Marking 126 years since the ultimate suffrage victory was achieved it seems only appropriate that I should present a few concluding thoughts, or points of interest for future use.
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Studying the suffrage campaign in the Napier context allows for examination of an influential component which has not been addressed by previous scholarship: the interaction between Māori and Pākehā suffrage activists.
In February 1923, the death of a woman in parliament buildings was reported across the country. Waiting to enter the ladies' gallery, the unfortunate woman had collapsed and suffered what was reported as a cardiac arrest.
For the most part, this research has sought to examine the influence of institutional and social networks on the success of the suffrage campaign in Napier. Largely, emphasis along these lines views the result as one of community connection, personal relationships, and societal support. There is, however, another element which deserves some attention: community solidarity.
In July 1884, an unassuming announcement in the Hawke's Bay Herald detailed the opening of a photographic studio in Port Ahuriri. The new business owners, Harriet and Joseph Cobb, had arrived in Napier on 5 January, having landed in Wellington with their children aboard the Lady Jocelyn on New Year's Day. Shortly after their arrival in Hawke's Bay, Harriet set about establishing herself within the local business network.
"So one fine morning of September, 1893, the women of New Zealand woke up and found themselves enfranchised. The privilege was theirs, given freely and spontaneously in the easiest and most unexpected manner in the world by male politicians...No franchise leagues had fought the fight year after year." Such was William Pember Reeves' assessment of one of the most significant political moments in New Zealand's history.
Representing years of work and social agitation, the 30'000 signatures unfurled on the floor of Parliament by Sir John Hall in 1893 amounted to a statement of political intention which was impossible for politicians to ignore (despite their best efforts in previous years).
I want to use this post to briefly touch on an issue, which has been popping up with increasing regularity, and focuses on the accessibility, or lack thereof, of many historical sources.
Back in 2008, Anne Knowles and Amy Hillier declared that historical Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were 'still something of a maverick method in the study of history.' In recent years, however, such tools have been utilised by scholars from a number of disciplines, and we are seeing an increasing trend towards their adoption in the humanities.
I had hoped to be in the position to offer a picture of powerful feminist engagement with this post. Building in 1892, championing the suffrage victory in 1893, and continuing to engage beyond that on into the latter half of the 1890s. Such a picture is yet to emerge.
As a brief introduction, I am going to address a question which I have found myself regularly faced with when attempting to explain how I have chosen to spend my year to friends, family members, and colleagues: 'so why Napier?'
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