Simply the Best 2: Reflections of women through records
Keynote Speaker
Lena Tornqvist, Astrid Lindgren Collection, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm
'From a box in the attic to a Memory of the World - Astrid Lindgren's remarkable archives at the National Library of Sweden'
Lena Trnqvist, Librarian responsible for the Astrid Lindgren Archives
will present her keynote address on this significant national and
international collection. Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author and writer of
Pippi Longstocking - one of the most famous children's books in the world. -
holds a unique position in Swedish society during the second half of the
last century. Renowned both for her support for childrens and animal
rights, and for her opposition to corporal punishment she received the Right
Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. Her
books have been translated into 85 languages and published in more than 100
countries.
The Astrid Lindgren Archive is a comprehensive collection of more than 130
shelf metres containing original manuscripts, notebooks, letters and press
clippings and the archive has been classified by UNESCO for inclusion in the
Memory of the World Register and has thus been deemed important to preserve
for the whole of humankind. The centennial of the authors birth will be
celebrated in November this year.
Women and Health
Dr Louella McCarthy, Project Manager and Research Associate at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney
Health, History and Disadvantage: Where are Women with Disabilities in the Records?
Histories of people with disabilities have been slow to attract the attention of scholars. The emergence of oral history as a mainstream methodology in the Western world coincided in the 1960s and 1970s with the development of human rights movements by/for women, indigenous people, homosexuals and lesbians, and people with disabilities. As a means for political and personal empowerment, oral history helped to fuel human rights activism and to inculcate a sense of personal worth for many previously history-less individuals and groups.
As a consequence, many of the groups have gone on to profoundly change the ways we understand and practise history.
This has included, not least, the establishment of extensive archives of documentary materials to further enhance our understanding of historical change. The historical particularities of women with disabilities remain unexplored. Compounding this oversight, at least in Australia, is the fact that interest in the lives and experiences of people with disabilities has been greatest in the health sciences, which is also the field with the most stringent controls on the creation and retention of records.
This paper explores these issues in the context of current ethics requirements regarding the destruction of all research records.
Mireille Dremanis and Meg Hale, Association Representing Mothers Separated from their Children by Adoption
Living records: the health Impact on women separated from children through adoption
Two representatives from the ARMS from the Adelaide Association will present as living records of the Association. Together they will share the journey and important story to be told reflecting the collective memory of women from a little known sector of Australian society.
Shauna Hicks, Public Record Office of Victoria, Melbourne
Women in Colonial Asylums
Women and Education
Dr Tiffany Donnelly
Women in Higher Education 1892-1968: The Womens College Biographical Register Project
In 1887, just six years after the University of Sydney resolved to open
its doors to women, a group of interested citizens began a movement to
establish a College for women within the University. Unlike the existing
mens colleges it was to be non-denominational but in all other respects
would provide women students with the same opportunities for collegiate
residence enjoyed by men. The College opened in 1892 with four students,
making history as the first university college for women in Australia and
also within the British Commonwealth.
The Womens College Biographical Register project was established in 1995 to
document the Colleges students, its academic and administrative staff and
the members of its governing Council. Using sources from the Colleges
extensive archives, three registers have now been published which list all
students who entered the College between 1892 and 1968. All three volumes
have been compiled and edited by historian Dr Rosemary Annable, and provide
details of students family background, schooling, University achievements
and subsequent careers. Information has been gathered from published and
archival sources, and from questionnaires distributed to students and family
members. More than two thousand women are represented in these landmark
volumes, providing a significant survey of the lives and families of women
in higher education in Australia.
Helen Bruce, University of Adelaide Archives
Women and Education The Early Years
The University of Adelaide was the first university in Australia to open
its doors to women on equal terms with men. Edith Dornwell was admitted to
the degree of science in 1883. She graduated in 1885, not only as the first
women graduate, but also the first science graduate.
The paper will provide an overview of the contribution women made in the
early years of the University of Adelaide and an insight into their
University life using the primary and secondary source material contained in
the University Archives that encompasses original correspondence, minutes,
photographs and newspaper clippings pertaining to early women students,
staff and graduates.
