Hope

Abstract

This chapter begins with the development of the Actresses' Franchise League’s Woman’s Theatre project and its first season in 1913, and considers the idea in the wider context of similar European and American initiatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The chapter then investigates the work of the organisation and its satellite schemes during the First World War, with particular focus on the Women’s Emergency Corps and the British Women’s Hospital Fund. It finishes with an exploration of the continued campaigning of the League for the Equal Franchise between 1918 and 1928, and the work of members within new organisations like the Six Point Group.