Women’s Liberation and Feminist Sources at UMA

Sue Fairbanks, Acting University Archivist

Women's Liberation: March on March
Women’s Liberation: March on March. Folders 1 & 3, Victorian Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archives Collection 2010.0011, University of Melbourne Archives.

When Germaine Greer visited Australia in 1971 to see her family and promote the paperback edition of The Female Eunuch, the Australian women’s movement was gearing up for one of its most important interventions in Australian politics. The Women’s Electoral Lobby, convened by Beatrice Faust, was formed to survey all candidates in the December 1972 Federal election on issues of interest to women, and to produce a form guide for voters. The election was won by the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam with its platform of progressive reform.

Papers from WEL in Victoria were the first from the second wave of Australian feminism deposited in the University of Melbourne Archives in 1974. They were followed by records from the Women’s Liberation Movement, Working Women’s Centre, Abortion Law Reform Association and from women involved in the fight for institutional equality and legal reform:  Zelda D’Aprano, Jan Harper, Alva Geikie, Dulcie Bethune, Alma Morton and Joyce Nicholson.

'Lesbians are everywhere' by the Australian Union of Students
“Lesbians are Everywhere”, produced by the Australian Union of Students Media for the Lesbian Political Action Group, c1970s. Women’s Liberation Switchboard, reference no. 2000.0163, Victorian Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archives No. 17, listed in VWLLFA Poster Collection, 2010.0011, University of Melbourne Archives.

Not all women’s liberationists were beating a path to UMA’s door however. In 1982 a women’s liberation reading group was formed to study the movement’s history but members soon realised that documents were disappearing and that a concerted effort was needed to protect and archive them. The Women’s Liberation Archives had its first meeting on 1 March 1983 and met regularly for the next ten years while collecting, preserving and making material available for research. Its premises moved several times until the 1992 closure of the Women’s Liberation Building in Fitzroy meant the Archive was relocated to a private home. It was renamed the Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Archives to acknowledge the participation of lesbian feminists and separatist feminists in the women’s movement.

In 2000, a new collective was formed to find a permanent home for the Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Archives, and it registered as the Victorian Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archives Inc. (VWLLFA). After exploring the options, a mutual decision was made to move the collection to the UMA.

From UMA’s point of view, the acquisition of the initial 126 collections making up the VWLLFA more than doubled, and significantly broadened, our holdings on the women’s movement. It increased the number of collections from women’s liberation organisations such as the Women’s Liberation Switchboard and the Women’s Liberation Centre. Uniquely, the acquisition provided an insight into lesbian feminist and separatist politics and their rich community life in Melbourne and Victoria. Lesbian publications such as Labrys, Lesbiana and Lesbian News joined Melbourne Women’s Liberation Newsletter and Vashti’s Voice on the Archives’ shelves. Collections such as the Lesbian and Women’s Community Theatre papers and the Performing Older Women’s Circus scripts join the records of more fundamental concerns such as the Matrix Guild addressing the issues facing older lesbians, particularly in the areas of health and housing, and the records of women’s refuges.

UMA has continued to collect records from the women’s movement in our own right as well as with the VWLLFA, and has developed several strengths intertwined with those discussed already. Women and publishing and women’s movement memorabilia are just two examples.

Women's Liberation, printed by Comment Publishing, c1970s
“Women’s Liberation, Come, March, March Eleventh” printed by Comment Publishing, Sydney, c1970s. Sue Jackson, collection 2000.0199, University of Melbourne Archives.

The UMA holds the records of McPhee Gribble Pty Ltd, a major publishing company run by Hilary McPhee and Diana Gribble from 1975 to 1989, as well as of the feminist publishing venture, Sisters Publishing Ltd, from 1979 to 1984. Sugar & Snails Press began life as the Women’s Movement Children’s’ Literature Co-operative Ltd in 1974 by women who were concerned about sexism in children’s literature and began to publish and write their own books. Lesbian feminist publishing is represented by the Lesbian Newsletter and its successors already mentioned. UMA also holds the papers of Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein, publishers of Spinifex Press; and of the 6th International Feminist Book Fair held in Melbourne in 1994.

