Make Her Praises Heard Afar

The many roles women played overseas during WWI.
A free Friends of the Turnbull Library event.

Historian and biographer, Jane Tolerton will speak about her new book 'Make her praises heard afar' which looks at the many roles New Zealand women played overseas during World War I.

Women served as doctors, ambulance drivers, nurses, VADs, land girls and ran soldiers’ clubs, as well as being members of the British women’s services and the civil service among other roles.

Noting that New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant women’s suffrage, but only one among the allies not to have produced a book on women in the war, Jane says she has found many great stories that show that “New Zealand women ‘punched above our weight’ in the war”. Much of her research was done in the Turnbull Library.

About the speaker:
Jane is the author of the award-winning Ettie: A life of Ettie Rout and the bestselling Convent girls, plus Sixties chicks and An awfully big adventure from the 84 interviews she conducted for the World War One Oral History Archive, with Nicholas Boyack.