Charlotte Macdonald

Charlotte Jean Macdonald is a New Zealand historian. After studying as an undergraduate at Massey University, she earned her PhD from University of Auckland and is now a professor at Victoria University of Wellington.

Early life
Macdonald has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Massey University, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Auckland. The title of her 1986 doctoral thesis was Single Women as Immigrant Settlers in New Zealand, 1853–1871.

Professional career
Macdonald is a professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington. Her areas of expertise include: 19th century colonies and empires; New Zealand history; gender and women's history; and cultural history of bodies, modernity, sport and spectating. Her work has been marked by innovative approaches to historical research methodology and story-telling. For example, in her 1990 book A Woman of Good Character, she analysed the data connected to the lives of over 4,000 women, in combination with more conventional historical archival work, to understand a large migrant group: single women who came to New Zealand in the 19th century. She has also edited a number of collections of New Zealand women's historical primary material, greatly increasing the availability of such material.

Macdonald wrote the Te Ara – Encyclopedia of New Zealand entry on "Women and Men" in New Zealand history.

Macdonald was awarded a Marsden Fund grant in 2014 for a project entitled "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Settler: Garrison and Empire in the Nineteenth Century", which has developed into the Soldiers of Empire project. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi in 2017.

Selected works

 * A Woman of Good Character: Single Women as Immigrant Settlers in Nineteenth-century New Zealand Allen & Unwin, 1990. ISBN 0046582584
 * The Book of New Zealand Women / Ko kui ma te kaupapa with Merimeri Penfold, Bridget Williams Books, 1991. ISBN 0908912048
 * The Vote, the Pill and the Demon Drink: A History of Feminist Writing in New Zealand, 1869–1993, Bridget Williams Books, 1993. ISBN 0908912404
 * Women in History (editor, with Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant), Bridget Williams Books, 1992. ISBN 0908912234
 * My Hand Will Write What my Heart Dictates, The Unsettled Lives of Women in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand, Bridget Williams Books, 1996. (editor, with Frances Porter), ISBN 9781869401290
 * Women and Crime in New Zealand Society 1888–1910 BA (hons) thesis, Massey University.