Learning module:
Progressive ideas and movements Defining Moments, 1750–1918
Investigation 3: Egalitarianism
3.4 1894 Women’s vote (South Australia)
The 1896 Election, Rob van der Hoorn
A modern understanding of fairness or egalitarianism is that all adult citizens have the vote.
This was not the understanding of the nineteenth century. The right to vote had to progress through stages: from the belief that only those adult males with a certain value of property could vote, through to most adult males having the vote (manhood suffrage), to most adult women having the vote (female suffrage), and finally to all adults regardless of their race having the vote (universal suffrage).
How was the final stage of full female suffrage achieved in Australia?
Read the information about women gaining the vote for the first time in the Defining Moment in Australian history: 1894 Women’s suffrage, South Australia. Use that information to answer these questions.
Look back at the Key Questions. Which of these questions do you think you can now answer fully? Which need more research?
