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The Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society (1884 - 1908)

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Function: Women's Rights Organisation
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society, the first women’s suffrage society in Australia, was founded in 1884 largely due to the efforts of Henrietta Dugdale and Annie Lowe. Dugdale, very much a ‘freethinker’, claimed to been Victoria’s first activist for women’s suffrage—having publicly advocated women’s suffrage since 1868, along with married women’s property rights and the admission of women to the universities. In 1883 she published a utopian novel, A Few Hours in a Far Off Age, which she used as a vehicle for her then radical ideas about education, marriage, Christianity and rational dress for women. The Society’s platform was ‘To obtain the same political privileges for women as now possessed by male voters’. It had both male and female members.


Details
Archival note:
As of 2003, it appears that there is no specific collection of papers relating to the Society. Its activities were, however, extensively reported in the Melbourne press and women's journals, particularly, for the years 1900-1905, Vida Goldstein's The Australian Woman's Sphere.
 
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Published Resources

Books

  • The Australian Woman's Sphere, Vida Goldstein, Melbourne, 1900-1905. [ Details... ]
  • Oldfield, Audrey, Woman suffrage in Australia : a gift or a struggle?, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1992, 263 pp. [ Details... ]

See also

  • Lees, Kirsten., Votes for women : the Australian story, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W., 1995, 206 pp. [ Details... ]

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Structure based on ISAAR(CPF) - click here for an explanation of the fields.Prepared by: Jane Carey
Created: 11 February 2004
Modified: 3 June 2004

Published by National Foundation for Australian Women on Australian Women's Archives Project Web Site
Comments, questions, corrections and additions: awap@womenaustralia.info
Prepared by: Acknowledgements
Updated: 6 May 2008
http://womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0733b.htm

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