Today in 1913, British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst delivered her famous “Freedom or Death” speech to a crowd of supporters at the Parsons Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.  The famous activist, well-known to Americans for her aggressive tactics she employed at suffragist rallies in England, was invited to speak by architect Theodate Pope of Farmington, and introduced by Hartford socialite and feminist Katharine Houghton Hepburn.

Taking the stage in front of a green, white, and purple banner that read “Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God,” Pankhurst spoke for over ninety minutes, delivering a powerful and eloquent justification of using militant tactics to agitate for women’s rights.  “Tonight I am not here to advocate woman suffrage,” she declared; “I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women.”  Giving a detailed history of the trials and tribulations of the women’s movement in England, Pankhurst also made multiple references to the political ideals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution, repeatedly stressing the intolerable status quo of an entire country of women being governed without their consent: “We have been proving in our own person that government does not rest upon force; it rests upon consent… all of the strange happenings that you have read about over [in England] have been manifestations of a refusal to consent on the part of the women.”

“Women are very slow to rouse, but once they are aroused, once they are determined, nothing on earth and nothing in heaven will make women give way; it is impossible.”
– Emmeline Pankhurst, Nov. 13, 1913

Pankhurst used militaristic language throughout her speech, referring to anti-suffragists as “the enemy” and the struggle for women’s voting rights as a “civil war.”  Referencing the many cases of suffragists going on hunger strikes, she dramatically declared: “We will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death.”

The following day, Pankhurst left Hartford by train amid a crowd of well-wishers, taking with her $1,400 in donations (equivalent to over $35,000 in today’s dollars) to help her continue her “trouble-making” in England.  Local newspaper coverage of Pankhurst’s speech was lukewarm at best; the Hartford Courant described the speaker as a “notorious militant,” the venue as mostly empty, and concluded “Mrs. Pankhurst argued the suffrage cause of woman… but not with great result.”  History would prove that final sentiment wrong, as Pankhurst’s “Freedom or Death” speech is now widely considered one of the greatest political speeches of the 20th century.

A speech for the ages that both defined, defended, and energized the radical women’s movement of the early 20th century, delivered today in Connecticut history.

Further Reading

“Great Speeches of the 20th Century: Emmeline Pankhurst’s ‘Freedom or Death,’” The Guardian

Steve Thornton, “Connecticut’s Intersection with Women’s Suffrage,” CT Viewpoints