Bridget Brooklyn explores the historical relationships between eugenics and feminist movements in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Australia. From the time of the suffrage campaigns, many feminist claims to equality drew on the essentialist beliefs enshrined in ‘separate spheres’ ideology. They argued … Continue reading →

Ruby Ekkel unpacks Anna Kingsford’s arguments for feminist vegetarianism in the age of English roast beef.  Life as a nineteenth-century vegetarian could be hard. Meat was held in high esteem as a sign of wealth and a promoter of British … Continue reading →

From the late seventeenth century, women of the elite classes in Ireland began to share culinary and medicinal information with loved ones across the country and, frequently, across the Irish Sea. Over the course of the Ascendancy period recipe sharing became … Continue reading →

Almost three years ago I decided to write an academic history article. I’d always been intrigued by a story I had written about in my Honours thesis thirty years previously. It was about the South Australian Fauna and Flora Protection … Continue reading →

Consumption figures confirm that Australia became a wine-drinking country in the 1970s. The groundwork for the shift from beer drinking to wine consumption though was laid in the 1950s. Beginning in August 1955, the Wine Overseas Marketing Board mounted a … Continue reading →

A decade ago, I began researching Millicent Preston Stanley (1883-1955), the first woman elected to the NSW parliament (1925-1927). My initial focus was on the dramatic strategies of her feminist campaigns such as the ‘Horses Rights for Women’ demand for … Continue reading →