International
Federation For Research in Women's History
Federation Internationale Pour La Recherche En Histoire Des Femmes
Over twenty Australian women historians attended the Berks, which was a great opportunity to live in a world populated exclusively by women historians for a few days in Rochester, NY, USA. It was also a great opportunity to come face to face with people from IFRWH, as we had an interesting lunchtime meeting there.
Back home, leading historians Bev Kingston and Portia Robinson have retired. Their contribution to Australian women's history will continue; Bev is now a Research Associate at University of NSW. A new Aboriginal historian, Vickie Grieves, has been appointed to Macquarie University. Macquarie also has a new honorary Research Fellow - Marnie Hughes Warrington - she is in the process of completing the Fifty Key Historical Thinkers book for Routledge. She is valued as a very good addition to the department; Marnie did her PHD at Oxford on Collingwood (the historian, not the AFL football team, as she had to inform some of my rather disappointed colleagues) and is teaching historiography and film and history. Barbara Caine of Monash University and Donna Merwick were amongst those to be invited as speakers to the recent historians' conference in Florence. Martha Vicinus and Donna report that it was great. Patty O'Brien won a two-year position as Lecturer at UNSW.
There was a great post-graduate conference on Sydney on Masculinities. There is a book coming out from the conference published by Pluto at the end of the year. The conference was convened by Tom Sear, Dave Trudinngerand Catherine Biber.
Laurajane Smith and Ann McGrath convened 'Engendering Material Culture', the fifth Women & Archaeology Conference, which was held at UNSW in July. It attracted numerous international visitors, wonderful innovative papers, and there was a very special supportive atmosphere created by its lively bunch of participants. It was one of the first occasions which brought together women historians, museologists, archaeologists and fine arts/material culture specialists into discussion. And guess what? Everyone communicated fine. The papers, food and entertainments were sumptuous and unforgettable. A publication from conference papers will be forthcoming. Enquiries: ann.mcgrath@anu.edu.au
Jill Roe, also President of the Australian Historians Association, gave the History Week lecture last year.
Wendy Brady of the Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre, UNSW, is President of History Council of NSW.
Many women historians and talented women are involved in setting up the new National Museum of Australia in Canberra, to open in 2001. Dawn Casey is the Acting Director, Louise Douglas a Deputy Director, Victoria Haskens and Alison Cadzow are working on various exhibitions, while Marion Stell and Sophie Jensen are curating 'Perceptions' one of the very exciting permanent exhibitions. Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake have been involved in consultative meetings with the National Museum of Australia.
At the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University, a comparative women's history reading group was initiated by Fiona Paisley and Alison Kibler; they meet regularly and it's become a lively inter-disciplinary exchange venue. Joan Kerr of the CCR was one of the keynote speakers at the Engendering Material Culture Conference mentioned above.
Jackie Huggins, University of Queensland, is now working for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and on Treaty issues full-time. Kay Saunders, who was recently awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her services to the Community, Continues to be active on several key committees. She is a member of the National Advisory Council to the National Archives, is on the National Task Force of the National Museum of Australia and is The Queensland Premier's Advisor on Women's Policy 1999-2001 and Chair of the Qld Cultural Advisory Council.
Marian Quartly, previously Dean of Humanities at Monash University, is now to take on the mantle of Editor of Australian Historical Studies. Joy Damousi has recently published a book with Cambridge University Press, 'The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia'
At the Northern Territory University Christine Doran continues to undertake research on aspects of the history of women in SE Asia, especially colonial Malaya and the Philippines. Suzanne Parry's research includes work on women medical missionaries in Australia. Robyn Maynard recently completed her MA in Women's Studies at Deakin University and this year taught an undergraduate unit on Australian women's history. The following students are currently undertaking research towards PhDs supervised by Professor David Carment: Anita Angel, Bev Phelts, Eve Gibson and Sue Stanton although none specifically is working on a women's history topic.
Araluen is holding an exhibition at the Alice Springs Cultural Precinct called "Pitjantjatjara Sand Stories" 14th August - 5 September. Presenting the ongoing tradition of telling stories through drawing in the sand, this exhibition comes from the Pitjantjatjara women in Ernabella. The women have told a variety of stories and explained the nature, meaning and significance of this largely unknown tradition which is revealed for the first time to the general public through casts made from the sand drawings, video recordings, texts and large photographs.
