https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2278-7751
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ABSTRACT
This article extends the transnational history of Anzac by shifting the focus from Britain to the United States. It tells a history of Anzac in the United States, focused on New York and California, that shows how both Anzac Day and the broader language and iconography of “Anzac” has been core to the production of Australian community and identity in the United States from the 1920s until the 2020s. Over multiple generations, stateside Australians have reached to Anzac to enact their Australianness and build ties with fellow expatriates. As a result, Anzac has come to serve as a metonym for Australians and Australianness within the United States. At the same time, Anzac in the United States has indexed Australia’s shift from British to American empires. Once a British affair, it is now an annual event to renew the transpacific alliance.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Los Angeles Times, 22 January 1941, 25; Telegraph (Brisbane), 19 March 1941, 8; Age (Melbourne), 29 January 1941, 9.
2 Angela Woollacott, Race and the Modern Exotic (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2011), 206–66.
3 Marilyn Lake, “1914: Death of Nation,” History Australia 12, no. 1 (2015): 7–24.
4 Frank Bongiorno, “Remembering Anzac: Australia and World War I,” in History, Memory and Public Life, ed. Anna Maerker, Simon Sleight, and Adam Sutcliffe (London: Routledge, 2018), 185.
5 Neville Meaney, “Britishness and National Identity,” Australian Historical Studies 32, no. 116 (2001): 76–90.
6 Stuart Ward, Australia and the British Embrace (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001).
7 Matthew Graves, “Memorial Diplomacy in Franco-Australian Relations,” in Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration, ed. S. Sumartojo and B. Wellings (Bern: Peter Lang, 2014), 169–71.
8 Bruce Scates, Return to Gallipoli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Marilyn Lake et al., What’s Wrong with Anzac? (Sydney: NewSouth, 2010); Carolyn Holbrook, Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2014); Jo Hawkins, Consuming Anzac (Perth: UWA Publishing, 2018).
9 Bruce Scates et al., “Anzac Day at Home and Abroad,” History Compass 10, no. 7 (2012): 523.
10 Bruce Scates et al., “‘Such a Great Space of Water between Us’: Anzac Day in Britain, 1916–39,” Australian Historical Studies 45, no. 2 (2014): 220–41.
11 Graves, “Memorial Diplomacy,” 179–87; Scates, Return to Gallipoli; Mark McKenna and Stuart Ward, “‘It was really moving, mate’: The Gallipoli Pilgrimage and Sentimental Nationalism in Australia,” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 129 (2007): 141–51; Bruce Scates, “The First Casualty of War,” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 130 (2007): 312–21; Hawkins, Consuming Anzac, 65–85. Scates also examined “pilgrimages” to the “traumascapes” of WWII: Anzac Journeys: Returning to the Battlefields of World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
12 Joan Beaumont, “Australia’s Global Memory Footprint,” Australian Historical Studies 46, no. 1 (2015): 45–63.
13 Romain Fathi, Our Corner of the Somme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
14 Mark Sheftall, “Mythologising the Dominion Fighting Man: Australian and Canadian Narratives of the First World War Soldier, 1914–39,” Australian Historical Studies 46, no. 1 (2015): 81–99. Sheftall has examined a Canadian “Myth of the Soldier” akin to Anzac but does not examine Anzac itself.
15 Scates et al., “Anzac at Home and Abroad,” 523.
16 Phillipa Mein Smith, “The ‘NZ’ in Anzac,” First World War Studies 7, no. 2 (2016): 193–211.
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20 Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, 1950), 15.
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23 Yves Rees, “Moving on Up: Economic Opportunism, Transpacific Mobility and Non-elite Internationalism,” Journal of Australian Studies 43, no. 4 (2019): 464–78.
24 Coo-ee Clarion (New York), 16 February 1940.
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26 Anne Rees, “‘Treated like Chinamen’: United States Immigration Restriction and White British Subjects,” Journal of Global History 14, no. 2 (2019): 239–60.
