Women's Struggle for Suffrage. About the website

Through this website, we, the staff of KvinnSam - National resource library for gender studies at Gothenburg University Library, wish to give an account of Swedish women’s struggle for franchise. Old as well as new material are used to realize this project. We address students and teachers at upper secondary schools, folk high-schools, universities, university colleges, and others with interest in these matters.

The History section gives an account of the organisation Landsföreningen för kvinnans politiska rösträtt (’The National Association for Women’s Franchise’) - its methods, arguments, internal conflicts, and experience of opposition. Similarities and differences between men’s and women’s struggle in this context are considered, and women’s efforts are placed in a wider historical context.>

The section Biographies portrays women, and also some men, who were particularly active and significant.

Photographs is a database containing about 100 searchable photos of people with affiliation to the franchise movement. Here are also a great number of the postcards used for the spread of political messages.

The Campaign Material section contains links to written documents, pamphlets and similar scanned full-text material.

Journals – “Rösträtt för kvinnor” (‘Suffrage for Women’) was the movement’s chief organ. Here are the tables of contents and the entire journal in full text. A majority of individual articles are indexed in the database KVINNSAM.

The section Official Publications refers to bills, government bills and parliamentary debates, some of them in full text.

Under the headline International there are concise accounts of and links to web sites on franchise movements in other countries, particularly in other Scandinavian countries, the United States, and Great Britain.

Time Line provides you with the point of time of important events, in Sweden and the rest of the world.

Further Reading is created with the intention to assist those wanting to find further literature on the subject.

History and parts of the biography have been written by Ph.D. Josefin Rönnbäck, who defended her doctor’s thesis, "Politikens genusgränser. Den kvinnliga rösträttsrörelsen och kampen för kvinnors politiska medborgarskap 1902-1921 (‘The Gender of Politics. The National Association for Women’s Franchise and Its Struggle for Women’s Political Citizenship 1902-1921’)" in 2004. Other texts have been written by Berith Backlund and Anna Sjödahl Hayman, Librarians at KvinnSam. The English translation has been made by Librarian Lena Sundin, Gothenburg University Library.

Photos and other material are from the archives of KvinnSam and Gothenburg University Library.

The yellow colour of the framework is chosen for its significance as campaign colour to the Swedish franchise women.

Queries about KvinnSam and our activity can be mailed via the web form on our home page.