Story: Te mana o te wāhine – Māori women
Māori women work in the Waipa State Forest box factory in Rotorua in the 1940s, during the Second World War. Māori women's involvement in factory work during the war was one of the factors that led to increasing urbanisation of Māori.
Using this item
Reference: PAColl-8858
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
How to cite this page
Rawinia Higgins rāua ko Paul Meredith, Te mana o te wāhine – Māori women – Leadership and activism, 1950s to 1980s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/31576/working-in-a-box-factory (accessed 25 November 2025).
Story by Rawinia Higgins rāua ko Paul Meredith, published 10 May 2011, updated 1 June 2017.