"Trembling like a reed, she lifted up her hoarse, sweet voice on the platform, but the reed was of steel and it was tremendous."
– Rebecca West, "A Reed of Steel"

Pankhurst swayed crowds with her speeches and capitalized on media attention through shrewd campaigning, amassing followers and support.

Galvanizing Speeches

"The fiercest opposition would melt away before she had been five minutes on the platform. . . . It was all done by the expression of the face , and a voice that, like a stringed instrument in the hand of a great artist, put us in possession of every movement of her spirit 
. . . I never heard her make a mediocre speech, let alone one that failed to hit centre of target."
– Ethel Smyth

Emmeline Pankhurst's Freedom or Death Speech

BBC News

Votes for Women and The Suffragette

Pankhurst shrewdly captured the attention of a wide audience with the WSPU's publication of  Votes for Women, and The Suffragette.

"A poster advertising the newspaper Votes for Women."

"Poster for "The Suffragette" newspaper . . . produced during the campaign to gain the vote for women." Museum of London

"Shows a suffragette dressed as Joan of Arc, who was the patron saint of the suffragettes."

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Votes for Women, 1909, The Suffragettes in Pictures.

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The Suffragette, C. 1910-1915, Museum of London.

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The Suffragette, 1912, The Suffragettes in Pictures.

“You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else”
– Emmeline Pankhurst, Freedom or Death

While Pankhurst's political theater garnered attention, it would take militancy to make national headlines.

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