Twentieth-century Australia Research Articles

Taylorism in the home: the medical profession, the infant welfare movement and the deskilling of women.

Using the infant welfare movement as a case study, this article examines how doctors in early twentieth century Australia used the rhetoric of 'efficiency' to widen their labour market position by legitimating for them selves a supervisory role over mothers analogous to that of the manager in Taylorism. It is suggested that although the movement did not necessarily deskill women as mothers, its coercive and condescending rhetoric created a stereotype of women as specialised in function and incapable of unsupervised work, which helped deskill women by building moral and practical barriers to their participation in public life. Look, woman, in the West, there wilt thou see An amber cradle near the sun's decline: Within it, featured even in death divine, Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee. (Lines from Meredith, quoted by Dr H. B. Allen in his Presidential Address to the Australasian Medical Congress, 1908.)

Good and Mad Women. The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth-Century Australia

Good and Mad Women. The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth-Century Australia

Reviews

WEATHER AND WEATHER MAPS. Edited by Gosta H. LiljequistTHE TIME OF DARKNESS. By R. J. BlongBEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS IN GEOGRAPHY REVISITED. Edited by Kevin R. Cox and Reginald G. GolledgeGOVERNMENT AND CAPITALISM: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CHOICE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AUSTRALIA. By N. G. Butlin, A. Barnard and J. J. Pincus.CINDERELLAS OF THE EMPIRE. By Barrie Macdonald

N. G.Butlin, A.Barnard and J. J.Pincus, Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia (Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1982), pp. xi + 369: $12.95 paperback

N. G.Butlin, A.Barnard and J. J.Pincus, Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia (Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1982), pp. xi + 369: $12.95 paperback

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia, by N. G. Butlin, A. Barnard and J. J. PincusEssays in Trespassing: Economics to Politics and Beyond, by Albert O. HirschmanNon‐ Traded and Intermediate Good a and the Pure Theory of International Trade, by Bharat R. Hazari, Pasquale M. Sgro and Dong C. SuhWhy has Japan “succeeded”? Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos, by Michio MorishimaQuarry Australia? Social and Environmental Perspectives on Managing the Nation's Resources, edited by R. Birrcll, D. Hill and J. StanleyThe Economist as Preacher, by G. J. StiglerThe Economics of Feasible Smialirm, by A. Nove

Book Review: Crime Trends in Twentieth-Century Australia

Book Review: Crime Trends in Twentieth-Century Australia

Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia. By N.G. Butlin, A. Barnard, and J.J. Pincus. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1982. Pp. xi + 369. $37.50.

Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia. By N.G. Butlin, A. Barnard, and J.J. Pincus. Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1982. Pp. xi + 369. $37.50. - Volume 57 Issue 3

