School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 9 of 9
-
ItemA hidden history: the Chinese on the Mount Alexander diggings, central Victoria, 1851-1901( 2005)This thesis interrogates the history of the Chinese on the Mount Alexander gold diggings. Viewing the diggings as a cultural landscape, it argues that goldfields Chinese were more than simple sojourners. It reframes their place in local and national histories as 'settlers' rather than 'sojourners'. In so doing the thesis contends that Chinese-European relations on the goldfields were more complex than orthodox historical interpretations have acknowledged, and that the Chinese were active parties in the international mid-nineteenth century gold seeking phenomenon. A key aim of this thesis is to locate the Chinese gold seekers within the polity of a dynamic expanding imperial British society on the periphery of the settled world. It also considers the enduring Chinese role, albeit on a smaller scale, in these Pacific Rim neo-European settler societies after the gold rushes as the goldfields communities consolidated themselves from the 1860s onwards. While it is true that many returned to China either voluntarily or as a result of state pressure, the initial objective was to examine the continuing history of the goldfields generation of Chinese and their descendants in Australia. That history continued well beyond Federation into the twentieth century. The raison d'etre of this thesis is to challenge the historical neglect of the role of the Chinese in diggings society. This thesis has three complementary themes. The first examines the need to refine the concept of sojourner, and add to it the concept of Chinese 'settler' experience. The second is to portray the Chinese as socially active, politically engaged participants in goldfields life society and the third is to contextualise the experience the Castlemaine Chinese in broader national and international histories of the gold seeking era.
-
ItemIntersections of conflict: policing and criminalising Melbourne’s traffic, 1890-1930( 2005-07)Every single person on earth is a road-user; and, although an integral part of our society, the management of traffic is a low priority for most. Authorities constantly work to lessen the tension between the free-flow of traffic and traffic safety. Consequently, the management of traffic and its subsequent problems has consumed more time, money and resources than any other item on the public agenda. Between 1890 and 1930, urban road-traffic in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, as in other world cities, underwent a revolution as speeds increased 500%. The motor-vehicle exacerbated existing traffic problems with increased trips and vehicle numbers. Authorities separated the various road users with road demarcations, and placed upon the Victoria Police the responsibility of managing the heterogeneous and complex traffic mix. By the close of the 1920s, all the components—policing, case and statute law, and the physical infrastructure—of the contemporary traffic management system were firmly in place. Introducing motor-transport into a centuries old road network designed for much slower modes of transport, was similar to putting high speed trains, capable of hundreds of kilometres an hour, onto conventional tracks. The marriage of old systems and new technology required a plethora of controls, procedures and safeguards to attain an acceptable level of traffic deaths. Nonetheless, no matter how many modifications, it persisted as a hybrid system. It could not be made to work efficiently.
-
ItemTeaching the nation: politics and pedagogy in Australian history( 2004-11)There is considerable anxiety about teaching Australian history in schools. In part, such concern reflects the so-called "History Wars", which have been played out in museums and national commemorations, as well as history syllabuses and textbooks. Such concern also reveals a professional and pedagogical debate over the state of the subject in schools. This thesis problematises history education as a site of contested collective memory and argues that concern over "teaching the nation" is intensified and augmented by an educational discourse of "the child" that shifts the debate over the past to the future.
-
Item'Standing at the altar of the nation': Afro-Brazilians, immigrants and racial democracy in a Brazilian port city, 1888-1937( 2004)This dissertation examines the development of race relations in the port district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from abolition in 1888 until 1937. In the generation following the abolition of slavery (1888) and the proclamation of the First Republic (1889), how and why did racial democracy emerge as the founding myth of Brazilian race relations? While some scholars have seen racial democracy as an elite project accepted passively by former slaves and their descendants, this thesis argues that racial democracy cannot be understood without a recognition of the powerful role played by Afro-Brazilians in its success: a success made even more puzzling given the ongoing poverty and marginalisation of black Brazil.
-
ItemIndigenous representation in Australia's frontier and foreign wars( 2005)This thesis investigates the evolving perception of Australian identity and its impact on the commemoration of Indigenous soldiers. Structured around three case studies, this thesis follows a chronological timeline of commemorative practices characteristically colonial in its presentation of Indigenous Australian communities. The first chapter focuses on colonial constructions of national identity and its influences on the legacy of Captain Reginald Saunders, the first Aboriginal Australian to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. Referencing his 1960s biography and textual memorial, The Embarrassing Australian by Harry Gordon, this thesis argues that it is only through the language of assimilation that Saunders was accepted as an "Australian" and appropriately commemorated for his military achievement. The second chapter highlights evolving perceptions of Australian history and national identity and the impact of Indigenous soldier commemoration within the Australian War Memorial. While the Memorial initially disregarded the Indigenous Australian contribution to the war effort, it has since evolved to acknowledge their role within its galleries. The final chapter looks at museums and their representation of Indigenous soldiers during the Frontier Wars. The portrayal of Indigenous soldiers, either as savages or warriors, among the museum displays and storyboards reflect how the nation chooses to publicly commemorate them. The methods adopted by museums reveal their rejection or acceptance of the Indigenous story of European colonization. By showing how forms of representation are tied to historical moments in regards to Indigenous soldiers and linking these commemorative trends with Australian national identity this research both adds to the body of literature on Australian commemoration and foreshadows an evolving trend where perceptions of "nation" are increasingly willing to embrace an Indigenous past into its definition.
