Notes
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 3 ) March : 2
- 1915 . White Ribbon Signal , 1 November : 18 new unions and 1301 new members over the three‐year period. The figures for 1915 alone were even more impressive — 21 new unions and over 1000 new members. The Secretary's report attributes this to Mrs Downing's special appeal
- 1915 . Annual Reports , 14 WCTU of Victoria .
- 1915 . White Ribbon Signal , 1 June : 146 151
- Scott , Anne F. 1992 . Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History , 124 140 Urbana & Chicago : University of Illinois Press .
- Hyslop , Anthea . 1982 . “ ‘Agents and Objects: Women and Social Reform in Melbourne, 1900–1914’ ” . In Worth Her Salt: Women at Work in Australia , Edited by: Bevege , M. , James , M. and Shute , C. 230 – 43 . Sydney : Hale & Iremonger . ‘Inventing Progressivism: Municipal Housekeeping’. Scott summarises Mary Beard's 1912 description of the formula for ‘municipal housekeeping’ in 5 essential points (p. 151). 1. Build strong organisations of members prepared to study details of engineering, taxation and budgeting. 2. Work out appropriate techniques of influence to promote the election of appropriate officials. 3. Exercise constant vigilance to ensure pledges are carried out and guard against undue influence by others. 4. Persuade officials to take women seriously. 5. Persuade apathetic citizens of the importance of the work. See also
- Oakley , Ann . 1976 . Housewife , Harmondsworth : Penguin .
- Tilly , Louise A. and Scott , Joan W. 1987 . Women, Work and the Family , London & New York : Methuen .
- Gay , Peter . 1979 . “ ‘On the Bourgeoisie: A Psychological Interpretation’ ” . In Consciousness and Class Experience in Nineteenth Century Europe , Edited by: Merriman , John M. 187 – 203 . New York : Holmes & Meier .
- Gay , Peter . 1984 . The Bourgeios Experience: Victoria to Freud, vol. 1, Education of the Senses , vol. 1 , Oxford : Oxford University Press .
- Gay , Peter . 1985 . Freud for Historians , 35 Oxford : Oxford University Press .
- McCalman , Janet . 1992 . Journey ings: The Biography of a Middle‐Class Generation 1920–1990 , 55 Carlton : Melbourne University Press .
- Pateman , Carole . 1988 . The Sexual Contract , Cambridge : Polity Press . It also made the women's movement subversive in terms of the conventional masculine ideal of the contract between the individual citizen and the state. On the gendered character of this civil contract, see
- 1989 . The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory , Cambridge : Polity Press .
- Pateman . The Disorder of Women 2 ch. 9. While accepting the contradictions Pateman points out in John Stuart Mill's arguments for the incorporation of women as voting citizens while largely preserving the limiting effects on their civic education of ‘separate spheres’, empirical analysis of early feminists’ lived experience and activities casts some doubt on the premise that the domestic sphere was in practice so restrictive of developing consciousness as both Pateman and Mill assume. On the use of the conventional political categories
- Allen , Judith . 1979 . ‘The “Feminisms of the Early Women's Movements” 1850–1920’ . Refractory Girl , : 10
- Foley , Meredith . 1985 . “ ‘The Women's Movement in New South Wales and Victoria 1918–1938’ ” . 6 – 8 . 11 – 13 . University of Sydney . Other observations about the incongruence of conventional political categories have also been made by
- Damousi , Joy . 1993 . ‘The Enthusiasms of Adela Pankhurst‐Walsh’ . Australian Historical Studies , 25 ( 100 ) April : 425
- 1938 . Housewife , 6 ( 5 ) May : 7
- Godden , Judith . “ ‘Portrait of a Lady: A Decade in the Life of Helen Fell (1849–1935)’ ” . In Worth Her Salt Edited by: Bevege , James and Shute . 41
- Scott . Natual Allies 128
- 1914 . Australian Baptist , 2 ( 8 ) 24 February : 10
- Welter , Barbara . 1974 . “ ‘The Feminisation of American Religion, 1800–1860’ ” . In Clio's Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women , Edited by: Hartman , Mary S. and Banner , Lois . 137 – 57 . New York : Harper & Rowe .
- Gusfield , J. 1963 . Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement , Urbana : University of Illinois Press .
