Christina Broom: Women's actions to equal rights. Early 1900s.

In 1909, women in Britain still did not have equal voting rights.

They could organize, march, sell sweets, print banners, hold exhibitions, make speeches, face arrests, and fundraise for the cause. However, they could not vote on equal terms with men.

This is what makes these photographs significant.

Christina Broom’s photograph of the Sweets Stall at the Women’s Exhibition in London might initially appear as a genteel social gathering. Women stand behind a decorated table, with hats, flowers, boxes, ribbons, and sweets arranged for sale. Yet, this image is part of something much larger: the prolonged struggle for women’s suffrage.

The Women’s Exhibition, organized by the Women’s Social and Political Union in May 1909, was not a typical fair. It was about fundraising, campaigning, public visibility, and strategy. Women contributed goods, set up displays, sold items, and transformed traditional forms of women’s work into political activism.

The fight had already persisted for decades. By 1909, it was organized, visible, and urgent. Women were demanding not charity, not praise, not symbolic respect, but political power: the right to participate in shaping the laws that affected their lives.

Women took risks. Some campaigned peacefully, some protested more aggressively, some went to prison, and some endured hunger strikes. Others worked behind tables, raising funds one sale at a time. All of these efforts were part of the same struggle.

Women in Britain first obtained limited voting rights in 1918, but only for certain women over thirty who met property qualifications. Equal voting rights with men were achieved only in 1928.

So when we observe these images, we are not witnessing the beginning or the end. We are observing the extended middle — the years when women continued to show up, work, organize, and refuse to be forgotten.

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