School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemSome foundations of science in Victoria in the decade after separation( 1990)The decade following separation from New South Wales must surely be considered one of the most dramatic in Victoria's history. In that short space of time Victoria was transformed from a small dependent colony into a bustling cosmopolitan self-governing community of enormous wealth, completely outstripping its neighbours in the process. There had been an influx of migrants of such magnitude that the civil authorities found it very difficult to keep up with the population explosion. It must at times have seemed to them to be an impossible task to provide food, housing, water, power, roads and transport, sewerage and other amenities adequate to cope with the increasing number of people pouring into the colony. Added to this were problems of civil insurrection, severe economic depression, major constitutional reforms, and great political instability. During this period, despite all the trials and difficulties they had to face, Victorians developed a real sense that they were the premier colony, that they could achieve. whatever they set out to accomplish. There was a great feeling of optimism and self-confidence.
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ItemMcCrea, a matter of paradigms( 1980)
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ItemShow business: a history of theatre in Victoria 1835-1948( 1949)...The material available to the student of the theatrical history of this State and Nation, is relatively sparse, and extremely scattered. Much has been covered in newspaper articles, but no attempt has ever been made to pull the material together and show it as part of a continuous story, superimposed upon the background of the political, social and economic history of the State. That is what I now attempt to do. If it does nothing more than bring the basic information within reasonable compass, I will not feel I have failed. If, on the other hand, it should arouse an interest in either the history or the practice of Theatre, in its widest sense, so that a multitude of young men and women may be rescued from the slough of saccharine sentimentality into which Hollywood has led them, to an increasing interest in legitimate Theatre, the development of which is considered by some to be a concomitant of National greatness, then I shall feel that I have indeed succeeded. (From introduction)
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ItemHow the south-east was held: aspects of the quadripartite interaction of Mount Gambier, Portland, Adelaide and Melbourne 1860-1917( 1977)This thesis examines aspects of the "perennial theme of discussion", acknowledging the involvement of four participants, viz., Mt. Gambier, Portland, Adelaide and Melbourne. The assertion of regional generality was supported by the fact that between 1866 and 1921 the Mt. Gambier district rarely contained less than 39% of the total population of the South-East of South Australia. Indeed, in 1911, over 48% of the region's population lived in the vicinity of Mt. Gambier. Furthermore, as Hirst noted, Mt. Gambier was the only old South Australian country town to maintain a steady rate of growth between 1870 and 1917. These facts contributed to the belief, to be longheld by both Adelaide and Melbourne, that Mt. Gambier was the key to the South-East of South Australia. The holding of Mt. Gambier was then thought to be a necessary precursor to the holding of the South-East. Learmonth and Logan have each produced very useful studies of the Victorian port of Portland and its hinterland. Their perceptions, however, remain essentially "Victorian". While the proximity of the border between Victoria and South Australia was acknowledged, no rigorous attempt was made to study historically its regional influence. This thesis also aims to remedy that situation. (From introduction)
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ItemWithout natural protectors: histories of deserted and destitute colonial women in Victoria 1850-1865( 1995)This thesis combines a social history of deserted wives with a cultural history of wife desertion. It does so within a particular historical moment, the Victorian gold-rush era, when there was much attention given to wife desertion as a pressing social problem. The study covers the years between 1850, the eve of gold discovery in Victoria, and the mid-1860s, by which time the acute social disturbances associated with the gold rushes had subsided, and the state had enacted its first major piece of welfare legislation, the 1864 Neglected and Criminal Children's Act. The central argument of this thesis is that, in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria, there developed a radical disjunction between the material needs of deserted wives and the cultural need to resolve the tensions and erase the contradictions invoked by their presence. This influenced both the forms of assistance available to deserted wives and the ways in which others imagined the amelioration of their condition. The first section of the thesis explores how deserted wives and their children emerged as the principal category of the colonial poor in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria. Although deserted wives are the main subjects of the thesis, they were not the only colonial women solely responsible for their dependent children. I also consider widows and single women with children, who shared the need to provide support for their families. The second part of the thesis is a detailed examination of the survival strategies undertaken by impoverished deserted wives, widows and single women with children. It draws on the traditions of social and welfare history and explores the opportunities for agency that existed in colonial women's interactions with private charitable societies and institutions. The thesis also challenges some of these historiographical traditions, which are focused on the dominance of private charitable effort, by undertaking a close analysis of the relationships between poor white women and officers of the state. A study of the operation of the Deserted Wives and Children Act and of the broader interactions between magistrates, police and destitute supplicants at the court house highlights the complex and ambiguous association between women and the state. In the third section of the thesis, entitled 'The Politics of Welfare', I move beyond daily survival strategies to examine how these interactions led to the formation of authorities on welfare matters in the colony and created public comment on wife desertion. Although widows and single women with children also faced problems in providing for their families, their fate, unlike that of deserted wives, did not capture the public imagination. Middle-class reformers and charity groups highlighted the prevalence of family desertion in ways that revealed as much about their own social and cultural anxieties as they did about the problems faced by deserted wives. The section examines the place of deserted wives in the rhetoric of two reform movements: the campaign for industrial schools, which culminated in the passing of the Neglected and Criminal Children's Act, and the land reform movement. Deserted wives were powerful cultural symbols of the dislocations of gold discovery, and of urban poverty, that reformers appropriated and used for their own ends.