Ettie Annie Rout

Born in Tasmania in 1877 and raised in New Zealand, Ettie Annie Rout built a reputation as an energetic organizer, journalist, and social reformer. She is best remembered for campaigning on sexual health and for insisting that women should be able to speak plainly about subjects many people of her time preferred to ignore.

During the First World War, she worked to protect soldiers from sexually transmitted infections, promoting safer-sex measures in ways that shocked many officials and moralists. That made her one of the most controversial public figures in New Zealand, but it also helped secure her place as a strikingly modern voice in public debate.

Rout continued writing and advocating on difficult social questions, and her life has since been recognized as unusually bold for its era. She died in 1936, but her legacy endures as that of a writer who mixed sharp intelligence with real practical courage.