Wanted, a Beautiful Barmaid: Women Behind the Bar in New Zealand, 1830-1976 Susan Upton Victoria University Press, $50.00, ISBN 9780864738943 Conrad Bollinger famously dubbed New Zealand “Grog’s Own Country”. It was 1957. Bollinger was writing under the dark cloud of…
Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 Charlotte Macdonald Bridget Williams Books, $50.00, ISBN 978927131404 In July 1937 the Physical Training and Recreation Act was passed in Britain. A few months later the…
Magnitude Eight Plus: New Zealand’s Biggest Earthquake Rodney Grapes Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864733400 Poor Baron Von Alzdorf, owner of Wellington’s largest brick building, a hotel, was the township’s only casualty in the earthquake which struck at 9.17 pm…
The National Council of Women — A centennial history Dorothy Page Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books with the National Council of Women, $39.95, ISBN 1 86940 154 9 The Women’s Parliament: The National Council of Women of New Zealand 1896-1920…
‘My hand will write what my heart dictates’: The unsettled lives of women in nineteenth-century New Zealand as revealed to sisters, family and friends ed Frances Porter and Charlotte Macdonald with Tui MacDonald Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books, $49.95, ISBN…
The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Volume Two 1870‑1900, Bridget Williams Books/ Department of Internal Affairs, $130.00 Te Timatanga ‑ Tatau Tatau: Early Stories from Founding Members of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, Maori Women’s Welfare League/ Bridget Williams Books,…
The Vote, the Pill and the Demon Drink: A History of Feminist Writing in New Zealand Charlotte Macdonald, Victoria University Press, $49.95 Charlotte Macdonald’s compilation of original New Zealand writings by and about women’s rights is a most welcome addition…
The Book of New Zealand Women: Ko Kui Ma Te Kaupapa Charlotte Macdonald, Merimeri Penfold and Bridget Williams (eds), Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 1991, $45 You could start to read The Book of New Zealand Women at the beginning and make your way…
The Hanging Sky Shirley Corlett, Mallinson Rendel, Wellington, 1990, $55 (Paper $39.95) Beginning when ‘Man’ (this is no tale of humankind) first stepped upon the land ‘that had been part of Gondwanaland’ and ending with the present, The Hanging Sky is an epic…