Showing papers in "Australian Historical Studies in 2009"
TL;DR: Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers by Philip Jones as mentioned in this paper is a collection of artefacts and encounters on Australian frontiers. Pp. 448.
Abstract: Ochre and Rust : Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers. By Philip Jones. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2007. Pp. 448. A$49.95 cloth. On the first page of Graham Connah's ‘Of the Hut I Build...
35 citations
Abstract: The history of charting Australia's coastline is well documented from most perspectives, but not from a toponymic standpoint. Between 1606 and 1803, some nine hundred European placenames were bestowed along the Australian coast. We report here on an investigation and analysis of the place-naming practices of the Dutch, French, and English along the Australian coastline between 1606 and 1803, and show how these names reflect the social and political attitudes and motivations of the name-givers.
19 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that the Aboriginal nationalism of this period was a predominantly cultural nationalism that sought to transcend the colonial subordination of Aborigines through a rejuvenation of Aboriginality, and argued that these changes in the context of disillusionment following the 1967 referendum, the advent of black power and land rights, the radicalisation of youth and the rise of identity politics.
Abstract: The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the emergence of Aboriginal nationalism and an associated decline of activist interest in securing Aboriginal inclusion in the Australian nation. This article positions these changes in the context of disillusionment following the 1967 referendum, the advent of black power and land rights, the radicalisation of youth and the rise of identity politics. It argues that the Aboriginal nationalism of this period was a predominantly cultural nationalism that sought to transcend the colonial subordination of Aborigines through a rejuvenation of Aboriginality.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the place of Indigenous imagery and policy in debates about self-government for New South Wales during the 1840s and 50s and find that there was a process of exclusion where Indigenous people were written out of the political world, while at the same time images of supposed Indigenous primitivism or savagery were used as rhetorical tools in wider political debates.
Abstract: This article considers the place of Indigenous imagery and policy in debates about self-government for New South Wales during the 1840s and 50s. In doing so, it aims to bridge the frequent disciplinary gap between histories of Aboriginal dispossession and histories of colonial political development. What emerges is a process of exclusion, where Indigenous people were written out of the political world, while at the same time images of supposed Indigenous primitivism or savagery were used as rhetorical tools in wider political debates, to dismiss certain forms of colonial governance as outmoded or ridiculous.1 1This research was conducted as part of an honorary creative fellowship at the State Library of Victoria.
18 citations
TL;DR: For instance, Lake and Reynolds as mentioned in this paper drew the global colour line and the question of racial equality in white men's countries, and showed that white men in these countries were more likely to commit racism than women.
Abstract: Drawing the Global Colour Line : White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality. By Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2008. Pp. 371. A$36.95 paper. ...
17 citations
TL;DR: The attitudes of Australian biologists, anthropologists, and historians toward race mixing in the early-twentieth century should be viewed in relation to the investigations of Indigenous depopulation and miscegenation taking place in the Pacific.
Abstract: The attitudes of Australian biologists, anthropologists, and historians toward race mixing in the early-twentieth century should be viewed in relation to the investigations of Indigenous depopulation and miscegenation taking place in the Pacific. Those Australian scientists committed to national or continental racial ideals–Cecil Cook and Norman B. Tindale among them–remained resistant to the lessons of the Pacific, favouring ‘half-caste’ absorption. Other scholars such as Stephen Roberts and A. P. Elkin took the oceanic approach, coming to value and harness racial hybridity. This essay shows how much of Australian racial thought drifted in from the Pacific.
14 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the polemics that Australian governments and colonial officials faced in governing the colony of Papua from 1906 to 1940, and showed how and why Australian colonial practice in Papua altered.
Abstract: This article explores imperial Australia and its Papuan colony from 1901 to World War II. Through exploring shifts in imperial doctrine it examines the polemics that Australian governments and colonial officials faced in governing the colony of Papua from 1906 to 1940, and shows how and why Australian colonial practice in Papua altered. This article also explains how understandings of race, the philosophy of ‘protection’ and British imperial theories and practices influenced Australian imperialism in Papua following the nineteenth-century colonisation of Australia, and in the twentieth-century contexts of the Northern Territory from 1911 and New Guinea from 1914.
14 citations
TL;DR: The role of eugenics as a central plank in the development of scientific racism in the early 20th century is explored in this paper, where a new approach is proposed, characterising eugenicism as a science or technology being utilised on occasions for the more fundamental and time-honoured task of the elimination of racial degeneracy.
Abstract: Historians of the eugenics movement in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century have failed to provide an adequate explanation for its place and relative importance both within public policy planning and more generally in the zeitgeist. This article argues for a new approach, characterising eugenics as a science or technology being utilised on occasions for the more fundamental and time-honoured task of the elimination of racial degeneracy. Thus, a wider question is raised about the role of eugenics as a central plank in the development of scientific racism in the twentieth century.