The VWLLFA collected and transferred to UMA a vast number of posters from women’s movement events from the 1970s on; as well as related t-shirts, banners and photographs. Collections of women’s alternative music on vinyl recordings are also held, although they are not yet available for access.

Finally, the union and labour movement records held at UMA document the long history of the struggle for the rights of women as workers. They include company and union records on the 1907 family wage decision, the many campaigns for equal pay, the establishment of female-only unions and many other industrial campaigns and issues.

The feminist holdings of UMA doubled again with the acquisition of the papers of Germaine Greer in 2014, making the UMA one of the larger Australian holders of second wave feminist and lesbian feminist archives alongside:

And international archives:

Unexpected romance in the Baillieu Library: Dulcie Hollyock, librarian by day, writer of love stories by night

Next time you attend one of the talks or displays regularly hosted in the Dulcie Hollyock Room in the University of Melbourne Library, you may be intrigued to muse upon an unexpected link to the world of romance.

This conference room, located on the ground floor of the Baillieu Library, is named in honour of admired librarian, educator and writer, Dulcie Iona Hollyock (an English surname with unusual spelling, historically associated with Leicestershire).

Dulcie Hollyock (1914-2004)

Born in Essendon in June 1914, Hollyock graduated from the University of Melbourne in the 1940s with degrees in arts and education.  After quickly advancing within the library profession, she combined a long and respected career as Chief Librarian of the Victorian Teaching Training Colleges (1950-1974) with a natural flair for writing.

Hollyock’s compact but impressive body of published work ranged over several genres – education, history and fiction – her talents receiving recognition as winner of the Society of Women Writers’ annual short story prize in 1972.  Her stories and articles – such as ‘Fish at Fergus’s’, ‘Cathy and Lizzie’, ‘Flight’ and ‘Mary Curley at Sullivan Bay’ – appeared in a variety of periodicals, including the The Australian newspaper, popular weekly women’s magazine, New Idea, and the Society of Women Writers’ occasional anthology, Ink.

A writer of Gothic romance

Perhaps the  pinnacle of Hollyock’s writing success was attained in her 70s, when two novels – both set in 19th century Ireland – were published in the Harlequin Books Gothic Romance series.

The first, An innocent madness (issued July 1984) tells the story of the inexperienced Charlotte Bolton who arrives at the ancient manor of the Chivers family to marry the heir, Richard.  She is startled to find that he protests no knowledge of the betrothal, and that their courtship is hindered by the ethereally beautiful apparition, Nell Dillon.

This tale of impeded love was followed in the next year by Double masquerade (issued September 1985).  This time Hollyock’s heroine is Hannah, foster daughter of a poor family who are evicted from their land during the Irish Famine.  The girl seems to be rescued from her deprived situation by the wealthy Richard Ralston, who installs her in his romantically named Gothic mansion, Balaleigh.  The tantalising secret to their fate is contained within a golden locket which had been given to Hannah by her birth mother long before.

It is interesting to reflect on St Valentine’s Day if it is mere coincidence that both male protagonists in Hollyock’s novels are named Richard, and whether the name had an association with Hollyock’s own family, or perhaps an admired acquaintance.  Such musings are, however, speculative, and to find out whether the Richards in her stories prove dastardly or honourable, you will need to devour the suspenseful endings in the Baillieu Library.  The books can be reserved for viewing in the Reading Room by placing an order via the Library catalogue, though you may need to be quick to be at the head of the queue!

The University Library’s Romantic Fiction Collection

Should your romantic appetite be whetted by Dulcie Hollyock’s imaginative legacy, there are some 3,000 further titles to choose from in the Baillieu’s Romance Fiction Collection.  Read more about these stories by Australian, New Zealand and overseas writers, published by Mills & Boon, Silhouette and other specialist publishing houses in our explanatory guide.