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: A HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA. V., The People Make Laws 1888–1915. By C. M. H. Clark. MANNING CLARK AND AUSTRALIAN HISTORY 1915–1963. By Stephen Holt. PARTY POLITICS: Australia 1966–81. By James Jupp. GOVERNMENT AND CAPITALISM: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia. By N. G. Butlin, A. Barnard, J. J. Pincus. VOTING FOR THE AUSTRALIAN STATE LOWER HOUSES 1965–1974. By Colin A. Hughes. ABORIGINAL POLITICS IN SOUTHWESTERN AUSTRALIA. By Michael C. Howard. ABORIGINAL POWER IN AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY. Edited by Michael C. Howard. POWER, CONFLICT AND CONTROL IN AUSTRALIAN TRADE UNIONS. Edited by Kathryn Cole. TARIFF POLITICS: Australian Policy‐making 1960–1980. By Leon Glezer. DEFENDING “A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY”: Churchmen and Society in New South Wales in the 1880's and After. By Walter Phillips. FRANK TATE: A Biography. By R. J. W. Selleck. A FOOLISH PASSIONATE MAN: A Biography of Jim Cairns. By Paul Ormonde. THE CRY FOR THE DEAD. By Judith Wright. THE OXFORD HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND. Edited by W. H. Oliver with B. R. Williams. AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA. Edited by Gary E. Hansen. CRISIS IN AFRICA: Battleground of East and West. By Arthur Gavshon. TUC: The Growth of a Pressure Group 1868–1976. By Ross M. Martin. ENGLISH EDUCATION, SOCIAL CHANGE AND WAR, 1911–1920. By Geoffrey Sherington. THE QUESTION OF CLASS STRUGGLE: Social Foundations of Popular Radicalism During the Industrial Revolution. By Craig Calhoun. GENTLEMEN AND POACHERS: The English Game Laws 1671–1831. By P. B. Munsche. THE NATIONAL CHARITY COMPANY: Jeremy Bentham's Silent Revolution. By Charles F. Bahmueller. A HISTORY OF THE HIGHLAND CLEARANCES: Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions 1746–1886. By Eric Richards. NATIONALISM IN IRELAND. By D. George Boyce. THE “FÜHRER STATE”: MYTH AND REALTY–Studies on the Structure and Politics of the Third Reich. Edited by Gerhard Hirschfeld and Lothar Kettenacker with an introduction by Wolfgang J. Mommsen. MILITARISM: The History of an International Debate 1861–1979. By V. R. Berghahn MODERN GERMANY: Society, economy and politics in the twentieth century. By V. R. Berghahn THE CAMBRIDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION. Edited by Archie Brown, John Fennell, Michael Kaser and H. T. Willetts. CHARTER 77 AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA. By H. Gordon Skilling. REVOLUTION AND RED TAPE: The French Ministerial Bureaucracy 1770–1850. By Clive H. Church. THE BEGINNING OF IDEOLOGY: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation. By Donald R. Kelley. SISTERS OR CITIZENS? Women and Socialism in France since 1876. By Charles Sowerwine. MUSSOLINI UNLEASHED 1939–1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Lost War. By Macgregor Knox. ARROGANCE AND ANXIETY: The Ambivalence of German Power, 1848–1914. By L. L. Farrar, Jr. THE COMMUNIST PARTIES OF ITALY, FRANCE AND SPAIN: Postwar Change and Continuity. A Casebook. Edited by Peter Lange and Maurizio Vannicelli. U.S. DIPLOMATS IN EUROPE, 1919–1941. Edited by Kenneth Paul Jones. INTERNATIONAL PEACE KEEPING: United Nations Forces in a Troubled World. By Anthony Verrier. PALESTINE IN PERSPECTIVE: Politics, Human Rights and the West Bank. By David H. Ott. THE MIDDLE EAST: A Political and Economic Survey. Fifth edition. Edited by Peter Mansfield. MIDDLE EAST REVIEW 1982. (Saffron Walden, Essex: World of Information, 1981). ASIA AND PACIFIC 1982. (Saffron Walden, Essex: World of Information, 1981). THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN NEEDS AND THE CRITIQUE OF CIVILISATION. By Patricia Springborg. READING NOZICK: Essays on Anarchy, State and Utopia. Edited by Jeffrey Paul. THE POLITICS OF PROCRUSTES: Contradictions of Enforced Equality. By Antony Flew. THE INTELLECTUALS ON THE ROAD TO CLASS POWER: A sociological study of the role of the intelligentsia in socialism. By George Konrad and Ivan Szelenyi. POLITICIANS, LEGISLATION, AND THE ECONOMY: An Inquiry into the Interest‐Group Theory of Government. By Robert E. McCormick and Robert D. Tollison. JOB GENERATION: A Policy Proposal. By Tom O'Brien. TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION AND INDUSTRIALISATION BEFORE 1914. By A. G. Kenwood and A. L. Lougheed.

