A feminist shrine?
With the 1993 suffrage centenary and Sheppard’s likeness gracing the New
Zealand $10 note, she has become a national heroine. Is her house likely to become something of a feminist shrine, too? If so, it would be part of a global trend.
In 1965, the family home of US women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York, became a National Historical Landmark. She lived there from 1847 until 1862, and referred to the farmhouse as the ‘‘centre of the rebellion’’.
It is now part of the extensive Women’s Rights National Historical Park. Opened in 1980, it focuses on the first Women’s Rights Convention held in
Seneca Falls in 1848, but claims a broad philosophical brief:
It is a story of struggles for civil rights, human rights and equality, global struggles that continue today. The efforts of women’s rights leaders, abolitionists, and other 19thcentury reformers remind us that all people must be accepted as equals.
The former home of Cady Stanton’s suffrage partner, Susan B. Anthony, also became a National Historic Landmark in 1965. The celebrated American civil rights leader ran the National American Woman Suffrage Association from the house in Rochester, New York, where she lived until her death in 1906.
Today, the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House ‘‘collects and exhibits artefacts related to her life and work, and offers tours and interpretive programs to inspire and challenge individuals to make a positive difference’’.
In Britain, Manchester’s Pankhurst Centre opened in 1987 as
‘‘an iconic site of women’s activism, past and present’’. The home of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and her family from 1898 to 1907, the first meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) took place in its parlour.
Keeping activism alive, the house is also a women’s centre and home to Manchester Women’s Aid, a service for victims of domestic abuse. It seeks to be a ‘‘unique and vibrant place where women can learn together, work on projects and socialise’’.
With hindsight, early European feminists were reformers, but they could also be agents of colonisation. In Aotearoa New Zealand, their connections with Maori focused on temperance and they tended to assume assimilation was inevitable.
In the US and Britain, the emerging feminist ‘‘shrines’’ have attempted to widen their remits accordingly. How Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House views its purpose and makes public history is a story that begins today. — theconversation. com
TODAY is Wednesday, December 16, the 351st day of 2020. There are 15 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
— Rawiri Taiwhanga offers butter for sale from his farm in the Bay of Islands in the first instance of commercial dairy farming in New Zealand.
— The discovery of octonions by John T. Graves, who denoted them with a boldface is announced to his mathematician friend William Hamilton, the discoverer of quaternions, in a letter on this date.
— The first settlers from the Canterbury Association arrive at Lyttelton aboard the Charlotte Jane and Randolph. They face a demanding journey over the Port Hills on foot and through swampland, only to find once they reach Christchurch that preparations have ceased because the Canterbury Association has run short of funds.
— The First Boer War between the Boer South African Republic and the British Empire begins.
— The first horticultural show in Dunedin is held at the Garrison Hall.
— Wales and England contest the first Home Nations (now Six Nations) rugby union match.
— Dunedin’s Electrical Tramways are officially opened, replacing the horsedrawn system that had long been part of the city’s transportation network; the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Bombay, India, opens for guests.
— The All Blacks suffer their only loss of the Originals tour when beaten 30 at Cardiff Arms Park by Wales. Controversy will rage for years after a lastminute try by Bob Deans for the All Blacks was disallowed.
— New Zealand’s first official airmail flight takes place, on a service from Auckland to Dargaville.
—SS Manuka is wrecked on Long Point, in the Catlins. All passengers and crew survive.
— Following a botched bank robbery in Clinton, Indiana, Herman Lamm commits suicide when surrounded during a massive gun battle with lawenforcement officers and armed members of the public in Sidell, Illinois.
— Theodore ‘‘Ted’’ Cole and Ralph Roe conduct the second documented escape attempt from Alcatraz. Although officials are quick to conclude they died in the attempt, their remains have never been found and their fate remains unknown, making the incident the first to challenge Alcatraz's reputation as an ‘‘escapeproof’’ prison.
— The New Zealand Division captures Faenza, in Italy, during World War 2; German forces begin the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes area of Belgium in World War
2.
— William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical pointcontact transistor.
— A United Airlines DC8 and a TWA Super Constellation collide over New York City, killing 134 people.
— Live deer are captured from a helicopter in New Zealand for the first time.
— Pakistani troops surrender East Pakistan after a war with its rebels and their Indian allies. The territory soon becomes the independent nation of Bangladesh.
— The US Apollo 17 spacecraft heads for Earth after the last US manned exploration of the moon.
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— Following an inquiry by a Royal Commission, the New Zealand Government passes the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977. But it is not until March 2020 that abortion is finally removed from the Crimes Act.
— Water washes into about 20 shops in Dunedin’s CBD, mostly between Wall Street Mall and the St Andrew St intersection, during mid to lateafternoon thunderstorms; a 150kg fur seal leads wouldbe rescuers on a merry dance through a succession of backyards in the Andersons Bay area before being successfully captured and returned to the surf at Tomahawk Beach.
2013
1977
Today’s birthdays:
Jane Austen, English novelist (17751817); Alexander Drennan, New Zealand trade unionist/communist/watersider (18991971); Davina Whitehouse, New Zealand actress (19122002); Matiu
Ratana, New Zealand politician (191249); Harry Turbott, New Zealand architect (19302016); Wi Kuki Kaa, New Zealand actor (19382006); Benny Andersson, Swedish musician/composer, former member of Abba (1946); Sir David Skegg, New Zealand epidemiologist/university administrator (1947); Billy Gibbons, US singer/songwriter (1949); Rodney Hide, New Zealand politician (1956); Benjamin Bratt, US actor (1963); Sir John Kirwan, All Black/mental health spokesman (1964); Andrew Todd, New Zealand lawn bowls player (1966); Angela Bloomfield, New Zealand actress/director (1972); Krysten Ritter, US actress (1981); Theo James, English actor (1984); Julian Shaw, New Zealand author/filmmaker/actor (1985); Anna Popplewell, English actress (1988).
Quote of the day: