Mary Ann Muller

Mary Ann Müller around 1900

Mary Ann Müller , b. Wilson (* 1820 in England ; † July 18, 1901 in Old Amersfoort, Blenheim , New Zealand), was a teacher, suffragette and one of the first feminists in New Zealand.

Life

Nothing is known about Mary Ann Wilson's origins, childhood and education, except that she was born in England in 1819 or 1820 and her father was called James Wilson . In 1842 she married James Whitney Griffiths in London , and when she was separated from her husband (by death or separation) around 1849 she decided to emigrate to New Zealand.

In January 1850 she arrived in Nelson with her two sons , worked as a teacher and taught at a school in Nelson for two years. On December 5, 1851, she married the surgeon Stephen Lunn Müller (1814-1891), whom she had met on the crossing from England to New Zealand. She gave up her job and was officially a housewife from then on.

After the death of her second husband in 1891, Mary Ann Müller lived in Old Amersfoort, Blenheim, where she died ten years later on July 18, 1901.

Act

Already in England she dealt with legalized discrimination against women. However , she only became politically active in Nelson. She used contacts to politically influential men to discuss the lack of rights of women. Some men sympathized with their ideas, but their opponents were still numerous. Her husband herself was among these opponents. Since he was a member of the Nelson Provincial Council and acted as magistrate, it was not possible for her to go public with her ideas.

Charles Elliott, editor of the Nelson Examiner , finally gave her the right mouthpiece through his newspaper, in which she could anonymously denounce the discriminatory position of women in society and formulate political demands. At the same time, she successfully practiced political lobbying for political friends.

On September 1, 1869, she published a leaflet in the Nelson Examiner under the pseudonym "Femina" entitled An Appeal to the Men of New Zealand . This script was not only widely recognized in New Zealand, but also became widely known in English-speaking countries. Your pamphlet was the impetus for the women's rights movement and women's suffrage campaign ( women's suffrage campaign ) in New Zealand. She received public support and a. by the English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill , a strong supporter of the English suffragette movement.

In the Married Women's Property Act of 1870 and 1884, she finally found parts of her ideas and political demands realized.

Although unable to publicly fight for women's rights, Mary Ann Müller exerted considerable influence by persistently creating a climate of opinion for women's rights for over 30 years.

If her identity had not been disclosed in December 1898 in an article in the journal The White Ribbon, founded by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the public would probably never have learned anything about her contributions to the New Zealand women's movement .

literature

• Bernard John Foster : Müller, Mary Anne . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed December 15, 2015]).
• An Appeal to the Men of New Zealand . In: Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle . Volume XXVIII, Issue 70 . Wellington September 1, 1869, p. 3 (English, online [accessed December 15, 2015]).

Web links

• Raewyn Dalziel : Müller, Mary Anne . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , August 2, 2011, accessed August 19, 2012 . 
• Womens suffrage . Cambridge Museum, New Zealand,accessed August 19, 2012. 
• Mary Mueller . Brooklyn Museum,accessed December 15, 2015. 
• Women's Legal position in Regency times . The Regency Collection,accessed December 15, 2015. 

Remarks

1. ↑ The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography gives 1819 or 1820 as a possible year of birth. All other sources refer to the year 1820.
2. ↑ The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography states that she had separated from her husband in 1849 because of his cruelty and had given widow status for the ship passage. All other sources name the year of his death as 1849.
3. ↑ The Married WomenÆs Property Act was a law that now allowed married women to keep any property they owned that they had acquired before and during their marriage. Married women were now legally equal to unmarried women. Before this law, women became practically destitute through marriage. All property automatically became the property of the man.