27 Shirley Duncan interviewed by the author, 10 June 2014.
28 M. Ruth Meoaw, “Undiplomatic Channels: Australian Representation in the United States, 1918–39,” Australian Historical Studies 15, no. 60 (1973): 610–30.
29 Steven Trout, On the Battlefield of Memory (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010); L. M. Budreau, Bodies of War (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 3; John Milton Cooper, Jr., “The World War and American Memory,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 4 (2014): 731.
30 Douglas Craig, “Commemoration in the United States,” Australian Journal of Political Science 50, no. 3 (2015): 573.
31 Bill Gammage, “Anzac Day’s Early Rituals,” in Beyond Gallipoli, ed. Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2016), 178–89.
32 Budreau, Bodies of War, 3.
33 “To ‘Aussies’ in New York,” Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 25 April 1922, 4.
34 “An Anzac Day Dinner,” Table Talk (Melbourne), 15 June 1922, 38.
35 “An Anzac Day Dinner,” 38.
36 “Southern Britons Will Celebrate Anzac Day,” Honolulu Advertiser, 23 April 1923; “Anzac Day,” Daily News (Los Angeles), 25 April 1925, 22.
37 “Anzac Day at Chicago,” Sydney Morning Herald, 1 May 1929, 17.
38 “Anzac Day Dinner,” Brisbane Courier, 28 April 1930, 15.
39 “Busy Schedule Arranged for Closing Week,” Pasadena Post, 13 April 1937, 3.
40 “Friendship between Nations,” Herald (Melbourne), 4 November 1920, 14.
41 “To Pick American Team,” New York Times, 1 September 1919, 13; “The Anzacs Are Coming,” New York Times, 12 December 1935, 36.
42 News (Adelaide), 30 September 1933, 5.
43 “An Anzac as Hero,” Age (Melbourne), 25 January 1928, 13.
44 “Anzac Is Hero,” Daily News (Perth), 5 April 1928, 8.
45 Coo-ee Clarion, 4 January 1940.
46 Coo-ee Clarion, 18 April 1940; 13 June 1940; 16 July 1940; 25 October 1940.
47 Coo-ee Clarion, 25 October 1940; 19 December 1940.
48 New York Times, 1 September 1977, 25.
49 Coo-ee Clarion, 7 May 1942.
50 Coo-ee Clarion, 7 May 1942.
51 New York Times, 25 April 1945.
52 Gammage, “Anzac Day’s Early Rituals,” 178–89.
53 Coo-ee Clarion, 16 July 1940.
54 Anzac War Relief Fund (New York: Anzac War Relief Fund, 1966).
55 Carole van Grondelle, Angel of the Anzacs: The Life of Nola Luxford (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000), 156–67.
56 Coo-ee Clarion, March 1943.
57 van Grondelle, Angel of the Anzacs, 168.
58 van Grondelle, Angel of the Anzacs, 160.
59 American Letter, 3 August 1944, London and American letters, SP300/5, National Archives of Australia (henceforth NAA).
60 American Letter, 3 August 1944.
61 Coo-ee Clarion, 18 June 1943; Anzac War Relief Fund.
62 American Letter, 3 August 1944.
63 Yves Rees, “Making Waves across the Pacific: Women, Radio Broadcasting and Australian-US Connections,” Feminist Media Histories 5, no. 3 (2019): 85–113.
64 American Letter, 5 July 1945.
65 American Letter, 25 May 1944.
66 American Letter, 1 May 1945.
67 van Grondelle, Angel of the Anzacs, 143–44.
68 New York Times, 11 June 1943, 5.
69 Coo-ee Clarion, 4 March 1942.
70 Emma Shortis, Our Exceptional Friend (Richmond: Hardie Grant, 2021).
71 “Anzac Day,” New York Times, 26 April 1943, 18.