Who would have supposed that so much romance was waiting to be found in the Baillieu Library!

Susan Thomas, Rare Books Curator

Bibliography & further reading

‘Dulcie Hollyock’ in Austlit: the Australian literature resource http://www.austlit.edu.au.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/austlit/page/A46591

Flesch, Juliet (compiler).  Love brought to book: a bio-bibliography of 20th-century Australian romance novels.  Melbourne: National Centre for Australian Studies, 1995.

Hollyock, Dulcie.  Double masquerade.   Toronto : Harlequin Books, 1985.

Hollyock, Dulcie.  An innocent madness.  Toronto; New York: Harlequin Books, 1984.

Lindsay, Hilarie (editor).  Ink no. 2: 50th anniversary edition.  Sydney: Society of Women Writers, 1977.

 

 

Flemish baroque engravings donated to the Print Collection

A group of 14 Flemish baroque engravings by Scelte Adams Bolswert (1586–1659) was gifted to the Baillieu Library Print Collection by Dr Colin Holden in 2016. Bolswert was employed by the eminent artist, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and several of these prints are after Rubens’ paintings.

The Flemish Region, or Flanders, a Dutch-speaking area of Belgium, furnished a tumultuous political and social backdrop to its flourishing baroque art of the 17th century.  Rubens was the foremost painter in Antwerp, its capital, and he relied on pupils and studio assistants to help produce his extensive and influential body of work. He was not a printmaker, but recognised the medium’s importance to his career and actively commissioned engravings after his designs. [1]

Many of Rubens exuberant subjects are biblical, such as Moses and the Brazen Serpent (1640-60). This engraving illustrates the episode in which the discontented Israelites, who were left to trudge through the lands of Edom, spoke against God and Moses. In punishment, God sent a plague of poisonous serpents to attack them, which is vividly depicted by the roiling bodies. The Israelites sought Moses’ help, who in turn received the remedy from God. Moses, seen at left with a staff, made a snake out of brass and set it on a pole: the brazen serpent. All the people that were stricken were healed by gazing upon it.

The New Testament subject, Salome Receiving the Head of St John from the Executioner (1638-59) depicts the notorious story of Herodias’ daughter Salome, holding the head of the preacher on a charger. The expressions of the figures portrayed evoke a range of emotions.

Pan, Playing the Flute (1638-59) engraved after Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens, in contrast, is a mirthful scene from classical mythology. The gift included four impressions of this image, in three states. A ‘state’ in printmaking is created when a change is made to the engraving plate, for example further details are added to the inscriptions, or details in the image are adjusted. Students studying prints will benefit from seeing, in these prints, the execution of different states.

Also after Jordaens, The family concert (1630-59) includes another title in the cartouche at the top of the image which translates: ‘As the old sing, so the young pipe.’ This and other moralising Dutch sayings and proverbs were popular in the 17th century as this engraving illustrates. Likewise the compositional motif of a family gathered around a table appears in several works of art of this period. The engaging dog seen at left of the image is intent not on the nourishing mores offered by the picture, but instead longs to devour the feast!

The late Dr Colin Holden (1951-2016) was a great friend of the Print Collection. He was print scholar, collector and a senior fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Kerrianne Stone (Curator, Prints)

Reference

[1]. Art Gallery of South Australia, The age of Rubens & Rembrandt: Old Master prints from the Art Gallery of South Australia: Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Julie Robinson, Adelaide: Art Gallery Board of South Australia, 1993, p. 33

Nobel Prize Winners Notebooks Windows on Laboratory Life – PART I

by Katrina Dean, University Archivist

Attempt to establish common cold virus, 15 April 1936, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, Laboratory Notebook - Bacteriophage Experiments and Infectious Diseases, 1986.0107.00011 Part 2.
Attempt to establish common cold virus, 15 April 1936, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, Laboratory Notebook – Bacteriophage Experiments and Infectious Diseases, 1986.0107.00011 Part 2.

