Victoria's Daughters - New Zealand Women of the Thirties

Addapted from blurb:
Victoria's Daughters - New Zealand Women of the Thirties by Eve Ebbett
Well illustrated hard cover book in good condition- 1st edition 1981- Published by AH & A W Reed

Fox fur over the shoulder, powdered face, permanent wave, bright red lipstick ...
it's a picture of the women of the thirties that still persists. But for many these were hard, grim years of make-do and mend, when it was a struggle simply to clothe and feed the family.

Much has been written about New Zealand during the 1930's, during the years of the Depression, yet surprisingly little has been written about the women of that period. This is an attempt to record the lives of the women, how they lived and coped in the years of the Depression between two world wars.

They were expected to live their lives within clearly defined boundaries dominated by the economy, the class structure and the moral code of the times.
A woman's place was in the home, and women themselves tended to accept this view ...

Eve Ebbett has talked with many women - rich and poor, Maori and Pakeha - who remember the time clearly. The book looks at the fashion and the fun, the hardships and the humiliations. It details the way education, careers and entertainment affected the lives of women - and the way they sought, and fought for, the right to birth control and pain-free birth.

The book is not a trip down memory lane. For those who do not remember the time, or who were born long afterwards, there are many parallels that can be drawn between the 1930s and the New Zealand of today (1981)

The photographs - and there are more than a hundred of them - have been carefully chosen to capture the atmosphere of the time and the way women of all classes lived.