Larrimah Regional Museum is about to display a small exhibition on the Australian Army Medical Women's Service of the 45th Australian Camp Hospital Larrimah which will become part of the permanent display. This display came about because of the donation of photographs from Mrs Marjorie Elsmore who was posted to the hospital in 1944 and covers aspects of her life at Larrimah during that period of World War II. The display was curated by Sue Harlow from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Regional Museums Program.
In 3 December - 27 February the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory will hold an exhibition "Palmerston Paraphernalia" which looks at the social history of two women of Palmerston (as Darwin was called before 1911), Margaret Widdup and Mary Andrews through their household objects. Paraphernalia is the term for objects a woman brings to marriage, but not her dowry. The exhibition features jewellery, household objects, women's craft work and other items which were part of the households. The research for this exhibition was part of two previous projects in women's history undertaken by Anita Angel and Barbara James, and the exhibition curated by Mickey Dewar.
From 9 - 31 July 24Hr Art in Darwin is staging a photographic exhibition featuring works by Brenda L. Croft "In my father's house" and Destiny Deacon "Postcards from Mummy" assembled by the Australian Centre for Photography. Both exhibitions deal with family history, a sense of place and the loss of loved ones. Race and family life is inextricably entwined as the two women examine the personal narratives of Aboriginal family members in a celebration of life and personal strength.
In Alice Springs, at the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame, the exhibition, "Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Lives" continues to attract many visitors. Curated by Pauline Ross, this exhibition looks at women who were first in their fields and has been enthusiastically received by visitors and Alice Springs locals alike. Joan Kirner recently visited and was photographed alongside her entry in the exhibition. Pauline is currently working on a Centralian focussed version, "Women of the Heart" which will open soon.
NOTICE: Companion to Women's Historical Writing: Call for Expressions of Interest
As the millennium ends it seems an appropriate time to review the work of women historians over the last two thousand years. We are hoping to put together a Companion to Women's Historical Writing. This project will involve collecting information on as many of the women who have engaged in historical writing as possible to provide a database and a collection of their writings as well as to allow a detailed analysis of the ways in which women have written history. We want to collect both biographical and bibliographical material on women historians and explore dominant and continuing themes in women's history. Although this is an English language project we want to have international collaboration and aim to explore both European and non-European historiographical traditions. We are calling for suggestions, criticisms and contributors. Expressions of interest should be addressed to: Mary.Spongberg@mq.edu.au
Thanks to Mary Spongberg and Kay Saunders for news items. Congratulations to all for whatever you're doing or trying to do!
Ann
McGrath, Australian Convenor
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research,
Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia
tel. 61-2-62492698, fax. 61-2-62492438
ann.mcgrath@anu.edu.au
The members of the executive of the Canadian Committee on the History of Women for 1999-2000 are:
Annalee
Golz, University of Victoria, Vice-Chair
Lucille Marr, Augustana University College, Chair
New Books:
Andree Levesque, Scene de la vie en rouge. L'epoque de Jeanne Corbin (1906-1944). Montreal; remue-menage, 1999.
Naomi Black and Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Feminist Politics on the Farm:Rural Catholic Women in Southern Quebec and Southwestern France. Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 1999
Karen Dubinsky The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls (Toronto: Between the Lines and New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1999)
Winner of the Hilda Neatby Prize for best article in women's history published in Canada:
Donald
F. Davis & Barbara Lorenzkowski, "A Platform for Gender Tensions:
Women Working and Riding on Canadian Urban Public Transit in the 1940s"
Canadian Historical Review, 79, 3 (September 1998), 431- 465.
In this original article on women's occupation of public space in the public
transit system during the Second World War, Davis and Lorenzkowski offer a
fresh angle of view on women's wartime experience. They place gender at the
centre of their analysis showing new ways in which, during wartime, some gender
norms were broken, albeit temporarily. They are to be praised for their subtle
and complex interpretation of how this very ordinary experience of riding
buses offered a challenge to traditional values and ideas about women's nature.
Le
prix pour l'article en francais va a Beatrice Craig, "Salaires, niveaux
de vie et travail feminin, dans l'arrondissement de Lille au XIXe siecle,"
Canadian Journal of History /Annales Canadiennes D'Histoire, XXXIII,
aout 1998, 215-247
In this contribution to economic history, to women's history and particularly
to the history of women's work, Beatrice Craig demonstrates how deep immersion
in the history of a particular site, in this instance Lille in France, permits
her to develop a remarkably precise causal account of women's position in
the labour market. This finely argued article moves forward the debate on
the evolution of women's participation in the labour force.
