Catherine Bishop
Abstract
Colonial women have been regarded as domesticated creatures, kept within the private sphere and occupied with housework and child-rearing. This image has pervaded the historiography as well as popular culture. Continue reading
Abstract
Francis MacNamara, known among his fellow prisoners as “Frank the Poet”, was transported in 1832 to Botany Bay. Most of what we know about him, including his poetical work, comes from Frank the Poet (1979) written by folklorists John Meredith and Rex Whalan. Continue reading
Abstract
Raphael Samuel constitutes a fantastic candidate for an intellectual biography. He had a working life of endless activity, covering a vast array of different interests. He was first and foremost a socialist and an historian, but he was also a tireless educator, energetic facilitator, prolific editor, enthusiastic writer, and shrewd social critic. Continue reading
Andrew Moore, Yasmin Rittau, John Shields
Abstract
Despite the solid – if occasionally polemical – record of research and publication in the biographical genre by Australian labour historians over the past sixty years, there are hundreds if not thousands of labour activists whose lives have remained un- or under-documented; lost, for all intents and purposes, to both the established scholar and the enthusiastic student. The Biographical Register of the Australian Labour Movement 1788-1975 represents an attempt to address these lacunae by publishing brief (300-700 word) biographical entries on some 2,000 activists about whom we have been able to discover at least a fragment of information and whom we consider to have made a significant but hitherto un- or under-recorded contribution to the movement’s history at the national, State, regional and/or local scale at some point down to the mid-1970s. Continue reading
Bobbie Oliver
Abstract
This paper surveys the current state of labour history teaching and research in Western Australia. It argues that, while a form of labour history remains viable in labour relations, management or productivity research, it is disappearing as an undergraduate subject in University History Departments.
Abstract
Bruce Shields’ recent memoir of the ASSLH’s early years, differing from the late, lamented Eric Fry’s earlier (1999) account, is a timely reminder of the vibrant intellectual culture, and the passions imbedded in it, that gave birth to our Society. Continue reading
Maggie Shapley
Abstract
A former Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office, Sir Hilary Jenkinson, described the value of archives thus: ‘Drawn up for purposes almost infinitely varying – the administrative or executive control of every species of human undertaking – they are potentially useful to students for the information they can give on a range of subjects totally different but equally wide.’ This paper explores the purposes for which records are created and the bearing that this has on their value as sources for biography. Continue reading
Abstract
This paper is about an Act of the British Parliament which has largely been forgotten by British labour historians but is very important for Australian labour historians. That Act permitted for the first time what we would call “industrial arbitration”. Continue reading
Abstract
This paper explores a neglected strand of Australian radicalism, which I have called new age socialism. Continue reading
Framing the Unions: The Changing Images of Unionists on Screen
Lisa Milner
This paper outlines the history of one Australian union’s visual representation of its members and activities, through film and video. Continue reading
‘Understand the Past, Act on the Present, Shape the Future’
Transcript of Eric Fry’s Account of the History of the ASSLH
I will be talking about the formation of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History in 1961 and its early years to the mid-1960s. The formation of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History – Labour History Society for short – was a decisive occasion in Australian labour history, Continue reading
Canberra Region Branch, ASSLH 1961-2011: an association of university, archives, society, unions and dictionary
This is a volume of some of the papers to be presented to the 12th biennial conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH), to be held in Canberra from 15 to 17 September 2011.2 Continue reading
Papers – Labour history & its people
Welcome and Message from Prime Minister Continue reading