This blog post was written by Ian McCracken, Archivist and Researcher. Protests and Suffragettes will be participating in History Day 2020.

Playing cardsI am honoured to be a member of Protests and Suffragettes. As a Creative Heritage team (all volunteers), we want to ensure that everyone – especially young people – gets to know about some of the many Scottish suffragettes who struggled for years to win the Vote for women. Most people have heard of the Pankhursts in London, but who knows of suffragettes Helen Crawfurd (also a peace campaigner), Helen Fraser ( public speaker all over the UK and USA) or Daisy Solomon, who posted herself as a human letter to 10 Downing Street – Check it out if you don’t believe me!

They and many others will soon feature on playing cards (similar in concept to “Top Trumps” )

I have included in this guest blog a picture of a previous pack we produced and having been in attendance at some of the fun and educational sessions that took place in local schools, I know how much the pupils enjoyed them, and also how much the teachers valued them for their educational content.

Our team’s ambition is that these packs of cards – with professional input from our qualified team and supporting material – will be available to young people throughout Scotland.

We are in the midst of a Crowdfunder campaign which has already raised over £10,000-but we want to raise more, so that instead of having a pack of thirty cards, we hope to have fifty. Even then, it will be difficult to select who to leave out-there are so many that deserve to be featured.

As a parallel project, we are working with Dr Sara Thomas and Wikimedia UK to try to add more articles about women and to redress the current imbalance. Our next (free) Workshop is Thurs 10th Sept 6-9pm, online. You can register on Eventbrite.

I have already taken part in two of these sessions since June, and know from experience that every article makes a valuable contribution to education, learning, heritage and history.

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