Karen
Dubinsky
Queens University, Kingston
The Hungarian Institute of History Hungarian Academy of Sciences is organizing a conference 29-30 November on Hungarian Women's Biographies. The conference covers the life stories of remarkable Hungarian women in the field of arts, science and politics. For more information contact Andrea Peto petoand@ceu.hu
The Women's History Project is now coming to the end of its second year. A number of publications based on the projects's work will appear in the Autumn. Jean Agnew's edition of volumes 2 and 3 of the Correspondence of Martha McTier and William Drennan is due to be published in September 1999. The Directory of Sources for Women's History in Ireland will also be published on CD Rom in September. Edited by Maria Luddy, Catherine Cox, Leanne Lane, Diane Urquhart, Rosemary Raughter and Sarah Costley it will provide a detailed listing of material relating to women in over two hundred archival institutions in the Republic and Northern Ireland. The Project's work will continue next year and will concentrate on completing the listing of references to women in the files of the Department of the Taoiseach in the National Archives in Dublin.
The conference of the Women's History Association of Ireland will be held in University College, Galway on 4 September. The theme is Women's Life Stories: Biography, personal testimony, oral history. The keynote speaker is Penny Summerfied. Further details from Dr Caitriona Clear, Department of History, National University of Ireland, Galway.
Mary
O'Dowd
Queen's University, Belfast
In April 1999 there was a large conference in Linkoping with over 300 Swedish historians meeting to discuss "History and Power. Power and Historians". Swedish gender historians were specially active and many participated with papers in sessions and panels. The theme "Gender, citizenship and public politics" (organised by Christina Florin) had gathered 12 participants in 3 panels. The National Association of History (SKOGH) invited to a reception. As the Stockholm Board of SKOGH now has been working for 3 years a new board will be elected in August. The department of historical studies of Umea University has promised to take over for the next 3 years. The interest for the Scandinavian Womens History Meeting (Aug 99) in Denmark has been beyond all expectations and almost 200 gender scholars will come to Tisvildeleje.
New dissertations (since Jan 99)
Frangeur, Renée: Professional woman or her masters servant? The struggle for the married woman's right to paid employment during the interwar period in Sweden. Goteborg University. Arkiv forlag:Lund, 1999
Lennartsson, Malin: Bed and Board. Relations Between Women and Men in 17th Century Smaland. Lund University Press:Lund, 1999.
Lundgren, Jens: The Fostering of the Human Body. The Manliness-project of Ling-gymnstics 1790-1914. Stockholm University. Symposium: Stockholm 1999.
Nilsson, Bo: Masculinity. Representation, Ideology and Rhetoric. Umea University, Borea:Umea 1999
Soderlind, Ingrid: Orphanages for Girls. Children, Families and Institutional Life in Stockholm 1870-1920. Linkoping University. Stockholmia forlag: Stockholm 1999.
Martensson, Christina: Employment Suitable for Women. Origin and Growth of Occupational Sex-typing at the Swedish Telegraph Administration 1865-1920. Goteborg University: Goteborg, 1999
Hakanson, Sigrid: "then he shall take her as his lawful wife": Illegitimate births, the marriage market and the matrimonial system in Eastern Sweden and Western Sweden, 1750-1850. Stockholm University: Stockholm, 1999
Christina Florin
Conference
The annual conference of the Women's History Network will be held on 11-12 September at Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent. The theme will be 'Re-Presentations of Women'. Registration forms are available from Pauline Elkes, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. Email: artpe@staffs.ac.uk Tel: 01782 294806
Women's History continues to be actively promoted in the regions. The Scottish network is holding a conference on 9 October on the topic of 'Sex and the Citizen', at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Further details from Ann-Marie Kilday, Dept of History, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, email a.m.kilday@strath.ac.uk
The South west network has just held a conference in Bristol on the theme of personal narrative: women's history, women's lives.
In Wales a new initiative - Archif Menywod Cymru - the Women's Archive of Wales, is dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of women in Wales. If you are interested in joining or contributing to the archive or would simply like further information contact: Ursula Masson, School of Humanities, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, email: umasson@glam.ac.uk
Lynn Abrams
On
l5 March 1999, U.S. women's history was featured at the White House. Both
Nancy Cott (Yale University) and Alice Kessler-Harris (now at Columbia University)
spoke to an audience of distinguished Americans who had been invited to this
While House Millennium Evening event. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton
both made very positive and supportive remarks about the importance of women's
history.
June Hahner