Emarina Manuel
Ngāti Kahungunu; typist, teacher, Māori welfare officer, community leader
Category Archives: Activism
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Käthe Kollwitz
Kollwitz was instrumental in increasing the visibility and professional validity of women artists in the interwar years. In 1916, she was voted to become the first woman juror of the Berlin New Secession, and in 1919, she became the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of the Arts (though she refused to use the title of “professor”). She helped found the Society for Women Artists and Friends of Art in 1926 and was appointed the first female department head at the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1928. Kollwitz’s work was internationally renowned in her lifetime.
Dr Cicely Williams
Jamaican physician Dr Cicely Delphine Williams, OM, CMG, FRCP was best known for her discovery of and research into kwashiorkor, a condition of advanced malnutrition, and her work against the use of sweetened condensed milk and other artificial baby milks as substitutes for human breast milk. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford University, Dr Williams was a key figure in advancing the field of maternal and child health in developing nations. In 1948, she became the first director of Mother and Child Health (MCH) at the newly created World Health Organization (WHO).
Mary Ingraham
Bahamian suffragist Mary “May” Ingraham was the founding president of the Bahamas Women’s Suffrage Movement, as well as a businesswoman who owned properties and ran a store.
Salomé Ureña
Dominican poet Salomé Ureña was an early advocate for women’s higher education in the Dominican Republic.
Carmen Tione Rupe
Carmen Rupe was a trailblazing transgender woman and entertainer, a larger-than-life personality, sex worker, and celebrated LGBTIQ+ icon. Proprietor of several notorious Wellington nightspots and one-time mayoral candidate, she pushed the boundaries of Wellington nightlife and both entertained and outraged New Zealanders during the 1960s and 1970s. The most visible transgender New Zealander of her time, she used her celebrity to advocate for LGBTIQ+ rights. She was well-known for helping homeless people and others in need.
Betty Wark
Whāea (mother) Betty Wark worked with ‘at risk’ Māori youth in Auckland for more than 30 years. The product of a difficult childhood, she struggled to provide a family environment to many young people whose lives had been destabilised by mid-twentieth century Māori urbanisation. At Arohanui, the hostel she co-founded and operated, young Māori found a bed, a hot meal, help with addiction, and the prospect of education and reconnection with a resurgent Māori culture.
Ana Mendieta
For a long time, Mendieta’s highly publicized death eclipsed any attention being paid to her intensely important body of work. A recent surge of interest in her jolting performances, however, has turned a focus onto her work as being an important member of the displaced and abused women canon. Mendieta has inspired a book about her death written by Robert Katz, a feminist protest outside of the Dia Art Foundation’s retrospective of Carl Andre replete with chicken blood and guts, and many of her own postmortem retrospectives. She has also influenced numerous modern artists, such as Ana Teresa Fernández, Kate Gilmore, Simone Leigh, Gina Osterloh, Antonia Wright, Nancy Spero and Tania Bruguera.
Amy Hadfield Hutchinson
From 1901 to 1904 Amy was matron of the boarding hostel at her old high school; a friend, Bessie Spencer, was headmistress. On 30 August 1907, at Napier, Amy married Francis (Frank) Hutchinson, a sheepfarmer from Rissington; the marriage was childless. The homestead on Frank’s farm, Omatua, had been unoccupied, except by bees, for years. Amy and Frank restored the house and garden, and Omatua became known as a place where visitors found an ‘opportunity for intellectual conversation’.
Ann Boyce
According to the reminiscences of Ann’s grand-daughter, on one occasion after taking to farming, William Boyce decided that he wanted to make another sea voyage. He departed, leaving the farm with a manager. Ann took a dislike to the arrangement. She hired a whaleboat and two men to row her over Cook Strait, and fetched her husband back to agricultural pursuits. Her grand-daughter also records that in Motueka, with its large Māori population, Ann became increasingly knowledgeable about the medicinal properties of plants. She is said to have gained renown as a herbalist, and was often called on for medical help, particularly by Māori people.