A woman of good character

About this book

"Thousands of young women ... came to New Zealand as 'government' or assisted immigrants between the 1840s and the 1880s. Most knew little of their destination - only that young women like them were urgently needed to work as domestic servants and to balance the 'disproportion of the sexes' in the fledgling colony ... explores the women's life histories and life patterns both prior to and after emigration. Theirs is a forgotten history, and a unique one, and their story challenges many of our preconceptions about women's lives in nineteenth-century New Zealand"--Cover.