Last time I wrote about The Independent Woman, I was criticised for illustrating my post with a cover from McLeod’s Daughters. It was suggested Offspring and Fisk would be equally relevant and more current. I chose Offspring for the ‘course language’, but I’ve never seen either.
I started my blog to discuss The Independent Woman in Australian Literature (and named it ironically after Russell Ward’s The Australian Legend, the myth of the independent man, the Lone Hand), though it often seems to have headed off in other directions. So this year, I used my position as an editor on AustralianWomenWriters.com to run a series of posts (26) restating my thesis as fully and as well as I was able.
As for “The End”, both the series and my tenure as an editor with AWWC have this month come to an end, though I imagine I’ll add more reviews of early women writers here from time to time. For 2025 I have in mind Catherine Martin’s The Incredible Journey (1923), and Canadian ‘Gen 0‘ writer Nellie McClung (1873-1951). And if you’re interested in process as well as content, our friend Michelle Scott Tucker is blogging as she works on her latest biography, of the great Australian feminist Louisa Lawson (1848-1920).
So here’s the series on AWWC, in the order in which they appeared, from Jan-Dec, 2024:
The Independent Woman in Australian Literature
Bev Roberts ed., Miss D and Miss N: An Extraordinary Partnership (review)
Elizabeth Macarthur
Eleanor Dark, Timeless Land trilogy (review)
Caroline Chisholm, Married and Independent
Caroline Chisholm, Radical
Catherine Helen Spence, Woman’s Place in the Commonwealth
Catherine Helen Spence: An Autobiography (review)
Clare Wright, You daughters of freedom (review)
Janette M Bomford, That Dangerous and Persuasive Woman: Vida Goldstein (review)
Australian Suffragists
The New Woman in Australia
AWW Generation 1, 1788-1890 (list)
The Bulletin Years, 1890-1920
Miles Franklin, writer and activist
AWW Generation 2, 1890-1920 (list)
Ventured North by Train and Truck
Daisy Bates
Ernestine Hill
Doris Pilkington, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (review)
Third Generation, 1920s – 1950s
Dorothy Hewett, Bobbin Up (review)
Mena Calthorpe,The Dyehouse (review)
Eve Langley
Third Generation, 1920s – 1950s (list)
Australia’s Independent Woman, an Overview