Catherine Helen Spence was a charismatic public speaker in the late nineteenth century, a time when women were supposed to speak only at their own firesides. She was carving a new path into the world of public politics along which other women would follow, in the first Australian colony to win votes for women.

Between 1870 and 1940 thousands of Australian women were drawn to London, their imperial metropolis and the centre of the art, publishing, theatrical and educational worlds. This study examines connections between whiteness, colonial status and modernity.

Catherine Helen Spence, an unparalleled advocate of women's rights in Australia and the world, is now recognized as an important predecessor to the Feminist movement. Her autobiography, composed while on her deathbed and enhanced with scholarly annotation from two Spence scholars, reveals a woman both in and ahead of her time.

This work offers a new view of suffrage-era feminism in Australia, located in rich cultural, social and political context, which also presents a new view of the decades around federation.

In 2006 Finland celebrated the centenary of universal and equal suffrage. The reform in 1906 was radical: women gained the right to vote and to stand as candidates in parliamentary elections. The new rights were immediately used and 19 women were elected to the Parliament. Finland was the third country, after New Zealand and Australia, in which women were admitted to full political citizenship. Norwegian women were also granted political rights before WWI. This publication studies suffrage, citizenship and parliamentary reforms in various socio-political contexts. It brings together new research from a wide range of scholars and disciplines. In addition to pioneers, attention is given to Austria, Britain, Canada, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovenia, among others. By highlighting national differences, the collection strives to disperse the universalising trend of research. The chapters suggest that the age of suffrage narratives based on a view of universal emancipation is over; more significant are deconstructive approaches and analyses embedded in local factors. From an international perspective, the realisation of female suffrage was a long and multi-faceted process taking different forms. The issue of women’s civil rights is certainly not a matter of the past. Internationally, suffrage, gender and citizenship are highly topical issues, as indicated in this collection.

Australia's first female prime minister. The country's first female judge. The first woman to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Australia's first female chief diplomat. The nation's first female winemaker. These women were all trailblazers, but they have something else in common - every one of them was South Australian. And they are just a handful of the 100 remarkable women whose stories are told in this beautiful book, illustrated with hundreds of photographs. Written by historian Carolyn Collins and journalist Roy Eccleston, Trailblazers shines a light on the lives of these extraordinary women whose feats inspired their state, nation and, often enough, the world. Now they can inspire a whole new generation.

South Australia has often been represented as different: convict free, more enlightened in its attitudes toward Aboriginal people, established on rational economic principles, progressive in its social/political development. Some of this is true, some not, but mostly the story is more complex. In this book, eminent historians explore these themes.