Introduction

In May 1880 members of the London and Westminster Tailoresses’ Society marched in procession to central London carrying a yellow silk banner which they had made. Bearing an invitation to attend a National Demonstration of Women and a motto ‘We’re far too low to vote the tax/But not too low to pay’, the banner signalled the active presence of working-class women as trade unionists and suffragists in the concerted call for enfranchisement in the Reform Bill of 1884. Calling for the vote and advocating action, the banner and procession spoke of and to a public world of urban demonstration. Some years later a painting by Emily Ford, resplendent in blue and gold, was presented by the prominent campaigner Millicent Garrett Fawcett to Newnham College Cambridge. Towards the Dawn (Figure 5.20) celebrated achievement and heralded a bright new future. In contrast to the tailoresses’ magnificent street spectacle, painters, sculptors and purchasers of art supported the women’s movement in the arena of high culture. What linked them was their participation in the visual culture of modernity and the importance which they gave to visuality and visibility.