School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemProstitution and the state in Victoria, 1890-1914( 1986)The later decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries were marked by considerable change in Victorian society. Rapid urban expansion and industrialization were among the most profound of these developments. They resulted in increasing problems of urban over-crowding, poverty, sanitation and, despite the youth of the cities, decay. Those in power began to see these urban problems as being partly related to the nature of working-class life, so sought to control aspects of working-class culture to an unprecedented degree. During this period, legislation relating to liquor, tobacco, drugs, and gambling, for example, were brought into effect for the first time or became more intrusive. Street life was becoming increasingly regulated. In 1891, for example, amendments to the Victorian Police Offences Act made important changes to the social construction of anti-social behaviour and placed increased power in the hands of the police and legal institutions to control the behaviour of individuals in public places. As part of this development, soliciting prostitution was made an offence for the first time. Women, too, had become subversive. Feminists demanded the vote, increased educational opportunities and threatened the established power differential between the sexes. At the same time, legislation was being passed and medical practices were emerging which increasingly impinged upon women's bodies and upon the areas of women's traditional power - life itself and child life. Kerreen Reiger has traced the increasing attempts to professionalize and rationalize family life, resulting in greater intrusion into the lives of women in relation to childbirth and motherhood.' Increasing attempts to control prostitution in Australia date from this same period, and can be seen as part of these processes. It was from the 1860s that an edifice of laws was constructed. Firstly, legislators were concerned with how women were forced into prostitution (procuring), the relationships between women working in prostitution and their children, and the spread of venereal disease. Later, from the 1890s, there was a new spate of legislation related to soliciting, the ownership and management of brothels, procuring, and living on the earnings of prostitution. During the same period a centralized, bureaucratized police force, which was crucially involved in the increasing control of prostitution, was established in Victoria. The prison system, too, became more organized and intrusive. By the later part of this period the move toward greater state intrusion into the area of prostitution was clear; the years 1890 to 1914 have been chosen for detailed study. This period was marked at the beginning by important new amendments to the Police Offences and Crimes Acts in 1891 and at the end by the advent of the First World War, which created new contexts and problems. (From Introduction)
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ItemA culture of speed: the dilemma of being modern in 1930s Australia( 2003)This thesis explores the reaction of Australians living in Melbourne in the 1930s, to changes in technology, social organisation, and personal attitudes that together constituted what they saw as innovations in modern life. Taking the Victorian Centenary of 1934 as a starting point, it analyses the anxieties and excitements of a society selfconsciously defining itself as part of a progressive potion of the western world. They reflected on the place of the city as locus of modernity; they analysed what appeared to be the quickening pace of human communications. They knew increasing leisure but deprecated the concomitant condition of boredom. They were concerned whether modernity was disease. They faced the ambiguities of the racial exclusivity of Australian modernity, centred in part on their ambivalence about Aborigines as Australians, but also incorporating long-held fears of populous Asian neighbours. They were not Britons, but their concerns for “men, money and markets”—and defence—kept the British connection uppermost. They participated in competing visions of the meanings of the past, and the directions of the future. Modern life, it seemed, was accused of overturning fundamental, and natural, race and gender norms, sapping the vital force of white Australia. Spurred by the increasing likelihood of a major conflict at the decade’s end, and drawing on much older and deepseated anxieties in Australia’s past, pessimists predicted a future where the technologies of modernity would make Australia vulnerable to attack. Australians in Melbourne, however, were excited about modernity and not just anxious. People were prepared to take risks, to seek novel experiences, and the reasons for this probably stemmed from the same causes that made other people turn away from the new to find comfort in the familiar. Modernity, in terms of changing mental processes as much as in its technological dimension, offered the chance for Melburnians to escape the often grim realities of life in the 1930s. Despite clearly expressed uncertainties, interwar Australians had committed themselves to a project of modernity.
