, he was awarded with a peerage (Baron Astor), and in 1917, he was raised to Viscount Astor. The first Viscount Astor died in 1919, and Waldorf reluctantly moved to Lords. He and Nancy then agreed that she would run for his seat, during which he would begin the proceedings to renounce his peerage. Unfortunately for Waldorf, renouncing his peerage was impossible at the time, but fortunately for Nancy, this was the beginning of a vigorous, challenging, and naturally scandalous career in British politics.

She was not the first woman elected to Parliament–that honor goes to Constance Markiewicz, who ran for the Sein Finn party in 1918. Since Markiewicz was imprisoned at the time and also refused to take her seat as an Irish nationalist, Nancy’s entrance in the House of Commons caused an uproar. Women had only received the vote in 1918, and it was a shock to discover that not only would women exercise their right to vote, but their right to stand for election! However, Nancy’s accomplishments in Parliament were few–her career coasted mainly on her forceful personality, but it in no way diminished her boldness in campaigning for her reelections–though her particular platforms were prohibition, nursery schools, and supporting women entering civil service fields.

Nancy’s personal life made her infamous. Based on the memoirs written by her longtime lady’s maid, Rosina Harrison, Nancy Astor was completely unlikeable. She was selfish, dogmatic, prejudiced, and arrogant. She could be intensely cold-hearted towards enemies, and her children lived in dread of disappointing her. Waldorf felt the brunt of her cruelty when, despite their warm, loving marriage of nearly forty years, she froze him out when he convinced her to step down from Parliament after WWII. Nancy regretted it ever since, though political winds blew a chill her way, and for the remainder of their marriage, he endured her contempt born from a lack of outlet for her remarkable energy. However, political minds were right–Nancy was incredibly out of touch with society of the 1950s and 1960s, most particularly with her views on race and Catholics. When she died in 1964 at the age of 84, Nancy had been estranged from nearly all her living peers and many of her children. Despite these immense character flaws, there was something magnetic and alluring about Nancy Astor, which kept everyone within her orbit fascinated and caught in her web.

I scour the web for interesting links so you won’t have to do it.

Vic at Jane Austen’s World finds a great link to a website discussing 18th and 19th century carriages.

Old Long Island posts the exterior views of William K. Vanderbilt’s Long Island country house, Idle Hour (Consuelo Vanderbilt spent her honeymoon with the Duke of Marlborough here). Interior views can be found here and here.

Heather at The Duchess of Devonshire’s Gossip Guide exposes the truth about George Washington’s wooden teeth and other dental hygiene-related activities in the 18th century.

Lauren dishes the dirt on Marie-Anoinette’s Versailles when she comes vis-a-vis with the infamous Madame du Barry at Marie-Antoinette’s Gossip Guide.

Tracy Grant at History Hoydens discusses how historical films fostered her love of history.

Over at the Huffington Post, Carl Sferrazza Anthony discusses the impact which 19th century First Ladies had on their husband’s policies regarding slavery.

HistoryLink.org provides us with a short but detailed history of women’s suffrage in America.

The Bowery Boys jump through time to show the history of New York City through 100 buildings.

Worn Through gives a heads up on an auction of vintage and historical pieces.

There is a fierce debate within the steampunk community over the use of “Victorientalism” at The Gatehouse. Ay-leen of Beyond Victoriana weighs in, as does Jha at SteamPunk Magazine.