In the Melbourne winter of 1935 Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Head of the Virology Department at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) felt himself coming down with a cold. Instead of drinking a cup of tea or going home to lie down, he took a sample of his nasal mucous and tried to establish the virus on the outside layer of a chick egg embryo. This was Burnet’s technique for growing and studying viruses that he developed as a research fellow a few years earlier at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. A model of this technique as well as Burnet’s notebook is on display at the Melbourne Museum as part of its Biomedical Breakthroughs exhibition until 22 January 2017. Burnet’s sketches in the notebook depict the replication of a cold virus and he notes the end of the experiment, contaminated by a staphylococcus bacterium. The propensity of experiments to fail, for the wrong organisms to grow, or uncertainty about what was being looked at are just a few of the practical insights into laboratory life gained from Burnet’s notebooks.

Opening of Biomedical Breakthroughs exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. Photograph by Marc Gambino courtesy of Melbourne Museum. The white hanging installation top right shows a lymph node, that lights up to show B cell activity within the lymph node, part of the immune system described by Burnet’s clonal selection theory. This sculpture hangs above a showcase displaying Burnets laboratory notebook, his Nobel prize, and some information about his chicken egg culture technique, still used today to make and research vaccines.
Opening of Biomedical Breakthroughs exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. Photograph by Marc Gambino courtesy of Melbourne Museum. The white hanging installation top right shows a lymph node, that lights up to show B cell activity within the lymph node, part of the immune system described by Burnet’s clonal selection theory. This sculpture hangs above a showcase displaying Burnet’s laboratory notebook, his Nobel prize, and some information about his chicken egg culture technique, still used today to make and research vaccines.

One of Melbourne’s most famous scientists, Burnet shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Peter Medawar for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance in 1960. Five notebooks from Burnet’s substantial archive at the University of Melbourne document his journey from the common cold to immunology. These have been digitised and are for the first time available online worldwide. Detailing experiments, summaries of research at WEHI, ideas for research and notes on epidemiology these notebooks contain unexpected glimpses of Burnet’s life from family holidays and illnesses to his notes on the international situation and its local echoes in World War Two Melbourne. They reveal not just how much the practice of science has changed in the last 80 years, but also the nature of recording science.

Seventeenth century founders of the Royal Society like Robert Boyle, John Ray and Robert Hooke transformed the humanist tradition of commonplace books containing maxims, proverbs and quotations into a long-term quest for the empirical accumulation of facts and knowledge. According to early modern historian Richard Yeo, note-taking dealt with ‘the proliferation of printed books’ also ‘assembling and securing information books did not supply’. Memory was no longer sufficient in the accumulation of knowledge so ‘they made note-taking and information science a crucial part of the modern scientific ethos’. The scientific revolution valuing empirical knowledge and its demonstration in experiments was also an information revolution.

Since this reimagining of knowledge through notes, scientific notebooks have served a wide range of purposes. They have been used to separate private from public information, detail recipes and processes, for numerical accounting, standardisation, data sharing, visualisation and cognitive modelling, as a research technique, in management and for delineating ‘investigative pathways’. Some of these uses are evident in Burnet’s notebooks. Notebooks can be messy, ugly and impenetrable, but also things of beauty.

uds2012278-46-0005_the-jordan-valley

Scenes from Frank Macfarlane Burnet’s early hiking diary, 1920. The first image is titled The Jordan Valley (North East of Warburton), December 10, 1920. Burnet notes ‘Le grand tour commenced a 4 o’clock in an exodus in weird garb’. The second is a view from behind of Burnet or a companion carrying a swag. Diary / Sketchbook - F.M. Burnet, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers 1986.0107, 2-5 Box 7
Scenes from Frank Macfarlane Burnet’s early hiking diary, 1920. The first image is titled The Jordan Valley (North East of Warburton), December 10, 1920. Burnet notes ‘Le grand tour commenced a 4 o’clock in an exodus in weird garb’. The second is a view from behind of Burnet or a companion carrying a swag. Diary / Sketchbook – F.M. Burnet, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers 1986.0107, 2-5 Box 7