Tony Ryan, Australian College of Educators Archive, Adelaide
Conversations with Women in Education
From records held by the Australian College of Educators, this presentation will feature approximately eight significant female educators from across Australia. The presentation will make use of excerpts from College archival documents to complement audio excerpts from Conversations, the extensive oral history project with significant men and women educators associated with the College. Undertaken by Tony Ryan since 1994, recordings were made in several states in association with the Oral History Unit of the National Library of Australia, where over thirty of the fifty five extended interviews are now held.
Helen Miller, De Lissa Association of Early Childhood Graduates, Adelaide
Recorded memories of graduates from the first 50 years of the Kindergarten Training College, 1907 1957
2007 is the centenary of the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College which
was established by the Kindergarten Union of South Australia. Supported by
grants from the History Trust of SA and the State Library recorded memoirs
of Kindergarten Training College graduates from the first fifty years was
undertaken for the de Lissa Association of Early Childhood Graduates Inc.
Archives and more widely, to include these as part of the State's history.
This history has not been conducted before.
The interviewees talked about their memories as student teachers, often
recalling where exactly they were placed for teaching practice experiences,
about Froebel and later, Montessori philosophies which the first Principal,
Miss Lillian de Lissa so passionately espoused. These philosophies were
fundamental to their teacher training in the first two decades especially,
but even today after many developments in education and philosophy, there is
understanding and respect for them in the growth and development of young
children.
As teachers, the interviewees had very different experiences ranging from
suburban kindergartens often in very deprived areas working in sub-standard
buildings, in private schools as pre-primary or primary teachers, teaching
interstate and overseas from England to Papua new Guinea
The post-migration boom put great strains on all resources, with
insufficient provision for all the families wanting to have their children
at kindergarten. Waiting lists of one hundred or more at individual
kindergartens was not unusual. and teachers had no specific preparation for
this change in social conditions but what is overwhelmingly clear is their
regard for the course they did at the Kindergarten Training College.
Jenny Gill, Archivist, Launceston Church Grammar School
19th Century female educators
To illustrate the role of the Dame School Teachers in the Australian colonies and shed light on the type of records that support the work of these pioneer women.
Jane Ellen, University of Melbourne Archives
This paper will discuss the collections held at the University of Melbourne Archives which include McPhee Gribble, Sisters Publishing, Sugar & Snails, Joyce Nicholson, the female editors of Meanjin and some other smaller collections.
Women and Politics
Dr Caitlin Stone, University of Melbourne Archives
It wasnt meant to be easy Reflections of women in the Malcolm Fraser Collection at the University of Melbourne
The Malcolm Fraser Collection at the University of Melbourne comprises
around eighty metres of photographs and records relating to the life and
career of the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser. On the surface women even Malcolm
Frasers wife, Tamie Fraser are largely absent from the collection. This
is despite the fact that Fraser government policies (such as the
introduction of family allowances) had a profound effect on the lives of
Australian women.
This paper will explore the presence of women in three main areas of the
collection: the development of the Family Law Act of 1975; the abortion
debate and representations from women in Malcolm Frasers electorate
correspondence.
Alison Bartlett (University of Western Australia), Maryanne Dever (Monash University), and Dr Margaret Henderson (the University of Queensland)
The Australian Feminist Memory Project: Notes Towards Making a Feminist Archive
While the Australian womens movement is recognized internationally for
its achievements in fundamentally altering the shape of Australian society
and politics, the record of feminist activism in this country remains
partial, fragmentary and dispersed. This paper gives an overview of our
proposed Australian Research Council Linkage project, The Australian
Feminist Memory Project: Cultures of Activism, 1970-1990 which aims to
address this lack in the national historical record.
Working through the National Library of Australia and the National Museum of
Australia, this project will systematically gather, preserve and make
accessible previously undocumented oral, pictorial, textual and material
sources for interpreting this pivotal social movement. The paper will focus
on questions that have emerged in relation to this project: about what kind
of an archive does justice to the breadth and depth of cultural production
and personal experiences that informed the early Australian womens
movement? How can an archive be feminist in form and function? How can the
emotional impact of the movement be archived? In searching for an innovative
form of feminist archive, we will discuss the practical and political
constraints encountered, the methodological issues surrounding the
construction of a feminist archive, and the alternative historical
narratives made possible by it.
