Barbara Brookes

Barbara Lesley Brookes MNZM FRSNZ (born 1955) is a New Zealand historian and academic. She specialises in women's history and medical history. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2022.

Barbara Brookes MNZM FRSNZ
Brookes at a book-signing in Christchurch in 2016
Nationality	New Zealander
Alma mater	University of Otago Bryn Mawr College
Scientific career
Fields	History
Thesis	Abortion in England, 1919–1939 (1982)

Biography

Brookes completed a bachelor's degree at the University of Otago in 1976, then won scholarships to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she completed a master's degree (1978) and a PhD (1982). Her PhD thesis topic was abortion in England during the inter-war period. Brookes was offered a post-doctoral scholarship at Otago and a permanent position in the university's Department of History in 1983.

In 1986, Brookes and her colleague Dorothy Page introduced the first university-level women's history paper in New Zealand. In 2004, Brookes became head of the Department of History and guided the amalgamation of the department with the art history department to form the Department of History and Art History. She held the position until 2012.

In 2022 Brookes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. The society said that Brookes' research "has contributed to a vast international expansion of the historical canon from the 1970s, particularly in relation to the history of gender. It continues to be innovative and widely published".

A History of New Zealand Women

Brookes' sole-authored publication, A History of New Zealand Women (Bridget Williams Books, 2016), won the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award in the Illustrated Non-Fiction category. The book represents over thirty years of research on the topic of New Zealand women's history (inaugurated by a 1986 volume Brookes co-edited with Margaret Tennant and Charlotte Macdonald, Women in History).

Marion Castree describes A History of New Zealand Women as "a superb New Zealand history through the perspective of women's lives and all they contributed to our comparatively short but intense experience in Aotearoa. . . . Beautifully illustrated and designed, this book will never date." Susanna Andrew, writing for noted.co.nz, says the book is "a brilliant examination of how we got to where we are now. […] Brookes has marked every change and shift with clarity and scholarly precision." Charlotte Paul, writing for the New Zealand Medical Journal, says that Brookes "weaves different perspectives of Māori and Pakeha lives into a tapestry that enriches our sense of what it is to be a New Zealander."

Publications

Brookes' publications include:

• Women in History: Essays on European Women in New Zealand, co-edited with Margaret Tennant and Charlotte Macdonald (Allen & Unwin, 1986)
• Abortion in England 1900–1967 (Croom Helm, 1988)
• Women in History 2: Essays on Women in New Zealand, co-edited with Margaret Tennant and Charlotte Macdonald (Allen & Unwin, 1992)
• At Home in New Zealand: Houses, History, People (Bridget Williams Books, 2000)
• 'Unfortunate Folk': Essays on Mental Health Treatment 1863–1992, co-edited with Jane Thomson (Otago University Press, 2002)
• Communities of Women: Historical Perspectives, co-edited with Dorothy Page (Otago University Press, 2002)
• Sites of Gender: Women, Men & Modernity in Southern Dunedin, 1890–1939, co-edited with Robin Law and Annabel Cooper (Auckland University Press, 2003)
• A History of New Zealand Women (Bridget Williams Books, 2016)

Honours and awards

In 2017, Brookes' book A History of New Zealand Women won the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award in the Illustrated Non-Fiction category.

Brookes (left) in 2018, after her investiture as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit by the governor-general, Dame Patsy Reddy

In the 2018 New Year Honours, Brookes was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to historical research and women.