‘Propagandists for the Soil’: Gender, Erosion and the Murray Valley in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article studies the contributions of a trio of settler Australian women to a wider conversation about soil and water conservation in the Australian Alps in the mid-twentieth century. The women discussed here began their interventions during the war years and continued their efforts into the immediate postwar decade. Their education and labour as well as, to varying degrees, their family’s affluence and esteem, and wartime afforded these women new opportunities to engage directly with the challenges of soil degradation and to share the insights they drew from these firsthand experiences. Focusing on the contributions of Jocelyn Henderson, Maisie Fawcett and Elyne Mitchell, this article argues that soil conservation in 1940s and 1950s southeastern Australia was a profoundly gendered project that only gained legitimacy and authority as its importance became recognised by state governments.