Actresses' Franchise League

The Actresses' Franchise League was a women's suffrage organization, mainly active in England.

Founding

In 1908 the Actresses' Franchise League was founded at a meeting in the Criterion Hotel in London, as a sister organization to the Women Writers' Suffrage League. While "actresses" are specified in the organization's name, anyone working in the theatre was welcomed to join. British actresses who joined included Ellen Terry, Lillah McCarthy, Decima Moore, Cicely Hamilton, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale, Christabel Marshall, Lena Ashwell, Edith Craig and Lily Langtry.[1][2]

Activities

The Actresses' Franchise League, like other suffrage organizations of its time, printed and distributed pamphlets and held meetings to educate women on suffrage. But it also produced suffrage plays, with titles such as How the Vote was Won (a comedy) and Votes for Women (by Elizabeth Robins), performed in London and on tour to other cities to raise funds.[3] The British AFL had 550 members in 1911, the year Edith Craig formed the Pioneer Players; two years later AFL member Inez Bensusan started the Women's Theatre Company. In 1914 the membership was reported to be 900.[4][5]

During World War I, the AFL sent women to entertain the troops in camps and hospitals. And in 1918 they were involved with other suffrage groups in celebrating the war's end with a parade.[6]

Legacy

The AFL was officially disbanded in 1934. Papers of the Actresses' Franchise League are held in the Women's Library in London.[7] The Museum of London has a large banner of the AFL in its collection.[8] Some of the plays created for the AFL to perform have been reprinted in recent years, and are produced on occasion, often to mark an anniversary of the suffrage movement.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Claire Hirschfield, "The Actresses' Franchise League and the Campaign for Women's Suffrage 1908-1914," Theatre Research International 10(2)(Summer 1985): 129-153.
  2. ↑ Michael Holroyd, A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and their Remarkable Families (Macmillan 2010).
  3. ↑ Ellen Ecker Dolgin, Shaw and the Actresses Franchise League: Staging Equality (McFarland 2015): 133. ISBN 0786469471
  4. ↑ Rebecca Dawson, "The Actresses Franchise League," Glasgow Women's Library (December 16, 2014).
  5. ↑ Susan Bradley Smith, "Inez Bensusan, Suffrage Theatre's Nice Colonial Girl," in Elizabeth Schafer and Susan Bradley Smith, eds., Playing Australia: Australian Theatre and the International Stage (Rodopi 2003): 126-141. ISBN 9042008172
  6. ↑ Claire Hirschfield, "The Actresses' Franchise League and the Campaign for Women's Suffrage 1908-1914," Theatre Research International 10(2)(Summer 1985): 129-153.
  7. ↑ Actresses' Franchise League collection, finding aid, Women's Library.
  8. ↑ Museum of London, Suffrage banner of the Actresses' Franchise League: c. 1911.
  9. ↑ Viv Gardner, ed., Sketches from the Actresses' Franchise League (University of Nottingham 1985). ISBN 0906129095
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