Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
Suffrage Songs and Verses 

Suffrage Songs and Verses, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a collection of 25 poems which advocates the suffragette movement and women’s rights. Published in 1911, the poetry anthology includes both famous and lesser-known works such as ‘Women of To-day’, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ and ‘The Socialist and the Suffragist’, and is a clear inspiration for modern feminist writers and pro-women’s rights campaigners. Now seen as a classic selection of American female poetry and inspirational literature, this forward-thinking anthology examines the role of women in a pre-WW1 patriarchal society – and was one of many works to inspire the 2015 British historical drama film ‘Suffragette’ which starred Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Marie Duff. A selection of Perkins’ work featured in this book were originally published in the book ‘In this our World’ in 1898. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s best known work was her autobiographical-inspired short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, written about her experience of severe postnatal depression, which was made into a 2011 gothic thriller film by Logan Thomas. –