Deeds and Words: The Holloway Jingles and the Fight for Female Suffrage

Abstract

This article explores the importance of the written word of the Holloway Jingles in the fight for female suffrage through the analysis of the Foreword, “There’s a Strange Sort of College” and “L’Envoi.” Firstly, it will focus on the importance of writing as a venting tool for the suffragettes and it will demonstrate the idealization of imprisonment in the collection by comparing it to realistic and autobiographical accounts of life in Holloway Gaol, as well as the relevance of such an idealization in order to strengthen the bonds between the suffragettes both inside and outside of prison. Secondly, it will explore the impact of the collection within the feminist movement relating it to Virginia Woolf’s and Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas, thus focusing on a wider notion of justice and freedom that was essential for their emancipatory fight.