Constructing women's citizenship in the interwar period: the edinburgh women citizens’ association

Speaking as Citizens: Women’s Political Correspondence to Scottish Newspapers 1918–1928

“…The Scottish context post-1918 Recent work on the post-1918 women's movement in the UK has challenged previous assessments of the movement as divided and in decline. In Scotland, work by scholars such as Sue Innes, Jane Rendall, Esther Breitenbach and Valerie Wright has demonstrated that this period was marked by increasing participation by women in public and political life, particularly at a local-government level (Breitenbach and Wright 2014;Innes 2004;Innes and Rendall 2006). They argue that women were active in many different types of organisations, some but not all party political, and campaigned on a range of issues across the equal rights and social welfare spectrum.…”

Letters to the Editor

“…The Scottish context post-1918 Recent work on the post-1918 women's movement in the UK has challenged previous assessments of the movement as divided and in decline. In Scotland, work by scholars such as Sue Innes, Jane Rendall, Esther Breitenbach and Valerie Wright has demonstrated that this period was marked by increasing participation by women in public and political life, particularly at a local-government level (Breitenbach and Wright 2014;Innes 2004;Innes and Rendall 2006). They argue that women were active in many different types of organisations, some but not all party political, and campaigned on a range of issues across the equal rights and social welfare spectrum.…”

“…For example, the vice-presidents of the Edinburgh WCA were Sarah Elizabeth Siddons Mair, the president of the Edinburgh National Society of Women's Suffrage, and Louisa Innes Lumsden, president of the Aberdeen branch of the NUWSS, both constitutional suffragist societies. They were joined by ex-suffragettes such as Lilias Mitchell, Agnes Macdonald, Alexia Jack and Mona Chalmers Watson, who had been members of the WSPU and Women's Freedom League (Innes 2004). By the end of its first year, the Edinburgh WCA had over a thousand members and was a large and wellorganised group with a clear idea of women's role in public life and the influence that 'organised women' could wield (Innes, 2004, p.622).…”

“…The post-war women's movement is often depicted as splitting between the feminists who wished to campaign for equality with men, for example in the professions, and those who saw women's politics as different and wished to focus on specific women's issues (Bingham 2004). As Innes (2004) points out, 'citizenship' was described as different from feminism, allowing mainstream organisations such as WCAs to distinguish themselves from feminist organisations. WCAs focused on improving social conditions, and had success in campaigns regarding children's welfare, social housing and other health and welfare issues.…”

“…In 1927 the fifteen Scottish WCAs worked together to raise funds to establish a 'colony scheme for the mentally deficient' (Aberdeen Press & Journal 9 February 1927). However, as Innes (2004) argues, WCAs cannot be dismissed simply as welfare or social feminists: they also campaigned on equality issues, such as supporting women candidates in elections, although, as noted above, this was not always received well. Indeed, even when WCAs campaigned on issues that were seen to fall under their aegis, they could be criticised.…”