First in the Fight will feature the stories of 20 inspiring Manchester women, written by Helen Antrobus and Andrew Simcock as well as 20 illustrations produced by the Women in Print group.
Women in Print founder Jane Bowyer designed the cover of the book, taking inspiration from the Manchester Suffragette movement with symbols of resistance and protest in addition to the red rose of Lancashire and the Suffragette banner.
She said: “Print is quite integral for this project because the idea for the Women in Print grew from my interest and frustration at how women were presented in the media and I wanted stories of female empowerment to be spread not only digitally, but physically too.”
Bowyer featured a bicycle wheel on the cover of the book which symbolises a charity bike ride held by Andrew Simcock in 2014 to raise money for the Our Emmeline statue which was unveiled to mark the centenary of Votes for Women in 2018.
The Women in Print collective collaborated with Simcock, who led the Our Emmeline campaign, social historian Antrobus and publisher iNostalgia, which specialises in books that make social history engaging through images and memories, to create the book.
All of the female artists in the Women in Print collective, including Helen Musselwhite, Deanna Halsall, Eve Warren, Ellie Thomas, Halah El-Kholy and Maisy Summer, were previously part of the Womanchester campaign which began in 2014 to create the Our Emmeline statue.
