Nailed Boots and Crinoline Gowns

Histories of Pākehā settlement in New Zealand have often ignored the role of women, or devalued their contribution to mere adjuncts to the work of men.

In Nailed Boots and Crinoline Gowns historian Robert Peden argues that not only were women present from the very beginnings of settlement, they were also industrious partners with their menfolk in farming and other enterprises. Despite the Victorian ideal of women as primarily domestic helpmates to their husbands, many women succeeded on the farm and in the wider world.

Many settlers on New Zealand’s rural frontier lived in extreme isolation, far from friends, family and support. In times of crisis, such as childbirth or severe illness, their resourcefulness was sorely tried. Many developed a healthy self-reliance to manage this acute deprivation, some were broken by it.

Nailed Boots and Crinoline Gowns presents the stories of women living on the rural frontier in the first two or three Pakeha--generations. Through their diaries, letters and other sources the author relates the vivid stories of women who toiled long and hard, shoulder to shoulder with their men, even as they cared for their families.

Robert Peden spent over twenty years shepherding and working as a farm manager in the South Island high country. In 1999, he returned to university and completed an M.A. (Distinction) in History at Canterbury and a PhD in History at Otago. He has written for Te Ara, New Zealand’s online encyclopedia and the Waitangi Tribunal.

Robert’s first book, Making Sheep Country. Mt Peel Station and the Transformation of the Tussock Lands, won the Ian Wards Prize, ‘in recognition of an outstanding piece of published writing’, and the J.M. Sherrard Award, ‘recognizing excellence in New Zealand Local and Regional History’.