The militant suffrage movement in Great Britain began as a Pankhurst family enterprise that, from 1903 to 1905 remained focused around Manchester, until the general election of 1905 brought matters to a head. Prior to the Pankhursts, the fight for women’s suffrage in Britain was a relatively tame one. In the mid 1860s, a group of women, all pursuing a career in either medicine or education, formed a discussion group dubbed the “Kensington Society”. Their initial reasons for forming the group had little to do with suffrage; the seven founding ladies merely wished for a society of like-minded women of independent means and an interest in fields not normally associated with the female sex. It wasn’t until the topic of suffrage was raised that the Kensington Society discovered their mutual dismay. In reaction, they drafted a petition asking parliament to extend to vote to women. Presenting the petition to Henry Fawcett and John Stuart Mill, a pair of MPs known for their sympathy towards women’s suffrage, the Kensington Society saw their petition almost immediately shot down in Parliament. Vastly disappointed with the action, they formed the London Society for Women’s Suffrage. Soon thereafter, many cities in Britain found themselves hosts to similar societies.In 1887, seventeen of these groups formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, or NUWSS. Under the presidencies of Lydia Becker and Millicent Fawcett, the society raised awareness of the cause by holding meetings, holding marches, printing pamphlets and newsletters, and writing politicians and petitions. NUWSS also lent support to Josephine Butler’s campaign against white slavery as well as Clementia Black’s attempts to force the government to protect low-paid women workers. Inoffensive, efficient and ladylike, NUWSS attracted support from all walks of like—including a good number of men.The cause chugged along in this manner until the Manchester group splintered, and the women, led by Christabel Pankhurst, grew fed up with the constitutional methods NUWSS favored.

The Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) was born.

A far cry from the genteel group from whence they came, the WSPU immediately showed its difference in the fact that it attracted women from the working and middle-classes—women who were less inhibited by the traditional trappings of “ladyhood”. Though at first fearing the stance the WSPU took would harm the cause, the NUWSS admired their courage and refused to speak out against them.

By 1905 public interest in women’s suffrage had waned, and the WSPU made a decision that would forever change the face of the suffragist movement. Traveling to London to hear a speech by Sir Edward Grey, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny threw down the gauntlet by interrupting Sir Edward’s speech with the cry of “Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?“.

The women were soon after charged with assault and arrested. Christabel and Annie then proceeded to shock the world when, after refusing to pay the five shilling fine, they were thrown in jail. Never before had English suffragists resorted to violence to support the cause and newspapers were quick to pounce on this new movement, nicknaming the followers of militancy “suffragettes“. Far from decrying this derogatory term, the WSPU adopted it with pleasure, the term separating them from the civil actions of the NUWSS.

Moving their headquarters from Manchester to London, by 1908 the suffragettes had launched an all-out war for the cause, targeting those MPs notoriously anti-suffrage like Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and Winston Churchill. The suffragettes marched through London, interrupted speeches, assaulted policemen attempting to arrest them, chained themselves to fences, sent letter bombs and damaged property–the most infamous being their destruction of the windows of department stores and shops in Bond Street. Viewed as unfeminine due to many of the women being unmarried and involved in careers instead of housework, the Establishment were at a loss as to how to deal with suffragettes. They baffled the common perceptions of Victorian womanhood and once released from jail, merely went out and repeated the same misdemeanors. Using this loophole in the justice system, the suffragettes increased their militant campaigns, including a devastating arson campaign during which attempts were made to burn the houses of anti-suffrage MPs, railway stations, golf courses, cricket fields and racecourse stands.

When the jailed suffragettes went on hunger-strikes while incarcerated, the government passed the “Cat and Mouse Act”: if a suffragette went on a hunger strike, once ill she would be released from prison and re-arrested when well again. However, by the summer of 1914, the militant campaign was exhausted by the imprisonment, exile or poor health of the WSPU’s leading members (Christabel had fled to Paris in 1912 to escape arrest) and the number of active members able to continue the violence was now very small. Naturally, WWI put a damper on the suffrage campaign, and both the WSPU and NUWSS focused their energies on the war effort, using their platforms to drum up support for the troops. But ever antagonistic to the end, the WSPU took patriotism to their breast as much as they did suffrage, using their newspaper to attack those in power they saw as pacifists or communists.

In then end, all women over the age of 30 were granted the vote in 1918, and ten years later the vote was given on equal terms as men (age 21).

Further Reading:
Caffrey, Kate. 1900s Lady
Crow, Duncan. The Edwardian Woman
Mackenzie, Madge. Shoulder to shoulder : a documentary
Nowell-Smith, Simon. Edwardian England, 1901-1914
Pankhurst, Sylvia. The suffragette : the history of the women’s militant suffrage movement, 1905-1910
Shaw, Frederick John. The Case for Women’s Suffrage

(hat tip to weHeartit)