ATHG members,
In response to the call for project summaries from David Fahey and Scott
Haine, this is what I am doing:
 
The broad topic of my thesis is 'Women and the liquor industry on the
Central Otago goldfields, 1861-1901.'  The Otago goldfields, situated in
the South Island of New Zealand (rush began 1861) followed on from the
earlier rushes of California and Australia, and the links to these earlier
goldfields are numerous.  By 1870, the gold rushes had died down, the
communities had stabilised and the proportion of women in the population
was rising.  The goldfields of New Zealand have been largely ignored by
social historians of NZ, but in as much as they have been addressed, they
have been characterised only by their male macho culture.  The goldfields
pub has been seen as the quintessential male bastion.
 
My aim is to problematise this myth, and demonstrate not only the presence
of women in the goldfields liquor industry, but also the diversity of their
roles in this industry.  I am focusing on four main areas: (women)
hotelkeepers, sly grog sellers, hotel workers, and drinkers.  My main
sources are licensing records, newspapers, probates and court records.
 
Much of the scholarship, both in NZ and internationally, which looks at
women's lives and women's participation in the public sphere, has been
focused on the urban environment.  In a frontier context, I am finding both
similarities and differences to urban explanations for female participation
in a drink culture.  I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who
is working on non-urban based liquor studies, or doing comparative work on
the liquor industry in different types of location.
 
Regards,
Sandra Quick
 
(Postgraduate student, History Dept, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand)