"We are driven to this. We are determined to go on with this agitation. It is our duty to make this world a better place for women."
– Emmeline Pankhurst

Inspiring Leadership

Although the effectiveness of her militant leadership is still debated by historians, it undoubtedly attracted the national attention the suffrage movement desperately needed.
The Suffragettes: Emmeline Pankhurst
BBC News
"[Emmeline Pankhurst's] inspirational leadership, courage and enormous self-sacrifice . . . were a template to many women who joined the movement." 
– Dr. Diane Atkinson, Personal Interview 

International Influence

Emmeline Pankhurst's example was followed internationally: American suffragette Alice Paul brought Pankhurst's militancy to the U.S. after studying with her.
“She was viewed as the leading figure in England, so her ideas, her thoughts about why women should get the vote, were very well received internationally.”
– Barbara Winslow, Personal Interview
"Paul never criticized Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst: these were her mentors, her compatriots for international suffrage."
– Katherine Adams and Michael Keene, Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign
Hover for caption.
Alice Paul, New Jersey State Department
Hover for caption.
Suffragettes picketing at the White House, The Social Welfare History Project 
"In a way, they are my children."
– Emmeline Pankhurst, speaking of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns

Relentless Leadership

"We shall fight against the condition of affairs, so long as life is in us."
– Emmeline Pankhurst
Hover for caption.
Emmeline Pankhurst Collapsing, 1913, Bettmann/CORBIS
Strenuous touring, lectures, imprisonment and hunger strikes seriously affected Pankhurst's health, yet she still led marches and the WSPU whenever she was not in prison. Eventually however, years of promoting agitation took their toll: she died in 1928, shortly after the Representation of the People Act was passed.