School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemWorking class politics and culture: a case study of Brunswick in the 1920's( 1984)This thesis is motivated by a desire to explore the implications of recent debates in labour history circles on fundamental questions of theory and methodology. It is written in search of "history from below". The techniques of "traditional labor history" have been thoroughly discredited in numerous recent works. The earlier "economistic" approach has been largely superseded by one related more to "culture" and "experience". Australian labor historians have been taken to task for their "poorly developed and unsatisfactory theory of class" and romanticised assumptions of socialist traditions unsupported by empirical evidence. Leading exponents of the new brand of labor history such as Edward Thompson have set out to "rescue the working man and woman from the oblivion into which they had been cast by Whig history, traditional labor history, and vulgar Marxist history". Yet the rescue has not happened, at least not in Australia. As Margaret Sampson remarks, “Australian historical writing has remained pecularly impervious to overseas developments in historiography ". And as she concludes, it is vital that labor history transcends the study of "organisations which are studied simply because they and their records exist, or because the historian sympathises with their aims". The primary aim of my thesis, therefore, is an examination of the rank and file of the Australian Labor Movement in its own surroundings. I intend to examine the relationship between rank and file unionists and activists and their leaders - without assuming that the leaders perfectly represent the views and aspirations of the rank and file. I also intend to examine their relationship with their own environment, the influence of the workplace and society at large. This may well be attempting the impossible, but I believe the attempt at least is worthwhile. I have chosen Brunswick in the 1920's as the focus of my study for several reasons. Most obviously, a study of this nature requires some limitations of time and space. Brunswick was chosen because of its convenient location, its long history of Labor dominance, its position as an expanding industrial suburb, its lack of any substantial local history, and the fact that my own family has its roots in the area. The 1920’s was chosen because it represents a state of relative calm between two cataclysmic events, war and depression, and also because I suspect that it is a period in which Australia was closer to a classically Marxist class structure than at any other juncture in its history - with industrialisation well advanced but occupational and class distinctions in general quite marked and readily apparent. (For complete introduction open document)
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ItemLabour pains: working-class women in employment, unions, and the Labor Party in Victoria, 1888-1914( 1987-05)This study focuses on the experiences of working-class women spanning the years from 1888 to 1914 - a period of significant economic growth and socio-political change in Victoria. The drift of population into the urban centres after the goldrush marked the beginning of a rapid and continual urban expansion in Melbourne as the city’s industrial and commercial sectors grew and diversified. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the increasing population provided a larger workforce which also represented a growing consumer market. The rise of the Victorian manufacturing industries in this period also saw the introduction of the modern factory system. With the increasing demand for unskilled labour in factories, it was not only men who entered this new factory workforce. Young women and older children were, for the first time, drawn in appreciable numbers into the industrial workforce as employers keenly sought their services as unskilled and cheap workers. Women were concentrated in specific areas of the labour market, such as the clothing, boot, food and drink industries, which became strictly areas of “women’s work”. In the early twentieth century, the rigid sexual demarcation of work was represented by gender-differentiated wages and employment provisions within industrial awards.
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ItemProtected and directed: medicalised childbirth in Victoria 1930-1960( 1986)Chapter I examines the public discourse about childbirth, both the views of the medical profession and the public, to establish the accord that existed between them and explore the question of why this might be so. Chapter II looks at the changing personnel and institutions involved in childbirth management, and the medical advances and developments that took place across the period. In the third chapter oral sources are used to explore the significance of these changes in shaping women's perceptions of the experience of childbirth. The final section of the thesis looks at the impact of the views of Grantly Dick-Read on the Safety Model, and sees the resultant changes produced in patients' experiences as breaking apart the shared interests of women and physicians with important implications for the future. (From introduction)
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Item"Strangers within the gates": Victorian governments and non-Europeans, 1880-1908( 1982)In 1901 the Commonwealth Parliament passed the first national law restricting the entry of non-Europeans into Australia - the Immigration Restriction Act. This Act, by enabling the testing of potentially "undesirable" immigrants with a passage of dictation in English or another European language, effectively set up a "White Australia" barrier to non-European immigration. But such a "Natal test" device had, in fact, been established several years earlier in several of the then un-joined Australian colonies; and, although 1901 is conveniently taken as the beginning of the "White Australia policy", in fact all Australian colonies had immigration measures specifically directed against one or more non-European groups on the Statute books by the 1880s. The national "White Australia" barrier erected in 1901 had its origins in colonial attitudes and measures, and it is with this aspect of Australian historical inquiry - the development of Government policies, attitudes and legislation against non-Europeans in a specific colony in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - that this thesis is concerned.
