HAMILTON, Cicely.

£875 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Pageant of Great Women. First edition of Hamilton's influential suffrage play celebrating women throughout history. The Pageant was first performed at London's Scala Theatre on 10 November 1909. The production featured actors Ellen Terry, Charlotte Despard, and others as historic and symbolic figures such as St Hilda, Florence Nightingale, and Catherine the Great.Hamilton (1872-1952), the author of the WSPU anthem "The March of the Women", wrote the play at the invitation of Terry's daughter, the actress and director Edith Craig (1869-1947). The Pageant exemplifies the suffrage players' use of theatricality and spectacle as political strategy; Terry described it as "the finest practical piece of political propaganda" (p. 117).The work includes photographic portraits of the cast in costume, among them a rare image of Terry as Nance Oldfield by suffragist photographer Lena Connell (later Beatrice Cundy), who also photographed leading figures for WSPU and WFL postcards. Other portraits were taken by Marie Leon, one of several professional women photographers whose participation reflected the movement's commitment to supporting female employment.

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