James Walter

Citizen, Consumer, Culture: The Establishment of Television in Public Consciousness

I want to start with a story of the heroic suppression of familial emotion in the face of new technology. The story is Richard Boyer’s. Having travelled to England in 1956 to share Christmas with his children and grandchildren, he discovered that the home in which the assembled family were to celebrate had television. Imagine his disgruntlement, then, when the children he’d travelled so far to see preferred to spend their holiday watching television and ‘all the family warmth of the orthodox Christmas was dissipated by the attraction of the screen’. And yet, being the sort of chap he was, Boyer couldn’t help looking for the benefits:Eurovision had ... made ... read more.
 

Christy Newman

Sex, Drugs and Bad Poetry: Editing Sydney's Community Health Magazines

‘A drug user’s poem’ I sit here and think and wonder Where my next hit’s coming from Stressed and agitated as time goes by I wonder what to do Crime I say For a fix for the next day The feeling is good when I’ve had a shot But the feeling of hanging out is not so good Bored and restless at times Sweats and cramps when I go to sleep So the best thing to do is get help for this problem that people have It’s an endless merry-go-round being on drugs So the best thing to do is get help for this problem I got1While publishing a reader letter or opinion piece in the mainstream media is invested with the magnitude of public participation,2 the more creative ... read more.
 

Beverley Kingston

My Adventures in Queensland History

This is a story of an adventure that began as adventures often do, on a slowly-moving train somewhere in Queenland in 1946. The train was in fact moving so slowly that my father was able to leap out break a piece off the giant sensitive plant growing alongside the track and climb back in to show us its pretty mauve flowers and how the leaves curled up when they were touched. I was just five and we were returning to North Queensland to live. I was to spend some years trying to capture sensitive plant for my collection of dried plants. (My best specimens were another noxious weed, noogoora burr.) There were to be many other collections before the morning about fifteen years later when the late ... read more.
 

John McQuilton

German Australians in Rural Society 1914-1918

In the literature devoted to the home front during the first world war there is a general acceptance that the German Australian had moved from being a model citizen in 1914 to the ‘enemy within’ by 1916. The pressures of war and government propaganda demonised the German Australian, creating an ugly social climate that allowed the suspension of civil rights, encouraged witch hunts and personal scores to be settled using ethnicity as an excuse. Michael McKernan has argued that this was deliberate government policy. 1 Australia was a long way from the battlefields of Europe and the government, to boost the war effort, manufactured an internal threat. The German Australian became ... read more.
 

Robert Crawford

A Slow Coming of Age: Advertising and the Little Boy from Manly in the Twentieth Century

Looking back on his career, renowned Bulletin cartoonist Livingston ‘Hop’ Hopkins recalled the difficulties cartoonists face when depicting Australia as a human figure. ‘Every nation’, he declared, ‘has some mythical figure, usually of the gentler sex, to typify the national spirit’.1 The use of classical feminine figures was a well-established allegorical tradition.2 Hop, however, found the feminine figure not only ‘difficult to acclimatise’, but also unsuitable for presenting the ‘more rugged phases of national life’. ‘There was a ... vacancy’, he said, ‘at the Bulletin office for a myth that was willing to make ... read more.
 

Haydon Manning

Industrial Relations: The Coalition, Labor and the unions

Prior to the Tampa saga and the war against terrorism, industrial relations appeared likely to be one of the key campaign issues. John Howard's strategy of making leadership strength and refugee policy the dominant issues caused industrial relations to fade during the campaign but interestingly it would rise once again to prominence shortly after polling day. Notwithstanding, industrial relations policy represented one of the few areas of policy difference between Labor and the Coalition during the 2001 campaign. The campaign also highlighted a subtle political shift in the way unions approach election campaigning as they now seek to forge greater independence from the main Labor Party ... read more.
 

Catie Gilchrist

'The Victim of his own Temerity'? Silence, Scandal and the Recall of Sir John Eardley-Wilmot

In 1846 a colonist under the pseudonym ‘Cato’ wrote a letter to the British Member of Parliament, Joseph Hume Esq.2 The letter disclosed the moral state of the convicts under the probation system. According to the author, ‘it is impossible to describe in language sufficiently plain not to be revolting, the degradation that exists at penal stations’. Notwithstanding this impossibility, his letter went on to state that ‘when the subjects of this discipline are let loose on society, their guilty connection is not confined to their own species and sex, but extends even to domestic animals’. The author suggested that only ‘indistinct allusion’ could ... read more.
 

Simeon Moran

Imagining Reconciliation

The Australian reconciliation process imposes limits upon Indigenous political resistance and claims upon the settler-colonial nation state. By presenting the illusory image that Indigenous issues are being attended to, the Australian settler nation seems to be absolving itself of its responsibility to address fully the legacy of its colonial history. This has resulted through the reconciliation process's interaction with the Australian settler state, its institutions, and structures of power. A process originally developed to tackle the problems of 'our' colonial legacy has become a mask to their prevalence and a panacea for white settler guilt. Thus reconciliation is actually deepening ... read more.
 

Janine Hiddlestone

Voices from the Battlefield: Personal Narratives as an Historical Tool in Studying the Place of the Vietnam War in Australian Society

The use of personal narratives has proved a popular method of studying the Vietnam War, both in Australia and the United States. Vietnam was one of the most controversial and longest wars in contemporary history. It was a war that was fought on the home front as well as on the battlefield, and for many, the wounds inflicted are still painful more than a quarter of a century later. The rush of histories that quickly followed previous wars were not so swift to appear after Vietnam. There was no great victory to celebrate and many found difficulty placing Vietnam into the context of a proud military history. When histories started appearing, they focused mainly on how Australia and the United ... read more.
 

Tim Prenzler and Kerry Wimhurst

Blue Tunics and Batons: Women and Politics in the Queensland Police, 1970-1987

During the 1970s and 1980s, policewomen in Queensland experienced dramatic changes of fortune under two different commissioners. Under Commissioner Whitrod (1970-76), the percentage of policewomen went from below the Australian national average to twice the national average, and women were integrated into general duties and the seniority list. Women in Queensland began entering policing in large numbers at a time when those in overseas jurisdictions and other Australian states were struggling in small numbers to make inroads. In the period immediately following, under Commissioner Lewis (1976-87), the proportion of women police was cut to almost half the national average. This paper ... read more.