- Wiebe , R. 1967 . The Search for Order 1877–1920 , New York : Hill & Wang .
- 1976 . Deliver Us from Evil : An Interpretation of American Prohibition , New York : W.W. Norton . The case for seeing temperance reform in terms both of Gusfield's status argument and Wiebe's ‘search for order’ has been made persuasively by Norman Clark in an interpretative essay
- Reiger , Kereen . 1985 . The Disenchantment of the Home : Modernizing the Australian Family 1880–1940 , Melbourne : Oxford University Press .
- Hyslop , Anthea . 1980 . “ ‘The Social Reform Movement in Melbourne: 1890–1914’ ” . 331 – 335 . LaTrobe University . PhD
- Davison , Graeme . 1978 . The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne , 138 – 140 . 152 – 153 . Carlton : Melbourne University Press .
- Lake , Marilyn . 1986 . ‘The Politics of Respectability: Identifying the Masculinist Context’ . Historical Studies , 22 ( 86 ) April : 116 – 31 .
- Lake , M. and Kelly , F. , eds. 1985 . “ ‘Politics of Purity: The Private Sphere Fights Back’ ” . In Double Time: Women in Victoria: 150 Years , 105 – 106 . Ringwood : Penguin .
- McCalman , Janet . 1982 . ‘Class and Respectability in a Working‐Class Suburb: Richmond, Victoria, before the Great War’ . Historical Studies , 20 ( 78 ) April : 90 – 103 .
- Hughes , Jean . 1989 . “ ‘My Grandmother — Mrs John Downing, née Cecilia Hopkins’ ” . Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV) Archives . 4.9E, Downing, Mrs John
- O'Brien , A. 1993 . ‘"A Church Full of Men”: Masculinism and the Church in Australian History . Australian Historical Studies , 25 ( 100 ) April : 437 – 9 . 456
- Kingston , Beverley . 1977 . “ ‘Faith and Fetes: Women and the History of the Churches in Australia’ ” . In Women, Faith & Fetes: Essays in the History of Women and the Church in Australia , Edited by: Willis , Sabine . 20 – 2 . 26 – 7 . Melbourne : Dove Communications .
- Smart , Judith . “ ‘Eva Hughes: Militant Conservative’ ” . In Double Time Edited by: Lake and Kelly . 179 – 89 .
- Scott . “ Introduction ” . In Natural Allies 25 Scott also makes the point that women's organisations provided a safe environment in which they could begin to question dominant ideologies about their roles
- Scott . Natural Allies 111
- Brett , Judith . 1992 . Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People , 5 – 14 . Sydney : PanMacmillan Australia .
- Vamplew , Wray , ed. 1987 . Australians. Historical Statistics , 421 – 7 . Sydney : Fairfax, Syme & Weldon . The following figures for adherents of the Baptist churches are given for 1911: NSW 20, 679; Vic. 31, 244; Qld. 13, 715; SA 21,863; Tas. 4757; WA 4801; NT 15; Australia 97,324
- 1913 . Australian Baptist , 1 ( 1 ) 7 January : 14
- 1913 . Australian Baptist , 1 ( 45 ) 11 November : 1 From ‘Essential Principles of a Baptist Church’, by Dr Strong of Rochester
- 1940 . ‘undermines the liberty of the individual’ and causes a ‘consequent decay of individual self‐reliance’ . Housewife , 10 ( 8 ) August : 3 – 4 . The links may be fairly read from a number of Downing's comments on government intervention. For example: The intervention of government boards both
- 1914 . White Ribbon Signal , 1 September : 203
- 1914 . Australian Baptist , 2 ( 33 ) 18 August : 1 Presidential Address, 25 October 1914, Annual Reports, WCTU of Victoria, 1914, p. 8. See also
- 1914 . White Ribbon Signal , 1 December : 35
- 1914 . Australian Baptist , 2 ( 43 ) 27 October : 1 for evidence of similar transition from sorrow and ambivalence to support
- McKernan , Michael . 1975 . “ ‘The Australian Churches in the Great War: Attitudes and Activities of the Major Churches’ ” . Australian National University . PhD
- 1914 . Australian Baptist , 2 ( 35 ) 1 September : 2
- 1915 . Annual Reports , 10 WCTU of Victoria . Presidential Address, WCTU Annual Conference 25–29 October 1915
- Smart , Judith . “ ‘The Panacea of Prohibition: The Reaction of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria to the Great War’ ” . In Women, Faith and Fetes Edited by: Willis . 162 – 93 .