Rachel Grahame and Emma Grahame, NSW Committee, Australian Womens Archive Project
On and off the sacred benches: tracing women candidates for the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1920-2005
In 1925, Millicent Preston-Stanley, the Nationalist party candidate for
the electorate of Eastern Suburbs, became the first woman member of the
Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. More than eighty women since then
have taken their place on the sacred benches and, in the present
Parliament of New South Wales, more than forty women are members of the
Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council.
In 2005, the NSW Committee of the Australian Womens Archives Project
commissioned the preparation of a biographical register of women candidates
for the Legislative Assembly from 1920 to 2005. Using archival and web-based
resources the researchers identified 753 candidates for whom they sought
biographical details and records.
This presentation discusses both the practical and methodological challenges
of tracing such a large and diverse group, and the value of the rich holding
of libraries and archive repositories the main documentary resource for
the project. It also considers what the research revealed about the
candidates interests and backgrounds; their community and political
involvement and connections
Women and Research
Jennifer Coombes, National Gallery of Australia
Women Artists in the Archives at the National Gallery of Australia
The Research Library at the National Gallery manages the manuscript
collection, the Ephemera Collection, and the James Gleeson Oral History
Collection, a series of interviews conducted by Gleeson in the late 1970s on
Australian artists whose works were held in the National Gallerys
collection.
Traditionally the paper-based record has been of fundamental importance to
the archivist. However, the role of oral history is also significant as a
way of capturing memory. It also plays a particularly important role in the
process of acquisition. Many oral history interviews serve as a basis for
later donations to the manuscript collection. This is of particular
significance in recording and storing information on women artists as the
Gallery does not hold the papers of many Australian female artists.
In my paper, I will explore the relationships between the spoken word and
the traditional manuscript and ephemera collections to bring public
attention and understanding of the work of women artists at the National
Gallery of Australia.
Dr Julie Tolley, University of South Australia
Women in the Barossa Wine Industry
Dr Gintaras Kantvilas, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Janet Somerville: a botanical history of Tasmania (1642-1820)
Janet Somerville (18871969) was a Tasmanian-born botanist, field naturalist and historian. She graduated with a Batchelor of Science from the University of Tasmania in 1940, one of the first women to achieve this qualification. She was employed by the Tasmanian Education Department during which time she developed an extensive knowledge of Tasmanias flora, working closely with botanist, Dr Winifred Curtis. She published numerous articles and pamphlets on Tasmanias natural history, flora and history, but it was not until retirement that she commenced her magnum opus, a botanical history of Tasmania. This monumental work demanded intensely detailed research of original diaries, charts and other records. Janet died before the work was completed but her long-overlooked manuscript was recently edited and brought to publication. This talk reviews the life and work of this remarkable woman who contributed so much through pain-staking study but who has passed into relative obscurity.
Women and Social Justice
Jenny Scott, State Library of South Australia
Incorrigible rogues : visible crimes Invisible statutes : the prosecution of women in Adelaide in the 19th Century
Since 1836 South Australia has been home to damned whores and gods police. Despite occasional but regular outbursts in the media the damned whores populating Adelaides West-End have been confined to the realm of forgotten memory. The legislation of South Australias colonial parliament made finding the history of women prosecuted for crimes against the social structure of home and family difficult. In the course of her research, State Library of South Australia Collection Specialist, Jenny Scott, has traced the history of the legislation that convicted these women while keeping their crimes and their lives invisible. Their discovered stories reveal some of the reality that was the lives of these women.
Grant Stone, Murdoch University Library
At the street level - Irene Greenwood and Women of the Green Movement: and their struggle for a just society
Murdoch University Library Archives reflect social change and social justice at the street - every person level and includes substantial papers of the Green movement in WA in which Women's archives feature prominently such as Jo Vallentine, Dee Margetts, Christabel Chamarette archives that are beyond their formal government involvement.. These archives include marching banners and t-shirts as well as usual paper materials which has been documented in part in the publication by student and part-time Library worker and volunteer, Barbara Kearns : Stepping out for peace : history of CANE and PND (WA), 2004.
For further information contact the Conference Convenor
Jenni Jeremy
Academic Librarian
University of South Australia Library, Magill Campus
St Bernards Road
Magill, South Australia 5072
Ph +61 8 8302 4457