A Postcard from New Zealand: Cycling and suffrage c. 1910

This Artists’ Suffrage League Postcard, printed in 1910 uses bicycles of old and new to represent bygone and modern views of women’s suffrage. The penny farthing ridden by the elderly man is labeled “Male Electors Only, Women’s Municipal Vote.” The boy in the Young New Zealand sash rides a Safety bicycle with wheels reading “New Zealand, Male and Female Equal Electoral Rights. He calls out “Oh Grandpapa! What a funny old machine. Why don’t you get one like mine?”

This postcard makes reference to New Zealand becoming the first self-governing nation to extend the vote to women in 1893.

Image: The Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University, TWL.2000.58. Photographed by Sheila Hanlon.

About Sheila Hanlon

Dr Sheila Hanlon is a historian specialising in women's cycling history.
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