School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemFactory girls: gender, empire and the making of a female working class, Melbourne and London, 1880-1920( 2007)Between 1880 and 1920, something remarkable happened among the women and girls who worked in the factories of the British Empire. From being universally represented as the powerless victims of industrial capitalism, women factory workers in the cities of Melbourne and London burst onto the stage of history, as bold, disciplined and steadfast activists and demanded their rights, not merely as the equals of working-class men, but as the equals of ladies. The proletarian counterpart of that other subversive fin de siecle type, New Woman, the factory girl became visible at a time when the nature of femininity was being hotly contested, and coincided with the growing militancy of the organised working-class. Her presence in the streets, economic autonomy and love affair with the new mass culture, represented a radical challenge to conventional bourgeois ideas of how women should behave. Her emergence as a new social actor also coincided with a crisis of confidence in Empire, radical disillusionment with the project of modernity and a growing unease about the consequences of urban poverty. As middle-class anxieties proliferated, so surveillance of the factory girl intensified. In this way, female factory workers came under the scrutiny of missionaries, medical men, demographers, social workers, socialists and sociologists. This study traces the role of female factory workers in the emergence of a transnational movement for working-class women's rights. As more women entered the factories in search of independence, their shared experience of exploitation emboldened and empowered them to demand more. During this period, increasing numbers of female factory workers in both cities thus confounded the stereotype of female workers as submissive, shallow and innately conservative, by organising and winning strikes and forming unions of their own. Such explosions of militancy broke down trade unionist prejudice against women workers and laid the foundations of solidarity with male unionists. They also forged of a new model of working-class femininity; based not on the pale imitation of gentility, but one which expressed a profoundly modern sensibility. In the process, women workers fashioned a new political culture which articulated their common interests, and shared identity, as members of a female working class. Yet the rise of working-women's militancy also coincided with the mature articulation of a racialised labourism and the rise of male breadwinner regimes. As the white populations of Empire were re-configured as one race with a common imperial destiny, the corresponding preoccupation with the white settler birth rate, increased hostility and suspicion of women workers. The first decades of the twentieth century thus saw the solidification of a regulatory apparatus which sought to police and discipline young working women in preparing them for their racial destiny as mothers. The contemporaneous demand of the labour movement for a family wage worked to further marginalise wage-earning women, and ultimately reinforced the sexual division of labour.
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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.
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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.
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ItemCharles Wesley and the construction of suffering in early English Methodism( 2006-07)This work examines the construction of suffering in the hymns of Charles Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley wrote thousands of hymns, many of which focus on the experience of overwhelming pain. As eighteenth-century men and women sang or read Wesley's hymns, they were encouraged to adopt a distinctive approach to suffering, one which drew on long-standing elen1ents within Christian tradition as well as new patterns in eighteenth-century English culture. Identifying the construction of suffering in the hymns illuminates the culture of early Methodism and its complex relationship to its eighteenth century English context. My analysis places the hymns within the broader ‘narrative culture’ of early Methodism, which encouraged individuals to interpret their lives and experiences within a story of great spiritual significance. The hymns engaged men and women with a spiritual drama of conviction, conversion, sanctification and heavenly reward. I argue that suffering was central to Wesley's depiction of this drama. I examine his construction of the suffering of Christ, the suffering of Christians and of Christian responses to the suffering of others, den10nstrating that each of these had an important place in his depiction of the normative Christian experience. Those who read or sang the hymns were exhorted to embrace and endure suffering as an experience that offered opportunities for intill1acy with, and imitation of, Christ. Recognising Wesley's construction of suffering does not explain exactly how Methodist men and Women responded to affliction, but it does illuminate their responses. I explore the implications of Wesley's construction of suffering for early Methodist understandings of the self, spirituality, charity and gender, as well as specific kinds of pain such as childbirth and bereavement. These understandings contributed to a Methodist identity that was both related to, and distinct from, the eighteenth-century English culture in which the hymns were written.
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ItemStriking it rich: material culture and family stories from the Central Victorian goldfields( 2007)This thesis examines family and community experience on the central Victorian goldfields. Using a series of case studies, it creates narratives about particular and connected individuals who arrived in the goldmining communities of Creswick and Maldon during the 1850s and 1860s and who became longstanding residents in their respective townships. The stories begin with the material traces of these goldfields settlers. Houses, photographs, paintings and a trade union banner become touchstones for exploring goldfields history. These examples of material culture provide tangible connections to past lives; however, as historical resources they must be interpreted, if they are to inform our understandings of the past. Contextualization is the key. Combining public history approaches - such as material culture, vernacular architecture and cultural landscape study - with traditional social history methodologies, it becomes possible to embed objects in space and place and then link them to particular individuals. As a collection of historical narratives about the experiences of families, this thesis challenges prevailing characterizations of the goldfields as individualistic and masculine places. The case studies reveal a lost landscape of family settlement, and they demonstrate that family is an appropriate and useful frame for the study of goldfields history. Furthermore, they contribute to the interpretations of goldfields heritage as public history by suggesting a practical means by which lived experience can be made visible. Storytelling is a powerful tool for both the historian and heritage professional. This thesis offers a practical means of exploring not only the vibrant historical tapestry that is the central Victorian goldfields; it also serves as a test case of the manifold ways material culture and narrative interpretations can enrich community history.
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ItemNot just routine nursing: the roles and skills of the Australian Army Nursing Service during World War 1( 2006)This comparative labour history seeks to reveal the working life and nursing practices of female military nurses I the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) during this period, and to highlight the importance of trained female professionals in caring for soldiers within many allied medical services. Official histories concern themselves with the logistics and administrative arrangements for the AANS rather than discussing the elements of hands-on nursing, and secondary sources tend to highlight the travel adventures of, and the impact of war on, the nurses themselves. Through a detailed examination of archival sources, this thesis explores the development of the AANS’s roles and skills from a military perspective. From an examination of pre-war civilian nursing, it explores in detail the impact of foreign physical environments, other allied personnel and systems, the military itself and war diseases and injuries on nursing work. While A.G. Butler, the official medical historian, may have thought that work in Australia hospitals in France was ‘routine’, this study explores the many events such as the ebb and flow of war that make military nursing different to civilian nursing. Australian army nurses did not limit their war work to nursing care. The exigencies of war expanded the scope of nursing into medical, military and non-nursing roles. The AANS performed military administrative roles such as Orderly Officer and in known roles such as that of Home Sister, now transformed into something akin to a hotel manager. They took on medical roles such as anaesthetist and assistant surgeon. Often providing the only female presence to soldiers who had been at the front for months, they also provided important mental comfort, moral support and friendship. In many cases, the expansion of their roles, skills and authority helped them to save more lives. During World War I, military nurses formally became part of the Australian military system for the first time. In doing so, they created a recognized niche for future military nurses.
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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.
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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.
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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.