Burnet’s laboratory notebooks have a precursor in his diaries and field notebooks kept while he was a student at Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. A shy young man from country Victoria, Burnet took comfort in the Australian bush and from an early age developed and sustained a passion for beetle collecting, like nineteenth century evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. An accomplished sketcher, these are delightful renderings of Burnet’s otherwise lonely student days, with intricate scenes of hikes in the Yarra Valley and of the specimens Burnet collected. Unsurprisingly, Burnet’s laboratory notebooks retain many elements of field notebooks identified by US ecologist and historian of field science Michael Canfield, including the diary, journal, data and catalogue, with hand-drawn illustrations. Three examples suggest a laboratory life differing in many respects from today’s and provide fascinating insights into the broader context of a Melbourne biomedical research institute between the 1930s and the 1960s.

Burnet’s attempt to culture the cold virus from a sample taken from him-self was not a one-off. His laboratory notes especially in 1935 and 1936 (1986.0107.00011) record several attempts at self-experimentation and recruitment of volunteers among the staff and associates of the Institute including Burnet, nurses, family and friends (including children) through the collection of samples and attempts at infection, inoculation, and tests of antibody production. One such episode is described in Burnet’s biography by Christopher Sexton. Early in World War Two a group of 18 medical student volunteers were taken to Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and infected with non-virulent or virulent strains of influenza to study their reactions, providing Burnet with important clues about the effectiveness of virus strains cultivated on chick-egg embryos in humans and antibody production. Burnet’s main goal in this period was to develop a vaccine to protect against influenza outbreaks in the military services. He followed up with a similar experiment among 107 army volunteers at Caulfield racecourse in Melbourne in 1942. In the light of today’s protocols for clinical trials, this may seem irregular, but such experiments were not considered dangerous, unethical or biased and can be placed in a long tradition of self and volunteer experimentation in the history of science. In fact the two competing projects to sequence the human genome at the turn of the 21st century both sourced their DNA samples from scientists working on the projects.

Continues – Part II here

Nobel Prize Winners Notebooks Windows on Laboratory Life – PART II

by Katrina Dean, University Archivist

(read Nobel Prize Winners Notebooks Windows on Laboratory Life – PART I here)

Portrait of Dora Lush, courtesy of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Portrait of Dora Lush, courtesy of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

When a serious accident in Burnet’s laboratory did happen, self-experimentation was not the cause. An experienced researcher with a growing scientific reputation, Dora Lush had recently returned to Melbourne from a fellowship at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. In 1943 while inoculating animals to develop a vaccination for scrub typhus a tropical disease caused by a ricksettia (a form of bacteria) she accidently injected her-self in the hand when the needle slipped. As told in the Biomedical Breakthroughs exhibition, Lush became seriously ill and died within a few weeks. The progress of scrub typhus research is described in one of Burnet’s notebooks (1986.0107.00015). His summary for May 4th reports: ‘No advance in scrub typhus work. Miss Lush has infected finger ? due to ricksesttia. None of the strains are yet growing adequately in yolk sac.’ The June 3rd entry simply reads: ‘Miss Lush died of infection on May 20th. Williams carrying on.’

Burnet often refers to his research assistants throughout the notebooks. These were all women with whom he worked alongside individually: Margot McKie (1928-1934), Mavis Freeman (1928-1940), Dora Lush (1934-1939), Diana Bull (1941-1943), Joyce Stone (1944-1950), Patricia Lind (1944-1965), Margaret Edney (1948-1956), Margaret Gilpin (1948-1949), Margaret Holmes (1958-1965) and his daughter, Debra Burnet (1960-1962, 1963-1964). Rather than working in large groups, these scientific partnerships were part of Burnet’ ‘small’, low technology approach science in the Institute, which changed when he retired in 1965. Their experiments and observations are often mentioned in the notebooks, along with delays to a line of research because one of Burnet’s assistants is away.

