The project began with Dr Kiff’s PhD thesis on suffragettes in Bradford, which started with four names and “ended up with more than 200”.
Dr Kiff explained that many of the suffragettes she uncovered in Bradford were teachers – in some schools they made up almost 85% of the staff numbers.
Two of the women featured in the exhibition at the Kirkgate Centre in Shipley are Marion Best, leader of the Shipley and Baildon branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and Jessie Millar Wilson, leader of the Bradford Women’s Social and Political Union.
“Most of the activists didn’t get arrested, didn’t go to prison, weren’t force-fed,” she said.
“Most of them just did local things, quietly got on with it, funding the organisation nationally by having fundraising events and doing little demonstrations locally.
“The whole movement was built on local groups and grassroots activism.”
During the event on Sunday, Dr Kiff also launched the campaign for a plaque to commemorate the Great Shipley Glen Rally in 1908.
An estimated 100,000 people took part in the mass rally in support of the suffragette movement at Shipley Glen, with local campaigner Nell Kenney one of the key speakers.