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ItemFreemasonry and community in nineteenth-century Victoria( 1987)Freemasonry has had a controversial image ever since the first of the modern Grand Lodges of Freemasons appeared in London during the early years of the eighteenth century. The brotherhood's claim to be the guardian of the traditions of an ancient guild of stone masons has received wide credence, and their organization has been well respected in some quarters. Yet always it would seem there have been those who have scoffed at these freemasons' presumption and regarded their network of lodges as a purely social organization, the members of which have a taste for exotic ritual and costume. Over the years there have been many who have accused the fraternity of encouraging dissipation among young men, arguing that lodge meetings and formal banquets are often only an excuse for intemperance. Masons in general have been charged with not acting according to the high code of social conduct they profess to teach. It has been claimed they frequently do not keep their promises of assistance to fellow-masons in time of need. At various times and places the fraternity has been charged with using the oath of secrecy it extracts from candidates for admission to conceal orchestrated attempts to subvert religious or state institutions; some of their critics have seen them as a radical or subversive group, others as a reactionary body of men. At frequent intervals the opinion has been expressed that masons use their fraternal relationship for personal gain, and for this reason alone their networks are detrimental to the community in general. In defence of their organization, freemasons have argued that the philosophy which underpins their rituals will provide moral guidance to all those who sincerely seek it. They claim it can help men understand how to live in peace with each other and what action they can take to ensure their community progresses to a higher form of civilization. Masons believe that participation in masonic life can promote both spiritual and mental growth, as within a lodge men encounter an atmosphere which encourages them to develop their innate capacities. Masonry is said to lead them to be charitable and more tolerant of others religious beliefs, attentive to their family responsibilities and obedient to the laws of their community. A number of masons have proudly catalogued the aristocrats, men who have become leaders of nations through the ballot-box, or received public acclaim due to their outstanding achievement in economic, scientific or literary fields, who have become lodge members since the founding of the first of the modern Grand Lodges of Freemasons in London in 1717. The oaths of secrecy required from initiates have been defended on the grounds of their great antiquity, and their common usage by other fraternities and sororities to underline the special kind of bond created by acceptance as a member. Masons argue their oaths cannot be regarded as anti-social in intention, as masonry has been restricted to men of mature age, whom their peers have judged able to appreciate masonic wisdom as well as keep its secrets. Candidates must also be possessed of financial resources or skills which ensure that they are capable of supporting themselves and assisting all worthy causes. Within private lodges three 'craft degrees' may be conferred, that of apprentice, fellowcraft and master. However, a variety of so-called 'higher degrees' may be received by master masons who join a chapter or conclave. Masons are in broad agreement that the latter are peripheral to freemasonry. The master masons who are interested in exploring the meaning of a variety of esoteric rituals based on the practices of legendary bands of men for a higher degree have always been a small minority. Although chapters and conclaves are usually associated with one or more craft lodges, they do not have direct representation within Grand Lodge organizations, and in this thesis the use of the term 'masonry' normally refers to networks of craft lodges only. The rapid spread around the world of a network of independent Grand Lodges, whose private lodges usually extend a welcome to visiting master masons no matter in which region of the world they have received the right to that title, is a phenomena of historical interest. During the modern era, few social institutions can equal the Grand Lodges of freemasonry in longevity and geographic spread. These societies of adult males, which sometime have accepted women, were but one manifestation of a great revival of voluntary associationism which accompanied the translation of rural villagers into urban social classes. Trade Unions, Co-operatives, Friendly Societies and Grand Lodges had goals in common and seem to have drawn upon some of the same sources for their inspiration in Anglo-Saxon societies. Yet during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries each performed a distinctive role. Whereas the other associations offered their members defined pecuniary benefits, masonic lodges only offered to teach men a system of social ethics. As masonic lodges appeared to proffer what was already available from churches or educational establishments there was no obvious reason why masonry should attain the kind of world-wide popularity it did over the years.
