The National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) Past Presidents oral history project is archived in Wellington in the Alexander Turnbull Library and in the Brandon Street office of the NCWNZ. Crafted in 2016 by author and publisher Carol Dawber, the six packets of information and oral history interviews provide a wealth of information important to understanding the recent history of NCWNZ. Each packet of materials includes the digitised oral history interview, a photograph of the interviewee, a written summary of the interview, and any additional documentation such as a final president’s report. The six presidents included in this project are:

• Janet May Hesketh (QSM, CNZM, BSc) née MacKenzie of Wellington (1934-2018),
  NCWNZ president 1994-1998, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1063540
• Barbara Winifred Glenie (QSO) née Beckett of Auckland (1948- ), NCWNZ president 1998-2002, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1063543
• Beryl Jean Anderson (ONZM) of Hutt Valley (1953- ), NCWNZ president 2002-2004, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1064904
• Christine Mary Low of Christchurch (1960- ), NCWNZ president 2004-08, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1065832
• Elizabeth Margaret Bang (CNZM) née Ewart of Hamilton (1942- ), NCWNZ president 2008-12, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1064905
• Barbara Joan Arnold née Furness of Palmerston North (1950- ), NCWNZ president 2012-14, https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1064906

Former NCWNZ Board member Mary Gavin explained that the original idea for the project was to celebrate the 125^th anniversary of NCWNZ in 2016. Rather than produce a narrative history as a publication sequential to Dorothy Page’s The National Council of Women: A Centennial History (1996), funding was found to support the oral history work by author and publisher, Carol Dawber. The intervening twenty years had been tumultuous, and the time was ripe for first-hand perspectives from those who had led the organisation so successfully.

We need to know more about this history of women’s experiences in the late twentieth century and the impact that NCWNZ had on that history. The “wave” of the women’s rights movement in the early 1970s in New Zealand, seeking equal rights and raising public consciousness about sexism, had begun to slow by the 1980s. Opponents to the women’s movement feared that further changes would destroy the centring force of what was then defined as a “nuclear “family. (See more on this in J. Carlyon and D. Morrow, Changing Times: New Zealand since 1945.)  The NCWNZ in the 1980s navigated a middle-of-the-road position in political rifts on specific issues such as abortion. At the same time, women’s culture of volunteerism had dramatically shifted, given the rise in work opportunities for women. So many women’s organisations fizzled out without strong champions coming up through the ranks to keep them going. The stories of these NCWNZ presidents during the 1990s and early 2000s include details on how to keep a nationally-run volunteer organisation sustainable as well as the evidence of the type of leadership these women offered.

Finding and accessing these important primary source materials has been a journey in itself. Only with the written permission of both the NCWNZ president and the individual interviewees, was I allowed to access the materials – and even then, the Library was reluctant to allow me to access all the materials at the same time.  Nevertheless, I will persevere. This work ultimately will culminate in a feature article on each of the above projects in upcoming newsletters.

To read more articles from The Circular (July-August 2024) issue 648, click on the tag below.