72 New York Times, 28 April 1957, 56; New York Times, 27 April 1958, 54.
73 Sunday Times (Perth), 27 April 1952, 3.
74 Anzac Day Ceremony, New York, 21 April 1966, Personal Papers of Prime Minister Holt, NAA: M4295, 15.
75 Jenny Macleod, “The Fall and Rise of Anzac Day,” War & Society 20, no. 1 (2002): 149–68.
76 Bongiorno, “Remembering Anzac,” 193.
77 Hawkins, Consuming Anzac, 1–9.
78 “What’s the Deal with all these Australians in NYC?,” Gothamist, 10 June 2014, https://gothamist.com/news/whats-the-deal-with-all-these-australians-in-nyc.
79 United States Census Bureau, American Community Survey, B05006: Place of Birth for the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2019, https://data.census.gov/table?t=Place+of+Birth&tid=ACSDT1Y2019.B05006&hidePreview=false.
80 “Anzac Day in New York City 2022,” Australian Women in New York, 19 April 2022, https://australianwomeninnewyork.org/2022/04/19/anzac-day-in-new-york-city-2022/.
81 Cooper, Jr., “The World War”; Craig, “Commemoration in the United States”.
82 “Join Us on Anzac Day,” Bluestone Lane, April 2015, https://bluestonelane.com/anzac-day-nyc-april-25th-2015/.
83 “Anzac Day,” News.com.au, 27 April 2019, https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/anzac-day-kevin-rudd-leads-tributes-at-new-york-dawn-service/news-story/95e72aefcc6dbec52dcfe20600c29cf7.
84 “Still Call Australia Home!,” 26 April 2015, Daily Mail, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3055245/Russell-Crowe-spends-Anzac-Day-Hugh-Jackman-wife-Deborra-Lee-Furness-attending-dawn-service-New-York.html.
85 Hawkins, Consuming Anzac, 87–104.
86 Established in 1997, the United States Australian Football League (USAFL) today includes 50 clubs.
87 “Anzac Day Sausage Sizzle,” Advance: Connecting Australians Globally, https://advance.org/event/new-york-magpies-anzac-day-sausage-sizzle/ (accessed 6 June 2023).
88 Katherine Fenech, “Anzac Day in the US,” Bright Lights of America, 19 April 2019, https://brightlightsofamerica.com/2019/04/anzac-day-in-the-us/.
89 Christina Twomey, “Trauma and the Reinvigoration of Anzac,” History Australia 10, no. 3 (2013): 85–108.
90 “Anzac Day,” 29 April 2012, The Fitzyreport, https://thefitzyreport.com/2012/04/29/anzac-day/.
91 Kirstie Morris, “Anzac Day at Rockefeller Center,” YouTube video, 9:15, 25 April 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Dc1GvBxzs.
92 Lake et al., What’s Wrong with Anzac?; “Five Years on from the Lest-We-Forget Anzac Controversy,” ABC News, 31 May 2022, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-31/yassmin-abdel-magied-says-drama-finds-me-/101112186.
93 Susan Stanford Friedman, “Bodies on the Move,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 23, no. 2 (2004): 189–212.
94 “Anzac Day: Kevin Rudd among Aussies at New York Dawn Service,” News.com.au, 27 April 2019, https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/anzac-day-kevin-rudd-leads-tributes-at-new-york-dawn-service/news-story/95e72aefcc6dbec52dcfe20600c29cf7; Adam Creighton, “Top US General Pays Respects to Anzac Day,” Australian, 25 April 2021, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/top-us-general-pays-his-respects-to-anzac-day-in-washington/news-story/260afba9b18c951f1a45bf129320185e.
95 Creighton, “Top US General Pays Respects”.
96 Malcolm Turnbull, “Address at the Anzac Day Dawn Service, New York, 2022,” 25 April 2022, https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/address-at-the-anzac-day-dawn-service-new-york-2022.
97 “Anzac Day, 25 April 2022,” Trinity Church Wall Street, 25 April 2022, https://trinitywallstreet.org/videos/anzac-day.
98 Graves, “Memorial Diplomacy,” 169–70.
99 Romain Fathi, “Crowds at Dawn Services Have Plummeted in Recent Years,” The Conversation, 21 April 2021, https://theconversation.com/crowds-at-dawn-services-have-plummeted-in-recent-years-its-time-to-reinvent-anzac-day-157313.