- Tyrrell , Ian . 1983 . ‘International Aspects of the Woman's Temperance Movement in Australia: The Influence of the American WCTU, 1882–1914’ . Journal of Religious History , 12 ( 3 ) June : 284 – 304 . On following the American model, see
- Scott . Natural Allies 113
- 1915 . Woman , 8 ( 7 ) 1 October : 477 – 81 . 493 for an account of the papers given at the annual conference and the syllabus of subjects for the rest of the year's debates
- 1915 . White Ribbon Signal , 1 August : 185 1 October 1915, p. 225; National Council of Women Minutes
- Smart , Judith . 1992 . “ ‘The Great War and the “Scarlet Scourge”: Debates about Venereal Diseases in Melbourne During World War I’ ” . In An Anzac Muster: War and Society in Australia and New Zealand 1914–18 and 1939–45 , Monash Publications in History, no. 14 Edited by: Smart , J. and Wood , T. 58 – 85 . Clayton : Monash University . On contemporary fears of venereal diseases, see
- Smart , Judith . 1986 . ‘Feminists, Food and the Fair Price: The Cost of Living Demonstrations in Melbourne, August‐September, 1917’ . Labour History , May : 113 – 131 .
- 1989 . The Right to Speak and the Right to be Heard: The Popular Disruption of Conscriptionist Meetings in Melbourne, 1916’ . Historical Studies , 23 ( 92 ) April : 203 – 219 .
- Lake , M. 1992 . ‘The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man’ . Labour History , November : 1 – 24 . This is not to say that that the women of the labour movement, for example, did not try. Recent work by Marilyn Lake has shown the extent of their efforts to change party and union thinking on child and maternity allowances for example. But the fact remains that the movement did not attract a mass membership of the kind achieved by the Housewives’ Association
- 1937 . Housewife , 5 ( 7 ) June : 26 Housewives’ Association of Victoria, Minute Books 1915, PA92/7, State Library of Victoria, LaTrobe Collection
- Oldfield , R. 1989 . “ ‘The Early Years of the Housewives’ Association of Victoria 1915–1930’ ” . 1 – 10 . Monash University . BA Hons
- Oldfield . “ ‘The Early Years of the Housewives’ ” . Edited by: Association . 15 – 18 . The organisation soon changed its name to the Housewives’ Co‐operative Association. Original members included Liberal Party women and members of the Sisterhood of International Peace, and Women's Political Association. Although the movement grew quickly and could claim 23 branches and over 200 members by September, within a year, the trading activities had ceased and, after much quarrelling over tactics, half the executive, including the president, Ivy Brookes, resigned, complaining about the lack of commitment to the cause of co‐operative trading. The organisation was from that point of little interest to the women of the labour movement since it turned away from activities of immediate benefit to working‐class families and focussed — for the war years at least — on preaching economy and efficient home management, and encouraging small‐scale self‐help schemes. Co‐operative schemes were resumed in the twenties. See
- 1937 . Housewife , 5 ( 7 ) June : 26 ‘The Early Years of the Housewives’ Association’, pp. 17–19;
- Oldfield . “ ‘The Early Years of the Housewives’ Association’ ” . 2 Oldfield himself is ambivalent about the appropriate political categorisation but has been unable to theorise the problems with using conventional political terminology
- Brown , B.S. Baptised into One Body: A Short History of the Baptist Union of Australia , 49 – 50 . Hawthorn : Baptist Union of Australia . VBWA Minute Books, 20 September 1935
- Noms , Ada . 1978 . Champions of the Impossible: A History of the National Council of Women , 199 Melbourne : Hawthorn Press .
- 1933 . VBWA Minute Books , 30 May
- Norris . Champions of the Impossible: , 58 – 9 .
- 1937 . Housewife , 5 ( 8 ) July : 21 vol. 6, no. 1, December 1937, p. 30; vol. 6, no. 6, June 1938, pp. 3, 35. The Housewife also regularly reported on Downing's visits to country branches to open lounges, celebrate their anniversaries or preside over their annual meetings
- 1938 . Housewife , 6 ( 10 ) October : 6 – 9 . The Housewife recognised the significance of the occasion: ‘This gathering of home women marked a new era in the advancement of women's influence in public life. Recommendations, questions, comments and discussions brought up at this conference indicated that the housewives in Victoria were taking a practical and intelligent interest in civic and State adminstration, and they had become wide awake to the force of the power they could wield, speaking in a united voice’.
