Colleen Denney, an art historian and a UW professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies
Program, within the new School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice, recently published
her fifth academic book, titled “The Visual Culture of Women’s Activism in London,
Paris and Beyond: An Analytical Art History, 1860 to the Present.” (Colleen Denney
Photo)
For a decade, Colleen Denney toiled on an academic book that focused on women’s activism
in some of Europe’s largest cities. However, it was attending a play at the Globe
Theatre in London that brought the theme of the book into clear focus for her.
“The whole book solidified for me when I was on the Seibold Professorship and doing
work in London. I attended a play by Jessica Swale called ‘Blue Stockings,’ which
was having its debut at the Globe Theatre,” says Denney, an art historian and a University
of Wyoming professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program, within the new School
of Culture, Gender and Social Justice. “It addressed a different kind of vote, a vote
to decide whether women students at Girton College, Cambridge, could do more than
study there but, rather, receive a diploma. This was in 1897. They were denied. In
fact, they were not able to earn diplomas at Cambridge until much later, 1948.”
Denney recently published her fifth academic book, titled “The Visual Culture of Women’s
Activism in London, Paris and Beyond: An Analytical Art History, 1860 to the Present.”
Funding for the book was made possible by the Seibold Professorship, a basic research
grant and the Caitlin Long Fund -- all from UW’s College of Arts and Sciences. Some
funding also came from a UW social justice research grant.
The image that clarified the level of scrutiny under which these women suffered is
of a female effigy that the young male Cambridge students created of a Girton girl
on a bicycle, which they suspended from the local bookstore’s window railings. The
female effigy wears blue stockings, the symbol of a woman intellectual.
But effigies are made to be burned, and this one was, by many reports. That or it
was torn to bits and stuffed into the gates of the other women’s college on campus,
Denney says. Fear, contempt for competition and a real lack of understanding of women’s
intellectual capabilities fueled the young male students’ actions.
“If that were the case in 1897, you can understand what these courageous women were
up against in trying to gain political representation,” Denney says.
Colleen Denney recently poses with the new statue of London activist Millicent Garrett
Fawcett in Parliament Square, London. (Colleen Denney Photo)
The book represents a decade of mining feminist archives for imagery and ephemera
of the Edwardian women’s suffrage movement with comparator analysis of the French
feminist movement. The book also includes an up-to-date examination of women’s activist
work around the world through banners, posters, feminist cartoons in journals and
portraits of activists. All are covered, with the argument that we are directly tied
to this first-wave activist work in our current demonstrations and marches, including
those on UW’s campus.
“This book will expand our scholarly knowledge of the different historical women that
the activists represented, admired and evoked in their cause, including Joan of Arc
and Boudica, as well as allegorical representations of Britannia, liberty and justice,”
Denney says. “It further broadens our understanding of art materials and artists involved
in the first-wave suffrage movement in Edwardian England (roughly 1906-1918).”
University professors can use this book in their courses on women’s history, art history,
visual rhetoric and activism, Denney says. She says the last chapter, which examines
the late 19th century to the present in terms of women’s representation as protestors
on the streets and in negotiations for women’s rights, is particularly apt.
The book’s publication coincides with the centenary celebration of the Representation
of the People Act in England, which gave some women the right to vote for the first
time. There are ongoing activities all over England this year to commemorate the centenary,
she says.
“I hope one takeaway will be just how connected we still are to these brave, courageous
first-wave women, many of whom lost their lives in the battle for rights we still
possess,” Denney says. “There is a newly unveiled statue of the main leader, Millicent
Garrett Fawcett, at Parliament Square by the young British artist Gillian Wearing.
“I love the connection of the brash, often risk-taking Wearing taking on the rational,
determined, equally risk-taking Garrett Fawcett. And the key issue is that the art
acted as a huge propaganda machine in getting their messages to the public, be it
in the form of political cartoons; large, colorful, waving banners in demonstrations;
or formal photographic portraits.”
Because conducting the original research involved studies in archives and museums,
Denney says it has taken her roughly 10 years to complete the book. This included
conception of the project, writing grants, travel and eventual publication, which
happened this month. The book is published by McFarland Press and is available in
paperback and e-book format.
For more information, call Denney at (307) 766-4351 or email cdenney@uwyo.edu.