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ItemThe Age and the young Menzies: a chapter in Victorian liberalism( 2010)The Melbourne Age was Robert Menzies' favourite newspaper. This thesis investigates the early years of Menzies' political career, when his relationship with The Age and its senior personnel was established. It is a comparative study of two liberalisms: that of the principal creator of the Liberal Party of Australia, and of a newspaper famous for its liberal affiliations. The Age had been closely identified with the Liberal politician Alfred Deakin in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After Geoffrey Syme became its proprietor in 1908, The Age pursued a programmatic agenda based in the dominant liberal ideology of the day, social liberalism, which stood for responsible citizenship and State intervention. The paper was influenced by both Deakinism and its New Liberal equivalent in Britain, whose political representatives were Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George. When Menzies emerged on the Victorian political stage in the mid-twenties, The Age still stood for ideals and institutions which had been influential in the first decade of nationhood: New Protection, the conciliation and arbitration system, responsible trade unionism, accountable government, and social meliorism. The early chapters of the thesis explore the paper's political outlook, focusing on its vigorous campaign against the conservative ascendancy in non-Labor politics. That the newspaper remained a coherent exemplar of New Liberal orthodoxy from 1908 until the outbreak of the Second World War is one of the study's main findings. To Syme, the young Menzies represented a talented new generation of Liberal reformer. The Age vigorously supported his election to the Victorian Legislative Council in 1928, and his subsequent move to the Assembly. Despite the paper's hopes for him, Menzies' liberal-conservative tendencies were soon strongly to the fore. During the Depression, he aggressively opposed the introduction of unemployment insurance. When Menzies joined economists and primary producers in attacking the regime of tariff protection that was central to The Age's Deakinite identity, the relationship between the newspaper and the politician reached a low watermark. These episodes are explored in detail. The second half of the thesis focuses on Menzies's ideological make-up. It identifies him as a post-Deakinite whose personal politics were a contradictory mixture of older and newer streams of liberalism, and whose personal style was a mixture of pragmatism tinged with a consciousness of the legacy of Deakinite idealism. The phrase 'blended liberalism' usefully describes Menzies' political makeup by the late thirties. Three major influences on his political ideology are identified: the Victorian Liberal tradition; the Law, which was his first and, he said, best loved calling; and his family's Presbyterian faith. The thesis also explores Menzies' friendship with the British Conservative leader, Stanley Baldwin, a devout Anglican whose constructive social vision influenced Menzies. The final chapter of the thesis is a case study of the National Health and Pensions Insurance Act (1938), a regime of compulsory contributory social insurance which was based on the British model and included elements of Lloyd George's original bill and of Baldwin's extended scheme. Both Menzies and The Age supported the Australian measure. The thesis discusses how their shared campaign for national insurance brought them back into close relationship, yet how their ideological rationales for national insurance were significantly different.
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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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ItemZazou, Zazou Zazou-hé: a youth subculture in Vichy France, 1940-44( 2007)In the late 1930s, French singer Johnny Hess launched his career in the cabarets ofParis. In 1939, he released the hit song “Je Suis Swing”. The catchy chorus proclaimed: “Je suis swing, je suis swing, dadou dadou je m'amuse comme un fou, je suis swing, je suis swing, zazou zazou zazou-hé”. In the winter of 1941, an eccentric group of young people began to gather in cafes on the Champs-Elysées and in the Latin Quarter of Nazi occupied Paris. They called themselves Zazous. This thesis is a history of the Zazou youth subculture in press, film and literature. It uses contemporary popular culture to explain a socio-cultural phenomenon which emerged under the Vichy regime and the Nazi Occupation. Three case studies each introduce a different representation of the Zazous. The first case study is the caricature of the Zazou in the collaborationist press. The second case study is Richard Pottier's 1942 film Mademoiselle Swing. The third case study is the Zazou as literary subject in Boris Vian's Cent Sonnets and Vercoquin et le plancton. In reading the Zazou through a cultural prism, each chapter details a different element of the subculture's function within the "parent" culture. The collaborationist press were writing for supporters of the Vichy regime and actively promoting the values of the National Revolution. Mademoiselle Swing was a popular representation seeking a wide, perhaps even a mass, audience. Boris Vian wrote his novel and poetry from within the subculture itself; his intended audience was familiar. These case studies reveal as much about the Vichy regime as they do the Zazous: the subculture is a mirror in which Occupation culture is reflected. The Zazous posed real ideological problems for Vichy. However, in reacting so vehemently, the regime in fact magnified the Zazous' social influence. In examining the Zazous, not only does a defined "world" of youth emerge, but we also uncover the incoherent nature of the Vichy regime. The thesis also traces a chronological evolution of the Zazous from “Je Suis Swing” in 1939 to their effective dissolution with the introduction of the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO) in the winter of 1942-43.
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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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ItemWith my needle: embroidery samplers in colonial Australia( 2008)This thesis examines a group of more than one hundred needlework samplers stitched in the Australian colonies during the nineteenth century. It uses them as documents of social history to examine the lives of individual girls and women during that time, and to trace changing expectations of girls, especially in the later decades of the century. Although there are many individual stories that can illuminate certain aspects of Australian history such as migration, settlement, and death and mourning, these samplers are most useful as documents in the examination of girls' education and the social expectations transmitted through the education system. It addresses the contradiction between the sampler's continuing presence in girls' schooling and the increasing irrelevance of the skills embodied in it. The thesis argues that needlework samplers retained their place in girls' education well into the twentieth century because of their significance as symbols of feminine accomplishment. They were physical expressions of a definition of respectability that was based on the `feminine ideal' of the nineteenth century and allayed anxiety about girls' involvement in formal schooling.
