Interview with Jacobin!

Really delighted by this in-depth and thoughtful interview which David Broder from Jacobin conducted with me about A Suffragette in America. Jacobin's a really important voice on the American left and so it seemed appropriate that I got the news that the interview had been published whilst on the anti-Trump march in London! In this wide-ranging piece, we discuss militancy, the politics of prison reform, strikes, socialism and suffragettes - and more besides. Here's a taste of what I had to say:

"Being in America during a period of sustained working-class militancy, in which women were frequently in the forefront, did have a profound effect on Sylvia. This movement was a living rebuttal of the WSPU leaders’ view of working women as weak, passive victims who needed wealthier women to represent them. As you say, Sylvia Pankhurst was also in America when the Triangle fire broke out and she joined the funeral procession for the victims. We know this affected her because she wrote about it in the book and spoke about it to American audiences. Speaking alongside labor organizer Rose Schneiderman in 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst said that the Triangle fire was the result of working-class people being denied the power to represent themselves. In the face of both the achievements of the workers’ movement and the terrible tragedy at the Triangle, Sylvia drew the same conclusion: working-class people could and must be able to control how they lived their lives."

You can read the full interview here.