25 new stories of trailblazing New Zealand women
Posted 19 September 2018 // Tim Shoebridge
Palaeontologist Joan Wiffen, transgender icon Carmen Rupe, politician Tirikatene-Sullivan, and writer Margaret Mahy, some of the women whose life stories have been published on the DNZB.
This week we’re publishing 25 new biographies of women in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB), to celebrate the 125th anniversary of women winning the right to vote:
Anderson, Amy Mona writer, rural memoirist
Bailey, Rona political activist, dancer, teacher
Bartlett, Patricia Maureen social morality campaigner
Blumhardt, Vera Doreen educator, potter, arts administrator
Clay, Marie Mildred teacher, developmental and child psychologist, literacy researcher
Donley, Joan Elsa midwife, home-birth advocate
Edmond, Lauris Dorothy poet and writer
Locke, Elsie Violet activist, writer
Mahy, Margaret May children’s and young adult writer
Paul, Joanna Margaret visual artist and writer
Raymond, Cherry broadcaster, journalist, feminist
Rehu-Murchie, Erihapeti researcher, health, human rights, and environmental campaigner
Rickard, Tuaiwa Hautai Kereopa (Eva) woman of mana, community leader
Rimmer, Eva Marion paraplegic athlete, disability rights advocate
Rupe, Carmen Tione drag queen entertainer, sex worker, entrepreneur
Sturm, Jacqueline Cecilia short-story writer and poet
Szászy, Miraka woman of mana, educator, leader
Te Atairangikaahu Korokī Te Rata Mahuta Tāwhiao Pōtatau Te Wherowhero Māori queen
Tinsley, Beatrice Muriel astronomer
Tirikatene-Sullivan, Tini Whetu Marama politician, fashion icon, wahine toa
TuiSamoa, Agnes Rosa social worker, community advocate
Wallace, Georgina Catriona Pamela Augusta judge, lawyer
Wark, Elizabeth Cecilia (Betty) community worker
Whitehouse, Davina actor, producer, broadcaster
Wiffen, Joan palaeontologist
These women came to prominence in their fields between the 1940s and the 1970s. It would be impossible for any group of 25 women to capture the complexity and variety of the lives of New Zealand women, but we hope this group will reflect some of the diversity of experience. It would be hard to find two more contrasting lives than those of social morality campaigner Patricia Bartlett and transgender sex worker and nightclub entrepreneur Carmen Rupe. The rest run the gamut from writers to judges, community workers to scientists, broadcasters to athletes, activists to actors.
The new entries have been written by subject experts, including Barbara Brookes, Sandra Coney, Tessa Duder, Margaret Tennant, Rebecca Priestley, Roger Robinson and Jill Trevelyan. The entries, which collectively amount to more than 50,000 words, include over 200 images, videos, and sound recordings, many drawn from private collections and not previously published. We plan to have te reo Māori translations of the entries relating to Māori subjects available in early 2019.
This is the first substantial group of new biographies to be released since 2011, as I discussed in my November 2017 Signposts blog. It is the beginning of an ongoing publication programme, in which we aim to publish at least 20 new biographies each year on an ongoing basis.
This week we are also launching a new-look DNZB homepage, reflecting the DNZB’s renewed vigour and focus on the future. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to sharing many more New Zealand lives with you in the years to come.
A suffrage Day winner – to release 25 new biographies with images attached on this 19 September 125th anniversary. Warmest congratulations to the authors who produced these biographies and to the small DNZB team,web supporters and others at MCH who achieved such work in such a short time and with such limited resources. Onward to more from the DNZB please!
Great way – and a wonderfully diverse list of women – to celebrate the history of NZ women’s suffrage.
Hi, Thanks for the good work. I’d love to see an entry on Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira (1932-2011) at some stage, too–hopefully she’s on your radar. Thanks!