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ItemElsie Morres and the education of girls at the Hermitage, 1906-1933( 1988)The Church of England Girls' High School, Geelong, which became popularly known as 'The Hermitage', opened its doors in 1906 with a Melbourne University graduate, Miss Elsie Morres, as its first headmistress. For 27 years, until her retirement in 1933, Elsie Morres was the driving force in shaping the school's life, both its broad educational aims and its more mundane daily operations. Her work throws interesting light on the education of middle-class girls, and on the definitions of femininity with which they were confronted, in the first decades of twentieth century Victoria. Feminist historians have extensively documented the reform movement led by female educationalists in Britain in the mid nineteenth century, a period which witnessed vast changes in the type and status of girls' secondary and tertiary education in that country.(l) In the Australian colonies, the desire of the middle- and upper-class citizenry, in particular, to imitate the 'Motherland' facilitated the apparent ready accommodation of the English innovations to the Australian educational environment. (2) This appearance ignores not only the existence of significant Australian female educational reformers, but the continued vigilance necessary to sustain hard-won reforms well into the twentieth century. Australian historians of girls' education have noted the ready translation of English reforms to the Australian educational environment of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.(3) In Victoria, in particular, the establishment of the Presbyterian and Methodist Ladies' Colleges in 1875 and 1882 respectively, indicated the ease with which some sections of the upper and middle classes accepted the education of girls in institutions, and in subjects modelled on those of boys' 'public' schools. (4) Although the Anglican Church in Australia was tardier in its entry into the arena of girls' education, it too looked to England for guidance. (From Introduction)
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ItemThe acceptable face of feminism: the National Council of Women of Victoria, 1902-18( 1988)This study focuses on the broad question of post-suffrage feminist activity in Melbourne. When contrasted with the political ferment and air of sexual confrontation which characterised women's struggle for the vote, the post-suffrage period has been seen to represent an acceptance by women of traditional sexual roles and gender stereotypes. Underlying this general view of the period, however, is a complex set of historical factors. It is argued here that the fate of first-wave feminism in Victoria can be more clearly understood through an analysis of the composition and activities of the most broadly-based women's organisation of the early twentieth century the National Council of Women of Victoria. Officially formed in 1902 and continuing today, the National Council of Women is an umbrella organisation for a large and diverse number of affiliated women's gro.ups. From its inception, the Council functioned as a political lobby group, attempting to influence local, state and federal government on issues affecting women, children "and humanity in general". In the early twentieth century, the Council had connections with most publicly active women's groups in Melbourne. These ranged from the most radically feminist of the suffrage societies to the most conservative, both politically and in terms of feminism, of upper:"'class philanthropic organisations. The size and scope of activity of the National Council of Women (hereafter NCW) make its historical significance clear. (From Introduction)
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ItemColonial Cornish: Cornish immigrants in Victoria, 1865-1880( 1985)The Victorian Cornish were participants in a mass movement of people in the 19th century from Cornwall to the United States, British colonies and other lands across the seas. While this migration was unprecedented in terms of Cornwall’s history, it was but a part of a much larger migration of Europeans abroad. The Cornish in Victoria, then, were a small segment of those who emigrated from Europe in this enormous migratory movement of the nineteenth century. In particular, they were a component of the mix of British immigrants, and their descendants, who comprised 95 per cent of Victoria’s population in the years 1865-1880.
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Item"Gentlemen, the ladies have come to stay!": the entry of women into the medical profession in Victoria and the founding of the Queen Victoria Hospital( 1987)In 1890 Emma Constance stone became the first woman to be registered as a doctor in Australia. Unable to gain admission to an Australian medical school, she obtained her qualifications overseas. While she was away women gained entry to the Melbourne Medical School. Stone, and the Melbourne pioneering medical women, the first of whom graduated in 1891, later went on to perform a wide variety of medical work, but their most outstanding achievement was the foundation of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital for Women in 1896. The pioneers encountered hostility from the medical profession, especially from the male medical students, and enjoyed widespread support: from women who welcomed a hospital where they would be treated only by qualified female practitioners. American and British medical women had already started their own hospitals in order to provide health care for women after established hospitals had refused to appoint them. In Melbourne, although similar opposition limited the opportunities of women, they were not completely excluded from hospital staffs. Unlike the overseas hospitals on which it was modelled, the Queen Victoria Hospital was not founded only, or even, perhaps, primarily as a result of exclusion. The more positive aim of providing health care for women by women was a powerful motive behind the setting up of a hospital for women officered by qualified female doctors. (From Introduction)