A Woman’s Logic
Emmeline Pankhurst recalls how she brought some much-needed reason into the operations at Chorlton workhouse.
1890s
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Emmeline Pankhurst recalls how she brought some much-needed reason into the operations at Chorlton workhouse.
1890s
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Emmeline Pankhurst’s campaign for women’s suffrage was not just about the right to vote: it was about the country’s desperate need for talented women actually in government. Her experiences as the only woman on the Board of the Chorlton-on-Medlock Workhouse in the 1890s rather proved her case.
abridged
EACH inmate was given each day a certain weight of food, and bread formed so much of the ration that hardly anyone consumed all of his portion. In the farm department pigs were kept on purpose to consume this surplus of bread, and as pigs do not thrive on a solid diet of stale bread the animals fetched in the market a much lower price than properly fed farm pigs.
I suggested that, instead of giving a solid weight of bread in one lump, the loaf be cut in slices and buttered with margarine, each person being allowed all that he cared to eat. The rest of the board objected, saying that our poor charges would suspect in such an innovation an attempt to deprive them of a part of their ration. This was easily overcome by the suggestion that we consult the inmates before we made the change.
Of course the poor people consented, and with the bread that we saved we made puddings with milk and currants, to be fed to the old people of the workhouse.
abridged
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate her ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why was bread going to waste in the Chorlton Workhouse?
Because the portions were much too large.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Chorlton Workhouse was managed by a Board of Guardians. Emmeline joined the Board in 1894. She was the only woman.