Pages tagged with: suffrage

Hear Mrs Mantelow talk about suffrage and prohibition.

On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

A history of the movement that gave New Zealand women the vote in 1893

Women's suffrage milestones from 1869 to 1999

Three years after winning the vote in 1893, a convention of representatives from 11 women's groups from throughout New Zealand resolved itself into the National Council of Women.

Although a number of other territories had enfranchised women before 1893, New Zealand can justly claim to be the first self-governing nation to grant the vote to all adult women.

Mary Ann Müller, about 1900

Female Members of Parliament (MPs) compared with the total number of MPs from 1931 to 2002

First-wave feminists argued that women's votes would clean up politics.

Kate Sheppard, the head of the franchise and legislation department of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, became the most prominent leader of the suffrage campaign.

This cartoon shows a woman feeding a boy ('Young New Zealand') medicine, which has a label 'Women's Vote' tied around the top.

'The Summit at Last'
An engraving from the New Zealand Graphic, 21 July 1894, depicts a woman holding a flag that reads: 'Perfect Political Equality'. A man is helping her up to what is labelled the 'Parliamentary Heights'.

Katherine Sheppard, 1847–1934

Amey Daldy, 1829–1920

Margaret Home Sievwright, 1844–1905

Anna Stout was dedicated to the advancement of women, championing calls for equal political, legal, social and educational rights. She was particularly concerned for the education of Maori women.

Biography of a Maori woman suffragist

In 1893 Meri addressed the Maori parliament to ask that Maori women be allowed to vote for and become members of that body.

This is the first sheet of the Canterbury section of the huge 1893 suffrage petition, which was signed by nearly 32,000 women.

‘Lady voters’ approach the polling booth at the Drill Hall in Rutland Street, just off Queen Street, Auckland, on 6 December 1899.

Women vote for the first time at a polling station in the tiny South Otago settlement of Tahakopa on 28 November 1893.

A typical anti-suffrage cartoon warns that tampering with men's and women's 'natural' gender roles could lead to the breakdown of society.

This is the text of a leaflet published by the Women's Christian Temperance Union in May 1888, which was sent to every member of the House of Representatives.

'So that women may receive the vote' by Meri Mangakahia (1893)

SIR, – I would like, through the medium of your columns, to ask 'Polly Plum' to state in a few short petty sentences, without any of that circumlocution which characterises her letters, what she demands as 'Women's rights'?

Hear Mrs Perryman talk about the suffrage campaign and describe voting for the first time in the 1893 election.

Anna Stout was founder of the Women's Franchise League, Dunedin and the first National Council of Women (NCW) vice-president.

The New Zealand contingent in the suffrage procession, London, 1910