-
ItemJewish identity, social justice and capitalism: the making of the Pereire brothers( 2005)Historians of nineteenth-century France writing of Emile Pereire (1800-1875) and his brother Isaac (1806-1880), have shown most interest in their founding the Crédit Mobilier, on its immediate success and on its ultimate failure. In these analyses, the Pereires’ association with, the support for, Napoleon III, has often led to a particular view of the brothers as corrupt, shady, buccaneers. Indeed, they have come to symbolise an unpopular period in French history and, perhaps for this reason, they are rarely individuated, referred to as “the Pereires”, “les frères Pereire”. The historiography is rendered more complex still by their membership among the Saint-Simonians, making of them at once early “socialists” and, later, capitalists. The thesis sets out to re-interpret the Pereires, to examine them in the context of those influences and experiences which had a bearing on their later carets: their birthright among the first generation of Jews emancipated by the new National Assembly in 1790; their rich heritage as children of Bordeaux, a once economically buoyant city in decline; and their acculturation in the Sephardic communities of France’s south-west—close-knit and socially cohesive, economically successful, largely self-governing. Within these communities, a study of the unique families into which they were born adds even further to our understanding of the Pereires. Thus, in this analysis, the Saint-Simonianism which they adopted can be seen as the vehicle through which they translated their heritage, their particular life experiences, and their talents, and which, in their maturity, led to their generating the ideas and projects which put them eventually among the foremost capitalists in France. In short, this thesis argues that only through an examination of the Pereires’ making can we fully understand their later carets. This will add, in the process, to an understanding of Jewish identity formation and the development of capitalism in nineteenth-century France.
-
ItemThe private face of patronage: the Howitts, artistic and intellectual philanthropists in early Melbourne Society( 2005)This thesis investigates a case of upper-middle class, private patronage in Melbourne, focusing on three decades between 1840 and 1870. Evidence points to the existence of a lively circle of intellectual and artistic activity around the Quaker family of Dr Godfrey Howitt and his wife, Phebe, from the Midlands who arrived at the Port Phillip District in 1840. The presentation of a group of fine, rare colonial water-colours and drawings to the National Gallery of Victoria by a direct Howitt descendant, Mrs James Evans in 1989, was the point of inspiration for this subject. Godfrey Howitt, one of the first experienced medical practitioners in the colony, had much in common with the Superintendent of Port Phillip. Their friendship gave the Howitts entrée into the uppermost social circles of the colony. Financially, the family prospered due to Howitt's professional practice which insulated them against economic downturns and provided a steady accumulation of wealth. While as a Quaker, Phebe Howitt had little background in the fine arts, she began to exercise patronage in support of her artist friends, most of who arrived with the gold rush in 1852. With it came Godfrey Howitt's elder brother, William, a famous English author. In London in 1850, William and Mary Howitt's daughter, the feminist painter and writer, Anna Mary, had become engaged to Edward La Trobe Bateman. A brilliant designer and cousin of Superintendent La Trobe, Bateman introduced the young, still struggling Pre-Raphaelite artists with whom he was closely associated, to the English Howitts. Arriving in Melbourne in 1852, William was followed shortly afterwards by Bateman and two artists, including the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, Thomas Woolner. The gold rush also attracted Eugene von Guérard, and Nicholas Chevalier in due course. In 1856, as a guest of the Howitts' on her first Victorian visit, Louisa Anne Meredith, writer, botanical artist and social commentator, was introduced to their artistic and literary circle. The Howitts' friendship with these artists thus took on a very different hue from the normal patterns of patronage. Beyond commissioning works of art from artists returning empty handed from the gold fields, Phebe Howitt supported them in other ways until suffering a catastrophic stroke towards the end of 1856. During that period, the founding of the new Victorian colony's cultural institutions became a source of official artistic commissions for the first time. Through friends in influential positions like Justice Redmond Barry and Godfrey Howitt, Bateman was employed in various design projects for new public buildings and gardens. With the purchase of Barragunda at Cape Schanck in 1860, Godfrey Howitt assumed a central role as patron. In making the house available to Bateman and his artist friends, he and his daughter, Edith Mary, repeated the unusual degree of patronage formerly exercised by Phebe Howitt before her illness. By 1869, Woolner, Bateman and Chevalier had departed the colony and from 1870, von Guérard was taken up with the National Gallery of Victoria. Although succeeding generations of the family maintained contact with all the artists in their circle, by Godfrey Howitt's death in 1873, the prime years of Howitt patronage had passed.