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ItemThe opposition to Montanism from church and state: a study of the history and theology of the Montanist Movement as shown by the writings and legislation of the Orthodox opponents of Montanism( 1978)This thesis is primarily an examination of the ecclesiastical and imperial opposition to the Montanist movement throughout the four centuries of its existence (c. 165-550 A.D.). Section I deals with the pre-Constantinian period, arguing that the earliest ecclesiastical opponents were local bishops who, through oral controversy, conciliar condemnation, and literary activity, tried to negate the influence Montanism was having upon the catholic flock. During the third century a few non-episcopal ecclesiastical scholars joined in the literary struggle against Montanism. It is argued, however, that more important than their non-episcopal status is the fact that these scholars, like more and more third century bishops, opposed Montanism without having any personal contact with contemporary adherents of the sect so that by the end of that century opposition to Montanism had become literary warfare from a distance. The extant fragments of this warfare reveal that pre-Constantinian opponents charged Montanists with a variety of offences centering around three main charges: pseudoprophecy, novelty, and heresy. Each of these charges was vigorously defended by Montanist apologists, the chief of whom was Tertullian. The second section covers the same time-span as the first, but examines state opposition. Before 250 A.D., persecution of Christians was usually instigated by the local pagan population at times when the pax deorum appeared to be threatened. It is argued that, whilst Montanists suffered during these persecutions, pagans did not distinguish between Montanists and catholics even though, in some instances, Montanists may have been the indirect cause of these persecutions. After 250 A.D., emperors became more and more involved in instigating persecutions, but, again, they did not differentiate between various types of Christians. Despite the views of certain modern historians, there is no evidence that any pre-Constantinian emperor or governor instigated a persecution against Montanists, hence this section does not contain specific chapters on imperial opponents and their charges. The major issues discussed in this section are "charges" levelled at Montanists by modern historians, namely that Montanists were invariably volunteer martyrs, that they refused to flee during persecutions, and that, even in times of peace, they displayed a provocative attitude towards the state. Much of this alleged Montanist "fanaticism" disappears as a result of a careful scrutiny of all the available evidence. After Constantine became sole ruler of the Empire, he, and his successors, persecuted Montanists in an attempt to preserve the purity of the catholic church. The distinction between ecclesiastical and imperial opposition, therefore, becomes somewhat blurred for the last phase of Montanism (c. 324-550 A.D.). Hence, church and state opposition are both treated in Section III. During this period the trend of ecclesiastical opposition "from a distance", commenced in the third century, continued. Anti-Montanist tracts, letters, and sermons proliferated and large sections of heresiological surveys and church histories were devoted to condemning the movement. Much of this literature was composed by opponents who had no personal contact with Montanists. Charges still centred on pseudo-prophecy, novelty, and heresy, although the range of specific allegations multiplied. A number of the Christian emperors of this period enacted laws aimed at eradicating contemporary Montanism. As a result, a significant number of Western Montanists joined the catholic church, but many others, especially in Rome, Constantinople, and Phrygia, continued their separatist existence until the combined efforts of church and state finally wiped out the movement during the middle of the sixth century. This thesis also re-evaluates the history and theology of Montanism in the light of what is revealed about the movement by the writings and legislation of its orthodox opponents. The view of Montanism presented by the opponents is compared with the Montanists' self-assessment and both are judged in the context of all other available evidence. As a result, it is argued that Montanists did not practice, or believe, many of the things with which they were charged and that, even when there was some substance to a particular charge, the charge was not always applicable to Montanists everywhere. Montanism, in fact, was a very diverse movement. Despite certain modern assessments, the picture of Montanism which emerges from this study is that of an innovative prophetic movement intent on bringing Christianity into line with what it believed to be the ultimate ethical revelation of the Holy Spirit given to the church via its prophets.
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ItemBeyond the book: reshaping Australian public history in the Web 2.0 environment( 2008)With digital media and the web becoming increasingly pervasive in our everyday lives, few historians have considered in depth the impact that this is having on the ways that history is represented and communicated in the public sphere. This thesis is an examination of how the practice of public history in Australia is being reshaped in the Web 2.0 environment. In the context of new media theory, public history practice is considered in relation to identifiable changes in the ways the web is used and understood. The public historian’s concern with interpreting the past to a public audience means that changing social practices and information patterns are pertinent to their work. This thesis highlights the ways in which different forms of history are being produced, distributed and consumed on the web. It focuses on the potential role of the web user as an active producer of personal and creative interpretations of the past and on how experimental public history practices in the Web 2.0 environment have emerged in response to changing audiences. This study argues that the rise of Web 2.0 is reflected by personalised, ubiquitous, democratic and innovative public history practices on the web. Through an in depth analysis of The Powerhouse Museum collection search and YouTube as case studies, this thesis shows how increased participation, the proliferation of user-generated content, social networking and existing practices by users in the Web 2.0 environment reshapes public history. This thesis goes beyond conceiving of the web as a site of historical source material, both digitised and born-digital, to an understanding of the value of participatory media and informal communication in enabling the sharing of historical knowledge and materials between and among networks of people on the web.
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ItemThe settlement of Melbourne 1851-1893: selected aspects of urban growth( 1970-02)Melbourne was the obvious choice as a prototype of a nineteenth century colonial city in the following study in urban history. It succeeded early to a pre-eminent position within Victoria, indeed of the entire Australian continent and its position of supremacy went unchallenged until the twentieth century. It was never seriously threatened by the claims of rival cities such as Ballarat, Sandhurst or Geelong. In this respect, Melbourne was a classic primate city with a whole-state hinterland and was justly described as "the commercial metropolis of the South". Its favourable geographic location, centrally placed between eastern and western halves of the colony, together with its position at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay provided the logical point of convergance for a railway network spanning the reaches of the interior. This gave a nodal quality to the city which made it the sole effective input-output point for all commerce with the mainland interior.(For complete abstract open document)