On April 15, 2020, the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center in partnership with Historic Hawai‘i Foundation presented:
A virtual public event highlighting Wilhelmine Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett, a hapa haole woman of Native Hawaiian and German descent, who fought for the equality of women during the Territorial Period through a multi-ethnic coalition.
As founder of the National Women’s Equal Suffrage Association of Hawaiʻi, the first organization established to secure the vote for women, Dowsett used her leadership skills to press the 1919 Legislature to pass voting rights for Hawaiʻi women.
Presenter Dr. Ralph Kam*, Interim-Director, Historic Preservation Graduate Certificate Program at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, recounted the life and civic legacy of one of Hawaiʻi’s greatest suffragists. The webinar concluded with a live Q&A.
View the webinar below.
DATE: Wednesday, April 15, 2020
TIME: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
WHAT: Virtual presentation and live question and answer session
COST: Free and open to the public. Registration required.
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Beguez, illustrator
*Dr. Ralph Kam holds an MA and PhD in American Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specializing in Asian Pacific American studies and media studies, and an MA in Public Relations from the University of Southern California. He wrote Death Rites and Hawaiian Royalty: Funerary Practices in the Kamehameha and Kalākaua Dynasties, 1819-1953 (2017) and co-authored Partners in Change: A Biographical Encyclopedia of American Protestant Missionaries in Hawai‘i and their Hawaiian and Tahitian Colleagues, 1820-1900 (2018). He also has written 9 articles for the Hawaiian Journal of History.