Jessie Street. A Rewarding but Unrewarded Life

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThe task of this book is to fill the void left by Jessie Street'sninability to complete her memoirs. Her autobiography, Truth ornRepose, ends with the death of Australia's wartime primenminister John Curtin in July 1945. Curtin endowed Jessie Streetnwith her greatest reward: appointment as the only womannmember of the Australian delegation to the foundationnconference of the United Nations at San Francisco. Thereafternher political power and influence waned, and a few years later shenwas subjected to government harassment and physical assault bynpeople who did not share her beliefs. Her last quarter-century,nfrom 1945, can only be understood in terms of what went before,nwhich is described without trespassing overmuch on her ownnbook.n n This book is not the definitive biography of Jessie Street. Thendefinitive biographer will need to research all the governmentnfiles relating to her activities, and those records will not be madenpublic until thirty years after her death in 1970. By the end of thisncentury a competent historian should be able to weigh the consequencesnof the successful referendum of 1967 whichneliminated the legal discrimination against black Australians fromnthe Australian Constitution. Jessie Street initiated the popularnmovement which led to a record 'yes' vote in favour of allowingnCommonwealth jurisdiction in Aboriginal affairs and includingnAborigines in the national census. The referendum victory wasnthe crowning achievement of her rewarding but unrewarded life.n n Her life does not lend itself to strict chronological treatment.nHer feminist, socialist, and political activities reached such a separated, otherwise the events overlap into an incomprehensiblenjumble. In 1943, for instance, she stood for Federal Parliament,nchaired the main committee providing medical and other aid tonthe Soviet Union, organized a national women's conference, andnensured the legal rights of Australian women who marriednUnited States servicemen, to mention only her more outstandingnactivities. She tried to separate her public life from her privatenfamily life, but that was impossible: just as her socialist andnfeminist activities were entwined, so were her public and privatenlives. This book delves into her private life only to the extentnnecessary to describe her public life, not least out of respect fornthe feelings of her four children and fourteen grandchildren.n n Jessie Street's grandfather, Edward Ogilvie, arrived in Sydneynon 23 January 1825 in the company of his father. CommandernWilliam Ogilvie, from whom he inherited a domed forehead andnhigh-beaked nose, and his mother, Sarah, with whom he shared annotable strength of character. The Ogilvies took up a grant of landnin the Upper Hunter district, and named their property Mertonnafter their British home. It was also named after Lord Nelson'sncountry seat in the same vicinity, where he lived in style with hisnmistress Emma Hamilton. A more tangible connection at Mertonnon the Hunter was a wash-stand which had formerly belonged tonNelson.n n Despite persistent efforts, Commander Ogilvie did not make anfortune as a farmer, so Edward and a small party, which includednhis brother Fred, trekked northward in search of greener, or atnleast more profitable, pastures. Their arduous journey of morenthan six hundred kilometres ended when they discovered thenClarence River flowing languidly between lush banks ripe forngrazing. In other places, majestic rock faces rose straight up fromnthe water and the broad slow-moving reaches were interrupted bynrapids and rocky chasmsh..n