Labour History in Australia

The study and writing of labour history in Australia began outside the uni versities, as it did in most overseas countries. At the beginning of the twentieth century Australia was a newly-founded Commonwealth with a dominion status rather less developed than that of Canada.1 Australian universities were bastions of the British Imperial outlook and there was no serious study of the country's past and not the slightest interest in the growth of its labour movement.2 As a result la bour history writing in Australia was from the start associated with nationalist emotion and the practical concerns of trade unions and activists in the labour cause. Australian labour history accords very well with the British historian Eric Hobsbawm's account of that field of study as tradition a highly political sub ject.3 Labour history had emerged as a more or less sophisticated study in Britain around the turn of the century, under the tutelage of Sidney and Beatrice Webb and J.L. and Barbara Hammond. The Webbs were Fabian socialists convinced that the economic and social conditions of life could, by deliberate and planned human intervention, be changed for the better. Like the Hammonds, who worked from simple humanitarian-liberal assumptions in their famous studies of the plight of the town and village labourers in early industrial England, the Webbs suc ceeded in first focussing attention on the labouring classes in a way which had not previously been contemplated by British historians.4 In comparison with the writings of the Webbs and Hammonds the early studies of the labour movement in Australia were more democratic in perspective, because of their stress on the working class's own initiatives, and more optimistic in celebrating what many were coming to see as the ' 'laboratories of democracy ' ' of Austalia and New Zealand.

In Memoriam: Alan Rowland Chisholm

Preface (2014) by Wallace KirsopStan Scott (1927-2014) died just before he could be asked to write a brief preface to his AJFS obituary of A. R. Chisholm. It therefore falls to the commissioning editor of that tribute to provide a context for a remarkably sensitive and perceptive portrait of a man who was the most influential university teacher of French literature in twentieth-century Australia. That the readers of the present number lose by this substitution goes without saying.Scott himself was one of the most diversely talented pupils of the master, as those who attended the funeral on 22 January 2014 learnt from the speeches made by neighbours, family members, colleagues and friends. It is to be hoped that these threads can be drawn together in print for the benefit of younger colleagues at risk of neglecting the achievements of a scholar whom the University of Melbourne culpably declined to promote beyond the rank of Senior Lecturer.Unlike Gardner Davies, Lloyd Austin and James Lawler, Stan Scott remained faithful to his native Melbourne, limiting his European visits to the period of his doctoral studies in the 1950s and to sabbatical leaves, before his premature retirement in 1984 gave him the opportunity for one last long sojourn in France and Italy. For this reason he remained closer to Chisholm, to whose Department of French he had been recruited in 1956. Intime he became not only his teacher's confidant, but also his literary executor. It was a task he took very seriously, preparing both a biography of Chisholm, which Melbourne University Press took so long to consider that he withdrew the manuscript, and an edition of the verse, which the Press refused. After these frustrations Scott did not persist, although some of us had the benefit of a private reading of the life. It is comforting to report that late in 2013 he agreed to allow the biography to be made available online through the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations. Much remains to be done to bring everything of Chisholm's that Stan Scott preserved and gathered to readers who deserve to have laid out for them the complexities and ambitions of Australian literary and intellectual life in the twentieth century.When AJFS celebrated Chisholm's eightieth birthday - a little late - in 1969, it was Scott, along with Lloyd Austin, who gave advice on the choice of contributors. Stan's own article was on Dante, one of the main objects of his research and reading over many years. Like Chisholm he ranged widely and well outside the boundaries set by his professional appointment. Also like Chisholm, he had the art of writing with elegance and concision, qualities that stood him in good stead for the entry he provided on his teacher for the Australian Dictionary of Biography in 2007. ADB's straitjacket can be uncomfortable, but Stan Scott was equal to the task of saying the essential and suggesting hidden depths in a strictly limited number of words. It was more than appropriate that one intellectually curious and quite adventurous conservative should record the career of another from an earlier generation. Historians and the general public wedded to cliches about radical academics need to learn that challenges and innovation do not reside exclusively on the Left.Alan Rowland Chisholm, Emeritus Professor of French in the University of Melbourne, died of heart failure, at the age of ninety-two, on 9 September 1981. He is mourned by his daughter Mimi, some relatives in New South Wales and countless students, colleagues and friends throughout the world.It is not easy to sum up a man of so many capacities - poet, essayist, thinker, scholar, critic, linguist, soldier, teacher - and, for all our devotion and partiality, we can hardly avoid circumscribing so ample a mind and sensibility. Besides, no individual, least of all a great one, can be known completely: not all the primary sources can ever suffice.For an eventual life and first assessment of Chisholm we have some essential personal documents (birth and marriage certificates, degrees, awards, passports and the like), diaries including a most informative war diary, travel notes and valuable lists of books read at various periods of his life. …