-
ItemThe development of mining technology in Australia 1801-1945( 2005)From a small beginning at Newcastle in 1801 when convicts began mining coal exposed on the banks of the Hunter River, the mining industry has grown to be a large sector of the Australian economy, providing an export income of A$58 billion in 2004 (almost forty percent of total exports) as well as providing the raw materials for local industries. The changing technologies used to develop this industry are an important part of our development as a nation, but few historians have written about them. This thesis offers an interpretive framework for visualising the mining industry as an historically coherent entity and for understanding the technological innovations in mining over 200 years. It focuses on the period to 1945. In the first fifty years coal and copper were mined in New South Wales and silver lead and copper in South Australia. Machines were introduced in the 1830s when a British joint stock company took over the coal mine and the use of machines increased in the 1840s when companies financed locally or from Britain began developing silver lead and copper mines. Technologies already developed in the north of England, Scotland, Germany, Cornwall, and Wales were imported and miners from England, Scotland, Germany and Cornwall and smeltermen from Wales migrated to Australia. British mining law was followed without question. This situation was revolutionised when Edward Hargraves, and his partners, found alluvial gold in commercial amounts at Ophir, 150 kilometres west of Sydney, in 1851. Hargraves had experience in alluvial mining in California and he embarked on a skilful publicity campaign to start a rush on the Californian pattern. His aim was to claim a reward from the government in return for boosting the economy and preventing the resumption of transportation of convicts to New South Wales. In terms of modern management theory his place in history is not the charlatan and fraud that some historians have suggested but an entrepreneur who changed the course of mining in Australia. Unwittingly or not he forced a change from a semi-feudal British legal system dominated by large companies, and enabled the emergence of a more democratic system which permitted both individual and company mining. In the confusion of the first rushes the government allowed the individual miner to peg a small claim on which he could dig for gold on payment of a licence fee. This small change led to many innovations in mining law and mining technology Australia. Following the ideas of Joel Mokyr and Roger Burt these innovations are assessed as micro-innovations (successive small changes) or as macro-innovations (radical new concepts without clear precedents); but I extend the latter concept to include several important micro-innovations that combined into what amounts to a singular new concept. Early macro-innovations were wet deep lead mining and the concept of the no-liability company and later ones were dry crushing, roasting, and cyanide filtering of sulpho-telluride gold ores and differential flotation of the complex sulphide ores of lead, zinc and copper.
-
ItemA critical history of writing on Australian contemporary art, 1960-1988( 2005)This thesis examines art critical writing on contemporary Australian art published between 1960 and 1988 through the lens of its engagement with its location, looking at how it directly or indirectly engaged with the issues arising from Australia's so-called peripheral position in relation to the would-be hegemonic centre. I propose that Australian art criticism is marked by writers' acceptances of the apparent explanatory necessity of constructing appropriate nationalist discourses, evident in different and succeeding types of nationalist agendas, each with links to external, non-artistic agendas of nation and politics. I will argue that the nationalist parameters and trajectory of Australian art writing were set by Australian art historian, Bernard Smith, and his book Australian Painting, 1788-1960 (1962) and that the history of Australian art writing from the 1960s onwards was marked by a succession of nationalist rather than artistic agendas formed, in turn, by changing experiences of the Cold War. Through this, I will begin to provide a critical framework that has not effectively existed so far, due to the binary terror of regionalism versus internationalism. Chapter One focuses on Bernard Smith and the late 1950s and early 1960s Australian intellectual context in which Australian Painting 1788-1960 was published. I will argue that, although it can be claimed that Australia was a postcolonial society, the most powerful political and social influence during the 1950s and 1960s was the Cold War and that this can be identified in Australian art criticism and Australian art. Chapter Two discusses art theorist, Donald Brook. Brook is of particular interest because he kept his art writing separate from his theories of social and political issues, focussing on contemporary art and artists. I argue that Brook's failure to engage with questions of nation and Australian identity directly ensured that he remained a respected but marginal figure in the history of Australian art writing. Chapter Three returns to the centre/periphery issue and examines the art writing of Patrick McCaughey and Terry Smith. Each of these writers dealt with the issue of the marginality of Australian art but neither writer questioned the validity of the centre/periphery model. Chapter Four examines six Australian art magazines that came into existence in the 1970s, a decade of high hopes and deep disillusionment. The chapter maps two shifts of emphasis in Australian art writing. First, the change from the previous preoccupation with provincialism to pluralist social issues such as feminism, and second, the resulting gravitation of individual writers into ideological alliances and/or administrative collectives that founded, ran and supported magazines that printed material that focused on (usually Australian) art in relation to specific social, cultural or political issues. Chapter Five concentrates on the Australian art magazine, Art & Text, and Paul Taylor, its founder and editor. Taylor and his magazine were at the centre of a new Australian attempt to solve the provincialism problem and thus break free of the centre/periphery model.