31 Facts About Vida Goldstein

Vida Goldstein was one of four female candidates at the 1903 federal election, the first at which women were eligible to stand.

In 1903, Vida Goldstein unsuccessfully contested the Senate as an independent, winning 16.8 percent of the vote.

Vida Goldstein was one of the first four women to stand for federal parliament, along with Selina Anderson, Nellie Martel, and Mary Moore-Bentley.

Vida Goldstein ran for parliament a further four times, and despite never winning an election won back her deposit on all but one occasion.

Vida Goldstein stood on left-wing platforms, and some of her more radical views alienated both the general public and some of her associates in the women's movement.

Vida Goldstein was an ardent pacifist during World War I, and helped found the Women's Peace Army, an anti-war organisation.

Vida Goldstein maintained a lower profile in later life, devoting most of her time to the Christian Science movement.

Vida Goldstein's death passed largely unnoticed, and it was not until the late 20th century that her contributions were brought to the attention of the general public.

Goldstein was born Vida Jane Mary Goldstein in Portland, Victoria, on 13 April 1869 to parents Isabella Goldstein, who was a suffragist, dedicated to temperance and social reform, and Jacob Goldstein a commissioned lieutenant in the Victorian Garrison Artillery who rose to the rank of colonel.

Vida Goldstein arrived in Victoria in 1858 and settled initially at Portland.

Vida Goldstein spent her early life in Portland and Warrnambool, until 1877 when the family moved to Melbourne.

Vida Goldstein engaged a private governess to educate his four daughters and Goldstein was sent to Presbyterian Ladies' College in 1884, matriculating in 1886.

Vida Goldstein became a popular public speaker on women's issues, orating before packed halls around Australia and eventually Europe and the United States.

Vida Goldstein actively lobbied parliament on issues such as equality of property rights, birth control, equal naturalisation laws, the creation of a system of children's courts and raising the age of marriage consent.

In early 1911, Vida Goldstein visited England at the behest of the Women's Social and Political Union.

Vida Goldstein included visits to Holiday Campaigns in the Lake District for Liverpool WPSU organiser Alice Davies, along with fellow activist and writer Beatrice Harraden.

Vida Goldstein was invited to Eagle House whilst she was in England.

Vida Goldstein planted a holly tree, and a plaque would have been made.

Vida Goldstein invited suffragette Louie Cullen to speak of her experiences in the London movement.

In 1902, Australian women won the right to vote in federal elections, so in 1903, Vida Goldstein ran for parliament as an independent with the support of the newly formed Women's Federal Political Association, she was a candidate for the Australian Senate, becoming one of the first women in the British Empire to stand for election to a national parliament.

Vida Goldstein received 51,497 votes, winning 16.8 percent of the vote but failed to secure a Senate seat.

Vida Goldstein stood for parliament again in 1910,1913 and 1914; her fifth and last bid was in 1917 for a Senate seat on the principle of international peace, a position which lost her votes.

Vida Goldstein always campaigned on fiercely independent and strongly left-wing platforms which made it difficult for her to attract high support at the ballot.

Vida Goldstein's writings appeared in various periodicals and papers of the time were influential in the social life of Australia during the first twenty years of the 20th century.

Vida Goldstein became chairman of the Peace Alliance and formed the Women's Peace Army in 1915, and recruited Adela Pankhurst, recently arrived from England as an organiser.

Vida Goldstein continued to campaign for several public causes and continued to believe fervently in the unique and unharnessed contributions of women in society.

Vida Goldstein died of cancer at her home in South Yarra, Victoria on 15 August 1949, aged 80.

In 1978, a street in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm was named Vida Goldstein Crescent, honouring her work as a social reformer.

Vida Goldstein was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.

In 2008, the centenary of women's suffrage in Victoria, Vida Goldstein's contribution was remembered.

Vida Goldstein appears as a major character in the Wendy James novel, Out of the Silence, which examined the case of Maggie Heffernan, a young Victorian woman who was convicted of drowning her infant son in Melbourne, in 1900.