"I have another duty, equally sacred, a duty to myself " Dora: A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen,1879
1. Welcome to Our Foremothers - "Here is one story ..."
2. First Owners
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Pre 1863.
SOCIAL STORY: Melbourne 1863.
3. Sara and Sheyda Rimmer
On this page:
OUR STORY: Sarah Curry
KOORIE STORY: 1864 Corandarrk - Diaspora, the Start;
SOCIAL STORY: The Immigrants Home, 'The Fortunes of Mary Fortune'.
4. Smythesdale Goldfields
On this page:
SOCIAL STORY: Women on the goldfields - 'What a Woman on Ballaraat Can Do'; The Sandhurst Impersonator; the Sinking Cathedral.
5. The Egalitarian Idea
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Resisting Oppression - Louisa Briggs;
SOCIAL STORY:
Enlightenment Thinking; Education; the Education Act. 1872.0's-80's - Free, Compulsary and Secular Education; Not Equal if you are Aboriginal
6. A Fair Go
On this Page:
OUR STORY: Sarah's 'Fair Go'.
KOORIE STORY: Struggles; Coranderrk Petition.
SOCIAL STORY: A Fair Go, the 1882 Tailoresses Strike, the Woman's Suffrage Society; the 'Mother of Womanhood Suffrage' - Louisa Lawson; Orphans & Institutions.
7. Going Backwards
On this Page:
KOORIE STORY:
the Half Caste Amendment Act oy Murphy; Coranderrk.
SOCIAL STORY - Reaction; 1890’s Economic Depression; Women's Paid Work.
8. Running Free
On this page:
OUR STORY: "NO DAUGHTER OF MINE ..."; Hard Yakka.
KOORIE STORY: Indigenous Exclusion.
9. Women Were Not Quiet
On this Page:
Social Story: The Hospital Run By Women For Women;The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association; The 1891 'Monster' Suffrage Petition - Vida Goldstein.
10. Building Peace at Home WW1
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY - Coranderrk Closure
SOCIAL STORY - Conscription; White Feathers; The Zurich Women's Peace Conference; Free Trade
11. A World Not Fit For Heroes
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Australian Aborigines League; Cummeraaginja; 26th January, Day of Mourning - Beryl Booth, Margaret Tucker.
SOCIAL STORY: Economic Depression; Making Do - Yvonne Smith.
12. Another War - WW2
On this page:
OUR STORY Our Family
KOORIE STORY: There's Work When We Need You - Nora Murray.
SOCIAL STORY: Pulling Together - Edith Morgan; After the War - Things Weren't All Rosy - Joyce Stevens.
13. Howard's Way - the 1950's
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Maralinga - Joan Wingfield, Gwen Rathman; More Protest - Warburton Ranges; Lake Tyers; More Protest;
SOCIAL STORY: Camp Pell; Conformity & Hidden Poverty; The Communist Party Dissolution Bill..
14. A Life Well Spent
On this page:
OUR STORY - Sad times
SOCIAL STORY: Hypocrisy; Hope
Our Foremothers is published by
Women's Web - Women's Stories, Women's Actions
www.womensweb.com.au
womensweb@iprimus.com.au
© Geraldine Robertson except for study, social justice and feminist sharing.
Our Foremothers |
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6. A FAIR GO
On this Page:
KOORIE STORY: Struggles; Coranderrk Petition.
OUR STORY: Sarah's 'Fair Go' Demand.
SOCIAL STORY: A Fair Go, the 1882 Tailoresses Strike, the Woman's Suffrage Society; the 'Mother of Womanhood Suffrage' - Louisa Lawson; Orphans & Institutions.
Coranderrk Petition
"Could we have our freedom to go away shearing, and come home when we wish, and also to go for the good of our health when we need it; and we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom, not to be bound down by the protection of the board."
Petition from the people of Coranderrk, 22 September 1886. From the Koorie Heritage Trust abc.net.au/missionvoices/corander
The period 1850 - 1901 saw the continued marginalisation of Aboriginal people in Victoria.
Removed from their country for their own 'protection', the people at Coranderrk struggled to assert their rights.... Museum Victoria
1882
... (They) organised and took their complaints of bad health conditions, lack of real wages, the imposition of compulsary Christian education, punishment by withdrawal of rations through to the parliamentary system by deputations and petitions.
Taking Time Yvonne Smith, Union of Australian Women
OUR STORY - Sarah's 'Fair Go' Demand
Sarah promised herself she would not have children until or
unless she could bring them up with a mother and a father.
By 1881 the ratio of women to men was 91%, yet because the
women were concentrated in the cities and towns and men were
out droving, opening up land, or exploring, there was still a
shortage of suitable men for women to marry.
Australia was a country where men were often living far away from where most women were. Banjo Patterson described this world of men in his poetry.
Women and children were called encumberances , and were not welcome. According to the Supreme Court women were not even people in law. This was so until 1920.
When women followed their men things weren’t much better. In his poem A Drover's Wife, Henry Lawson wrote about some of the hardship he saw his mother, Louisa Lawson, suffer.
Sarah saw this. She thought she would never marry. Then she met William Charles Cutts.
