Further information - women and the vote

This web feature was written by Neill Atkinson and Roberta McIntyre and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.

Suffrage documents

• ‘An appeal to the men of New Zealand’. In 1869 Mary Ann Müller (‘Femina’) wrote this essay advocating votes for women.
• Letters to and from ‘Polly Plum’ that appeared in the New Zealand Herald, 16 August 1871
• Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote (1888). This is the text of a leaflet published by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in May 1888 that was sent to every member of the House of Representatives.
• ‘What a difference between a fish and a woman’ (1892). This is an extract from an address given by Marion Hatton, the president of the Women’s Franchise League in Dunedin, to a meeting at Gore. Henry Smith Fish, a Member of Parliament from Dunedin, was a vocal opponent of women’s franchise.
• ‘So that women may receive the vote’ (1893). This is Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia’s address to the Māori parliament asking for Māori women to be allowed to vote for and become members of that body.
• Number of female Members of Parliament from 1931 to 2003

Links 

• A history of the vote in New Zealand – on the Electoral Commission website
• Suffrage petition information on Archives New Zealand site
• Find out about Māori women and the vote on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs website (this information is taken from Tania Rei, Māori Women and The Vote, Huia Publishers, Wellington, 1993)

        Some international sites to explore:

• Women’s suffrage – winning the vote – lots of good information on the women’s history website
• ‘Votes for women’ suffrage pictures, 1850–1920/American memory collection, Library of Congress
• Votes for women: selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association collection, 1848–1921/Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
• On to victory! A bibliography of American fiction treating woman suffrage, 1870–1920
• Read about people active in the women’s suffrage campaign (including these 20 women who worked for the vote) on the online Dictionary of New Zealand biography: Lily Atkinson, Margaret Bullock, Dolce Cabot, Elizabeth Caradus, Mary Colclough, Amey Daldy, Learmonth Dalrymple, Kate Edger, Catherine Fulton, Edith Grossmann, Marion Hatton, Christina Henderson, Jessie Mackay, Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, Harriet Morison, Mary Ann Müller, Helen Nicol, Lizzie Rattray, Rachel Reynolds, Annie Schnackenberg.

Books

• Neill Atkinson, Adventures in democracy: a history of the vote in New Zealand, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2003
• Sandra Coney, Standing in the sunshine: a history of New Zealand women since they won the vote, Viking, Auckland, 1993
• Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan (eds), Suffrage and beyond: international feminist perspectives, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1994
• Judith Devaliant, Kate Sheppard: a biography, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1992
• Patricia Grimshaw, Women’s suffrage in New Zealand, 2nd edn, University of Auckland Press, Auckland, 1987
• Margaret Lovell-Smith (ed.), The woman question: writings by the women who won the vote, New Women’s Press, Auckland, 1992
• Janet McCallum, Women in the House: Members of Parliament in New Zealand, Cape Catley, Picton, 1993
• The suffragists: women who worked for the vote. Essays from the Dictionary of New Zealand biography, Bridget Williams Books/Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1993. Read an adapted introduction to this book (pdf).