Activism Archives - Page 179 of 196

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.

Annie McVicar

From 1906 onwards Annie McVicar was actively engaged in social and educational work in Wellington. As an early member and vice president of the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children, she was involved in establishing the local branch of the Plunket Society in 1908. She was the first secretary of the branch in 1908–9 and served again in 1913, and was a vice president for a number of years in the 1920s and 1930s. When the first Plunket nurse, Joanna MacKinnon, promoted the society’s work in Wellington, Annie McVicar accompanied her on her visits to mothers; occasionally Annie carried out this work on her own. She served on the Worser Bay School committee, chaired the ladies’ advisory committee of the Technical College from 1923 to 1949, and was a parents’ representative on the college’s board of governors from 1927 to 1939.
Annie McVicar was also interested in politics. In 1913 she was a vice president of a local women’s branch of the New Zealand Political Reform League. She became a Miramar borough councillor in 1919 and in February 1921 was nominated to represent the borough on the Wellington City Council. In April that year, after Miramar had amalgamated with Wellington, she became the first woman to be elected to the Wellington City Council. An Evening Post editorial proclaimed that ‘Never before has Wellington had a lady City Councillor, and the innovation is full of promise.’ Annie McVicar held the seat in 1923 but was defeated in 1925. She was a member of the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board (later the Wellington Hospital Board) from 1915 until she retired in 1938. In local government, as in her other activities, McVicar was energetic and pragmatic: her particular interests were education and health, especially that of women and children.