26/07/2026
Hello and greetings from New Zealand!
New Zealand has many things to be proud of and the one of the most important things was women being able to vote.
On 28th July 1893 a monster suffrage petition containing the signatures of more than 25,000 women, along with a dozen other, smaller petitions, were also submitted around the same time to New Zealand Parliament. When pro-suffrage MP Sir John Hall presented them to the House of Representatives on 11 August, he noted that together they contained the signatures of nearly 32,000 women â almost a quarter of the adult European female population of New Zealand.
The Womenâs Christian Temperance Union and other organisations had campaigned for womenâs right to vote since the mid-1880s. In 1891 they presented to Parliament eight petitions containing more than 9000 signatures, and in 1892 six petitions containing almost 20,000. On both occasions, opponents in the more conservative upper house, the Legislative Council, defeated electoral bills that would have enfranchised all adult women.
This time the outcome would be different. When the governor signed a new Electoral Act into law on 19th September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
Not everyone in New Zealand was in favour of women having the vote and in 1902 a Wellington (capital of New Zealand) male resident produced a notorious placard. Husbands throughout New Zealand put the placard, below, on the front doors of their homes.
"Electioneering women are requested not to call here" is the complete phrase from a notorious 1902 placard and circular created by Wellington resident Henry Wright. Titled "Notice to epicene women," the sign was published in the New Zealand Free Lance to ban female political campaigners from visiting his home.
Historical Context
The Author: Henry Wright was a Wellington local who strongly opposed women taking an active, public role in politics after New Zealand granted women the right to vote in 1893.
The Insult: The word "epicene" means of indeterminate s*x. Using it was a common anti-suffrage insult meant to imply that women who engaged in politics were abandoning their femininity and acting masculine.
The Legacy: The original 1902 poster is preserved by the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington and is widely studied as an example of the backlash faced by early female political activists.
Wyoming was the first American state to grant women the vote, initially passing a suffrage law as a territory in 1869 and entering the Union as a state with full voting rights for women in 1890.
Key Milestones
Wyoming Territory (1869): Governor John Campbell signed the first territorial suffrage act on December 10, 1869.
Wyoming Statehood (1890): Officially entered the U.S. as the 44th state with a constitution protecting women's voting rights.
Other Early Claims: New Jersey briefly allowed property-owning women to vote from 1797 until revoking it in 1807, and Utah's territory permitted women to vote starting in 1870.
Have a great week.
Kind regards
Sharron - Your tour guide friend in New Zealand.