11 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the contradiction between the existence of such restrictions and the memories of care-free youth in 1950s Victoria and found that adult fears for children existed in the post-war years.
Abstract: Oral history narratives construct the 1950s as a time of immense freedom for Australian children; roaming the streets happily and safely until night-fall. These idyllic recollections are framed by a set of contemporary concerns about the over-protected twenty-first century child. And yet the introduction, by a range of government agencies, of a variety of strategies to protect juvenile safety suggests that adult fears for children existed in the post-war years. This paper explores the seeming contradiction between the existence of such restrictions and the memories of carefree youth in 1950s Victoria.
11 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines families' experiences of grief and loss as a consequence of post-war death, and considers how these deaths were privately and publicly memorialised, and reveals how the grief of the post war bereaved was disenfranchised within Australia's national public commemorative traditions of war which reified the ‘supreme sacrifice' of the battlefield dead, but rendered invisible the "lingering sacrifice" of deceased ex-servicemen.
Abstract: The 1918 Armistice signalled the end of the First World War, but it did not mark the end of war-related deaths. During the 1920s and 1930s thousands of Australian ex-servicemen died from their war wounds. This article examines families’ experiences of grief and loss as a consequence of post-war death, and considers how these deaths were privately and publicly memorialised. It argues that the kin of the post-war dead constituted a community of mourners that was distinct from the bereaved kin of the 1914–18 dead. It reveals how the grief of the post-war bereaved was disenfranchised within Australia's national public commemorative traditions of war which reified the ‘supreme sacrifice’ of the battlefield dead, but rendered invisible the ‘lingering sacrifice’ of deceased ex-servicemen. By identifying and historicising families’ experiences of post-war death and bereavement, this article asserts the distinctiveness and importance of that history, and demonstrates its capacity to enrich and challenge o...
11 citations
TL;DR: The first encounters between Aborigines and Europeans in south-eastern Australia were constrained by profound social and linguistic barriers, but they did provide opportunities for cultural exchange as discussed by the authors, and important evidence is contained in linguistic materials compiled by missionaries for the purposes of evangelisation and scripture translation.
Abstract: The first encounters between Aborigines and Europeans in south-eastern Australia were constrained by profound social and linguistic barriers, but they did provide opportunities for cultural exchange. This article argues that important evidence is contained in linguistic materials compiled by missionaries for the purposes of evangelisation and scripture translation. It interprets the linguistic work of Lancelot Threlkeld (1788–1859), who conducted a mission on behalf of London Missionary Society and, later, the government of New South Wales, to the ‘Awabakal’ or Kuri people of the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie region from 1824–1841, and William Watson (1798–1866) and James Gunther (1806–1879) of the Church Missionary Society, whose mission was to the Wiradhurri people of Wellington Valley, NSW, from 1832 to 1843, as sources for life on the colonial frontier. It argues that linguistic sources provide a unique insight, expressed in languages now extinguished, into the conversations conducted by mi...
TL;DR: The appearance of "larrikins" in city spaces across late-Victorian Melbourne represented a fundamental challenge to contemporary understandings of public order and age-related behaviour as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The appearance of ‘larrikins’—or young street toughs—in city spaces across late-Victorian Melbourne represented a fundamental challenge to contemporary understandings of public order and age-related behaviour. This article reassesses the activities of these individuals and contends that larrikinism is best regarded as a series of ‘performances’ in space. Key aspects of the larrikin's repertoire are considered, and larrikin activities related to the urban locations in which they occurred. Application of a gender analysis further reveals the sexualised undertones of larrikin behaviour and the anxieties of society's elders concerning both native-born youth and the reputation of ‘Young Australia’.
TL;DR: Town planning for Australia's cities and towns emerged as a new community and public policy concern in the years after Federation as discussed by the authors, and the First Australian Town Planning Conference held in Adelaide in 1917 ultimately presented an alternative model for successful national discourse.
Abstract: Town planning for Australia's cities and towns emerged as a new community and public policy concern in the years after Federation. In 1913, George A. Taylor, the Sydney-based editor of Building magazine, mooted the formation of the Town Planning Association of Australia as a unifying nation-building force. Drawing on newly discovered records of the New South Wales Town Planning Association, this paper investigates moves towards this national voluntary association. It explores both support and resistance to the nationalistic New South Wales-driven initiative. The First Australian Town Planning Conference held in Adelaide in 1917 ultimately presented an alternative model for successful national discourse.
