Make More Noise: Suffragettes in Silent Film

Synopsis: This compilation combines documentary footage of the suffragettes’ public activities with comedy films of the period. These gloriously anarchic pre-war comedies are full of bright sparks like the Tilly girls (starring Alma Taylor and Chrissie White) who gleefully disobey society’s strictures. Women are seen acting like men, dressing in men’s trousers and even leaving the men at home minding the babies. The films reveal how girls and women were already acting differently, had higher aspirations and expected more freedom than their grandmothers could have imagined, going against conventional wisdom that female emancipation was a result of war-time changes.

Extras include: Suffragette Demonstration in London (1910, 3 mins); Tilly the Tomboy Visits the Poor (1910, 6 mins); London Factory Girls on Strike in Camden Town (1911, 27 secs); Suffragette Pageant in London (1911, 1 min); London Church Completely Destroyed by Fire (1913, 1 min); St Leonards Outrage (1913, 1 min); Suffragette Derby of 1913 (1913, 5 mins); Law Abiding Suffragists in Hyde Park (1913, 1 min); Suffragettes Again (1913, 1 min); Trafalgar Square Meeting (1916, 1 min); Labour’s First Woman MP (1922, 14 secs); Lady Astor (Conservative) in Again for Plymouth (1923, 13 secs)
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Year of release: 2015
Subjects: Film studies; Women’s studies
Keywords: campaigning films; silent films; suffragette movement

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British Universities Film & Video Council