Printed Ephemera — 1913-1914
McKenna's Cat 'Bill'. "What Cat Could Keep Up With This?"
Pro-female suffrage propaganda postcard satirising the unworkable terms of the Prisoner's Temporary Discharge (for Ill Health) Act passed by the Liberal government in 1913. The act allowed all imprisoned suffragettes made ill through hunger striking to be released temporarily, only to be re-imprisoned once they had recovered. Headed 'McKenna's Cat Bill What Cat could keep up with this' the postcard refers to the Home Secretary Reginald McKenna who introduced the bill commonly referred to by Suffragettes as 'the Cat and Mouse Act'.
The Suffrage Atelier was founded in London in February 1909. Its aim was: 'to encourage Artists to forward the Women's Movement, and particularly the Enfranchisement of Women, by means of pictorial publications.'
The Atelier artists specialised in hand-made wooden block prints, stencilling and etchings and produced visually powerful posters and postcards to publicise the pro-suffrage campaign.
- Category:
- Printed Ephemera
- Object ID:
- 50.82/819
- Object name:
- McKenna's Cat 'Bill'. "What Cat Could Keep Up With This?"
- Object type:
- Artist/Maker:
- Suffrage Atelier
- Related people:
- —
- Related events:
- —
- Related places:
- Production date:
- 1913-1914
- Material:
- card, ink
- Measurements/duration:
- H 140 mm, W 88 mm
- Part of:
- —
- On display:
- —
- Record quality:
- 100%
- Part of this object:
- —
- Credit:
- —
- Copyright holder:
- digital image © London Museum
- Image credit:
- —
- Creative commons usage:
- —
- License this image:
To license this image for commercial use, please contact the London Museum Picture Library.