TL;DR: The dismissal of Justice John Walpole Willis as discussed by the authors reflected the tensions between colonial authority and politics and the broader transnational nature of imperial justice, and reflected the difficulties of colonial civil servants' dilemma: "thinking globally" by maintaining connections in the wider imperial circuit, but "acting locally" by keeping boundaries in the local and interpersonal colonial sphere.
Abstract: Justice John Walpole Willis arrived in Melbourne in March 1841 as its first Resident Judge. After just over two years he was removed from office by Governor Gipps and the Executive Council and returned to England to pursue justice through the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. His career exemplifies the colonial civil servants’ dilemma: ‘thinking globally’ by maintaining connections in the wider imperial circuit, but ‘acting locally’ by keeping boundaries in the local and interpersonal colonial sphere. The dismissal of Justice Willis reflects the tensions between colonial authority and politics and the broader transnational nature of imperial justice.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the efforts of social scientists to persuade the government that their research had such utility, and suggest that the strategies adopted by social scientists had lasting consequences, and confirmed their subordinate status.
Abstract: The expansion of Australian universities after the Second World War was made possible by growing support from the Commonwealth government, which sought both to increase participation in higher education and promote research that would serve national purposes. This article considers the efforts of social scientists to persuade the government that their research had such utility. Through an examination of the endeavours of Mark Oliphant and Douglas Copland, it compares the fortunes of the physical and social sciences during the post-war period. It also suggests that the strategies adopted by social scientists had lasting consequences, and confirmed their subordinate status.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider how house design was influenced by the prevailing understandings of childrearing following the Second World War through the examination of 1950s South Australian architect designed house plans and find that a determining factor in the introduction and acceptance of open plan living may be traced to dominant cultural ideas about the family and the role of the child.
Abstract: Open plan living spaces have become ubiquitous in Australian housing today. These spaces gained popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, yet the reasons behind their enthusiastic adoption by many post-war families have remained under-explored. A determining factor in the introduction and acceptance of open plan living may be traced to dominant cultural ideas about the family and the role of the child, which not only allowed these architectural shifts but demanded them. This article considers how house design was influenced by the prevailing understandings of childrearing following the Second World War through the examination of 1950s South Australian architect designed house plans.
TL;DR: Book review of The Dark Pocket of Time: War, Medicine and the Australian State, 1914-1935, by Kate Blackmore.
Abstract: The Dark Pocket of Time : War, Medicine and the Australian State, 1914–1935. By Kate Blackmore. Adelaide: Lythrum Press, 2008. Pp. 276. A$39.95 paper. The popular legacy of Australia's sacrifice du...
TL;DR: It is argued that cooperation and resistance to maintenance payments by families of the institutionalised coexisted during the period of improvement and contestation about the relationship between state and private responsibility.
Abstract: Between the 1860s and 1914, the collection of maintenance payments for the public care of the insane was improved, yet attempts to encourage full payments from families and friends of the insane consistently failed. These efforts to recover maintenance reveal the vulnerabilities of the colonial family in relation to mental illness. This article argues that cooperation and resistance to maintenance payments by families of the institutionalised coexisted during the period. Archival evidence of the struggles that took place over the care of the insane demonstrates contestation during the period about the relationship between state and private responsibility.
TL;DR: The authors argued that the traditional typology of the political pilgrim does not account properly for the nexus between religious faith and political life that profoundly shaped and guided not only Hartley and James' political activism, but also their travel experiences.
Abstract: Because of their political travels and reportage during the Cold War, Australian peace activists the Reverends Frank Hartley and Victor James conform to Paul Hollander's classic typology of the ‘political pilgrim’. This article contests this explanatory model. It argues that Hollander's typology does not account properly for the nexus between religious faith and political life that profoundly shaped and guided not only Hartley and James’ political activism, but also their travel experiences. It demonstrates that faith-related factors extraneous to the material experience of their travels helped them to hold, and propagate, idealised views of life under socialist regimes.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Doulman and Lee as mentioned in this paper reviewed Every Assistance & Protection: A History of the Australian Passport by Jane Doulman, and David Lee, and gave a good review of the book.
Abstract: Book review of Every Assistance & Protection: A History of the Australian Passport by Jane Doulman and David Lee.
TL;DR: The authors examines the debate within the history of intellectual disability over freaks, and tests the contested positions against the evidence of freak shows in Australia, 1920 to 1950, and argues that these were not exploitative relations or simply business ones, but complex and nuanced two-way paternalistic relations.
Abstract: Freak show performers are popularly portrayed as exploited individuals. This article examines the debate within the history of intellectual disability over freaks, and tests the contested positions against the evidence of freak shows in Australia, 1920 to 1950. It argues that these were not exploitative relations or simply business ones, but complex and nuanced two-way paternalistic relations. Freak performers experienced some power and a sense of belonging to the showground world. They consented or assented to their role in that world.