Struggle! The women's suffrage movement in the Netherlands, 1882-1922: De vrouwenkiesrechtbeweging in Nederland, 1882-1922

This book showcases the Dutch women’s suffrage movement; a struggle that lasted close to 40 years. The suffrage movement in the Netherlands started out small, but soon developed into a modern mass movement that received support from women all across the country. As the movement grew, so did the invention of different repertoires and strategies these women used for advocating their right to vote. These can be summarised in terms of the following developments: the use of images rather than words, from intellectual activism towards embodied identity politics and the street as a theatre instead of using boardroom rhetoric. As such, the suffrage movement meant women moved into new domains, both figuratively and literally. This book accompanied the exhibition ‘Struggle! 100 year’s of women’s suffrage’ in the Groninger Museum. It includes numerous images that are presented as visual sources that allows us to examine parallel stories: photo’s, film footage, banners, flags, pins and buttons, painted portraits, posters, political cartoons and commemorative plates. What’s more, the book discusses forgotten archive materials including the thousands of signatures for the ‘volkspetitionnement’ (suffrage petition) of 1914.