In 1914, the East London Federation of Suffragettes, led by Sylvia Pankhurst, split from the WSPU. Sylvia-s mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel, had encouraged her to give up her work with the poor women of East London - but Sylvia refused. Besides campaigning for women to have an equal right to vote from their headquarters in Bow, the ELFS worked on a range of equality issues which mattered to local women: they built a toy factory, providing work and a living wage for local women; they opened a subsidized canteen where women and children could get cheap, nutritious food; and they launched a nursery school, a cr-e, and a mother-and-baby clinic. The work of the Federation (and -our Sylvia-, as she was fondly known by locals) deserves to be remembered, and this book, filled with astonishing first-hand accounts, aims to bring this amazing story to life.