Photograph of Frank Macfarlane Burnet ‘at the bench’, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, 1986.0107.00056
Photograph of Frank Macfarlane Burnet ‘at the bench’, University of Melbourne Archives, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, 1986.0107.00056

Another observation is the number and variety of animals, humans and biomaterials that entered and exited the laboratory. We often think of biomedical laboratories today as being self-contained, highly secure environments. Biomedical breakthroughs are often associated with a single experimental organism, such as the geneticist’s fruit-fly Drosophila or worm C.elegans. The Howard Florey Institute for Experimental Physiology and Medicine across the road from WEHI on Royal Parade was at one time known as ‘The Sheep Hilton’. According to Sexton, Burnet collected his strains of bacteriophages (viruses infecting and replicating with bacteria) from the faeces of farm animals on his brother’s farm in Gippsland and took these with him to England when commencing his virology research fellowship at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1932. In 1933, virus research in Melbourne was given a boost when Burnet returned to WEHI with an old brown suitcase containing a collection of standard strains of viruses from the National Institute’s collection, including vaccinia, neurovaccinia, cowpox, fowlpox and canary pox viruses, and the Rockefeller strain of herpes simplex. Burnet further mentions in his notebooks parrots and human sputum (Psittacosis), monkeys (Polio), chick egg embryos (Influenza and other viruses), guinea pigs, ferrets , possums (Myxomatosis), sheep (Louping Ill), and human brain tissue. In this period, WEHI interacted widely with the outside world through the movement of biomaterials, animals and people, connected to both local and international networks of virus research.

How would Burnet’s laboratory notebooks measure up today? Increasingly, standardised laboratory notebooks including electronic notebooks are being retained for scrutiny by other researchers, administrators, lawyers and commercial partners. Sharing and re-using data, research integrity and the protection of intellectual property drive these developments. The shift from private to public document implies a changed understanding of what information is relevant to include. Even in the field sciences, scientists who make this shift notice the difference. According to late US botanist Jim Reveal, who moved to a computer based notebook in 1998 ‘my mental editor says “no, that is not proper for a scientific journal”. ‘Emotions of finding something new, once mentioned in my handwritten field books, are now missing.’

Many historical facts including the names of people working in the laboratory, details of recruitment for clinical research, animal experimentation and sourcing and use of biomaterials could likely be extracted from today’s electronic notebooks. Their juxtaposition in Burnet’s hand with sketches alongside details of his holidays, family illnesses, ideas, publication deals, current affairs and career highlights brings the page to life in a way that suggests connections and narratives, a richly decorated window on laboratory life.

After 1948, Burnet’s detailed summaries of goings on in the laboratory end. His last experiments with Margaret Holmes on autoimmune pathology in New Zealand Black Mice are documented in two laboratory notebooks dating 1960-1965 (1986.0107.00013; 1986.0107.00014). What can account for these gaps? Burnet became the Director of WEHI in 1944, so maybe he was too busy for work at the bench? Or maybe research assistants kept records that weren’t collected? Maybe laboratory notes are dispersed throughout the rest of his papers? To answer these questions, researchers would need to start with a conceptual map of his archive. At the very least, Burnet’s notebooks remind us that science is a human endeavour.

Mother’s Day card, University of Melbourne Archives Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, inserted in Experiments and InLaboratory Notebook – Bacteriophage Experiments and Infectious Diseases, 1986.01017.00011 Part 1.
Mother’s Day card, University of Melbourne Archives Frank Macfarlane Burnet Papers, inserted in Laboratory Notebook – Bacteriophage Experiments and Infectious Diseases, 1986.01017.00011 Part 1.

The digitised collection is available online with further details about Burnet’s notebooks and collection at the University of Melbourne Archives.

 

Number of posts found: 382

Post type

Previous posts