I understand she wanted to marry him and he wanted to marry her, but to be true to herself she felt she could not marry at all. What could she do?
She agreed to marry him if he stopped going out to work when
she had children.
He agreed and bought a business that enabled him to employ a
manager to run it day to day.
W. C. Cutts, general merchant, Warracknabeal 1887 (middle right)
They married on the 26th December 1886. The partnership lasted until he died in 1930. Sarah lived on as a widow till 1953.
SOCIAL STORY - A Fair Go
A social history of our foremothers would not be complete without talking about women’s suffrage – the vote.
It also would not be complete without talking about children, women and work, indigenous people and poverty.
It is said that the United States of America ended up with a Bill of Rights because many people migrated there to escape religious persecution and individual rights protected them from that, but that Australia ended up with social justice campaigns because many people migrated here to escape poverty and wanted a system that protected them from that.
Australia had become known as the “workingman’s paradise’, but what about women? Children? Aborigines?
From what happened next, it looks as if women and aborigines thought social justice meant them too! It also looks as if people thought children deserved care.
The 1882 Tailoresses Strike
After their piecework pay rates had been cut, Melbourne tailoresses joined together and stopped work to protest this sweating (drudgery or toil).
Even when they were not paid piece rates they often had to take work home to finish it and this was after long, long hours at work. This was sweating, too.
They formed a union, which soon had 2,000 members, and they went on strike in support of a catalogue of claims.
They eventually won, even though unions were not at the time officially recognised.
The Female Operatives Hall shown here was built because of them, and remained until the early 1960's.
Helen Robertson and the Tailoresses Union
"When I started employers had all their own way...Working girls were treated like animals and every ounce of their vitality was sapped up in long hours at the employer's profit..."
Interview with Mrs Robertson, of the Clothing Trades Gazette May 15 1922.
Most women workers last century were not industrially organised and had not gained the Eight Hour Day.
Helen Robertson founded the Tailoresses' Union in 1880 and led her members in the 1882 Tailoresses' strike.
1,000 women met at Trades Hall and the Union's "catalogue of claims" (the origin of the term log of claims) was successful.
The strike prevented clothing manufacturers reducing the wages of already poorly paid workers.
The Union's activities also exposed the shocking working conditions in Victoria's clothing factories and led to a Parliamentary Inquiry into sweated labour.
Following the Inquiry, the Victorian Government established Wages Boards to ensure regulation of wages, hours and conditions for all workers. Victorian Trades Hall Council website
The Woman's Suffrage Society - 1884
In 1881 The Age reported that MHR Madden thundered in the Victorian Parliament:
“If women were allowed into Parliament it would mean the end to War, Cricket, Hunting and Other Manly Sports.”
Women’s Suffrage was definitely an issue by then! The Woman’s Suffrage Society was the first suffrage society. It was formed in 1884.
“The Mother of Womanhood Suffrage”
"I can cook my husband's dinner. I can iron my husband's shirt. I can live alone in danger and in drought and dust and dirt. I can grow the food we live on. I can milk a cow or goat. If I'm good enough for that, I know I'm good enough to vote."
Louisa Lawson from Davidspicer.com
Louisa Lawson and son SLV
Louisa Lawson was brought up in poverty. It was a struggle to survive and she thought that it was unfair that women had to obey the law when they had no say in making it.
THE DAWN: A JOURNAL FOR AUSTRALIAN WOMEN
In 1888 Louisa Lawson launched The Dawn; a journal for women. The publication’s purpose was to be a “phonograph to wind out audibly the whispers, pleadings and demands of the sisterhood.”
She was announcing it would publicize women's wrongs, fight their battles and sue for their suffrage. Dawn was an immediate commercial success.
Reason in Revolt reasoninrevolt.net.au
It was so popular the circulation soon reached 20,000 copies.
She supported unions but employed female printers who were not allowed to join the union. They were accused of being scabs and Louisa Lawson was unfairly accused of underpaying them. In fact she paid very well.
She also, with her son Henry, supported Australia becoming a republic. In 1888 she also formed The Dawn Club and in 1889 The Association of Women
Orphans and Institutions
The Ballarat District Orphan* Asylum was established in Victoria Street Ballarat in 1865. …
According to "A Century of Child Care - The Story of Ballarat Orphanage 1865-1965", the gold rush era and the search for fortune led to many families experiencing poverty and destitution.
Great concern existed for the many children who were also being abandoned or orphaned* at that time.
“In 1883 inspectors at Jack Miller’s South Melbourne ropeworks found ten year olds working 60 hours a week.
Young children, employed extensively in the tobacco industry, worked similar hours as did those in the clothing and other industries. Their health suffered from cramped, unsanitary, and poorly ventilated conditions.
In 1882 Dr Beaney described how;
“A little girl was brought to me three days ago by her mother, a little worn-out looking thing.She had been in the factory twelve or eighteen months already, and she is only 13 now. She is like a little old woman, pale and shrivelled, and suffers from palpitations of the heart.”
The Eight Hour Day site
Orphaned didn’t necessarily mean you had no living parents. It usually just meant you had no father supporting you. When a woman had no man to support her children and couldn’t earn enough to look after them herself, the children were called orphans.