Three women of Blackball

On Easter Sunday I listened to a number of speakers on subjects relating to working class activism, many of them on historical topics. Brian Wood had read out the names of nearly 170 men who were on the 1908 Blackball cribtime strike list the day before and yet by the end of the weekend I still had heard the names of only two Blackball women and them in passing.

The fire of old rose in me. A shadow of the endlessly obsessed historian of women's lives of the early and mid 1990s, but a sign that the fire had never gone out. I have set myself the goal of finding the names and something of the lives of three actual Blackball women over the next few months, and writing it up for May Day celebrations in Blackball in 1909. Drawing on the methods I developed (ha! stumbled upon by just looking at everything I could lay my hands and eyes on until I worked out what archival wonders had the best yields) when writing my MA thesis on women and the liquor industry on the Central Otago goldfields, I plan to look for women through the lens of booze. There will be a temperance list to look at somewhere I suppose as well.

For those outside of New Zealand, New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote in national elections in 1893. This legislation was won on the back of the temperance movement, powerfully supported by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. My thesis challenged the dichotomy that women = good and booze = bad and good women didn't run pubs. Some very fine and successful women did exactly that in Central Otago. I had a great time researching the wild women, the drinkers and the sly grog sellers, as well.

Once I've got the temperance list out of the way, I'll be onto my favourite stuff. Court records for drunkenness arrests. Liquor licensing records. Newspaper reports relating to booze and boozers. I think much of it may be at the Christchurch branch of National Archives but am hopeful that I can make a start on the West Coast.

This is going to cut into gardening time. I might even use some of the student nanny's visit to get started. oooooooh I must be fired up to use gardening time for an indoor pursuit.