Through Shaded Glass: Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand: 1860–1960

Abstract

In 1924 the Eastman Kodak Company proclaimed that with one of its cameras in your home you could capture “the most fascinating of all stories . . . the story of us” (p. 239). Through Shaded Glass: Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand: 1860–1960 tells another story of “us”: that of women’s engagement with photography in Aotearoa, from the earliest known images taken here in the nineteenth century, until the point at which the gender divide begins to break down in the twentieth. Lissa Mitchell’s exhaustive research over the past decade has revealed the names and expanded the stories of nearly 200 women, many previously unknown, who worked in photography here between 1860 and 1960.