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 9 ) September : 5
- 1939 . Housewife , 7 ( 5 ) May : 2 4 – 5 .
- 1939 . Housewife , 7 ( 5 ) May : 7 vol. 9, no. 10. October 1939, p. 2
- 1939 . Housewife , 9 ( 11 ) November : 3 vol. 9, no. 12, December 1939, p. 5; VBWA Minute Books, 8 November 1939
- 1939 . Housewife , 9 ( 11 ) November : 2 She then wrote regular articles for the Housewife on practical forms of economising. It goes ‘hand in hand’ with war savings work, she argued
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 1 ) January : 8
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 6 ) June : 21
- Housewives’ Association of Victoria . June 1940 . FAAH Minute Books June , Downing became national president when the headquarters of the Federated Association of Australian Housewives were shifted to Melbourne in 1940. By mid 1941, the FAAH had a membership of 115,000. See
- State Library of Victoria, LaTrobe Collection . 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 7 ) July : 2 – 3 . 17
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 8 ) August : 11
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 10 ) October : 7
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 10 ) October : 12
- Darian‐Smith , Kate . 1988 . ‘Morality and Feminine Patriotism in Melbourne during the Second World War’ . Victorian Historical Journal , 59 ( 2 ) July The Lord Mayor's Morale Committee was established in response and Mrs Downing and Ivy Brookes, president of the NCW, were appointed members. On concern about morality, see
- Darian‐Smith , Kate . 1990 . On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime, 1939–1945 , Melboume : Oxford University Press .
- 1940 . Housewife , 10 ( 12 ) December : 2 – 3 .
- 1941 . Housewife , 11 ( 1 ) January : 9 Mrs Downing quoted figures to show that Victoria's birth‐rate had declined 5.8 per cent in the previous 6 years. See also
- 1941 . On the matters of national insurance, endowment etc., she was summoned to give evidence to the Parliamentary Committee on social security set up by the federal government during 1941 . Housewife , 11 ( 7 ) September : 2 – 3 .
- 1941 . Housewife , 11 ( 5 ) May : 2 – 4 .
- 1945 . At least 20 million were needed ‘to safeguard national interests’ . Housewife , 15 ( 8 ) August : 2 – 4 .
- 1944 . ‘coloured races of Asia’ . Housewife , 14 ( 1 ) January : 1 – 2 . Unless there were more and larger families of at least four children, ‘we are only inviting other nations to attack us’. Moreover, the declining population rate meant that ‘the White Australia Policy is threatened’ by the
- 1946 . ‘Motherhood must be regarded as a national service for which there must be priority over everything else’ . Housewife , 16 ( 9 ) September : 2 – 4 .
- Pateman . The Disorder of Women 11 and ch. 2 on the paradoxes of giving birth for the state as a major argument for inclusion of women in the political order
- 1942 . Housewife , 12 ( 10 ) October : 11 vol. 14, no. 5, May 1944, p. 5
- 1943 . Housewife , 13 ( 1 ) January : 2 – 4 . The decision to take women out of domestic service had been made by men advising the Minister for War Organisation of Industry without the benefit of more expert female opinion. Downing's own view was that women over 45 who were not eligible for the services should not have been displaced and that Mr Dedman would have been better advised to concentrate on ‘combing out’ the civil service
- 1941 . Housewife , 11 ( 11 ) November : 1 – 2 .
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 1 ) January : 1 – 2 . vol. 14, no. 7, July 1944, pp. 2–4
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 5 ) May : 2 – 4 .
- 1940 . ‘Small Families’ . Housewife , 10 ( 1 ) January : 9 – 11 . vol. 13, no. 1, January 1943, pp. 2–4. Mrs Downing first elaborated on the problem as she saw it in an article in the Housewife at the beginning of 1941, entitled
- 1945 . Housewife , 15 ( 2 ) February : 2 – 4 . A later discussion of the same problem and some solutions appeared in the
- 1941 . Housewife , 11 ( 6 ) June : 26
- Downing , Mrs . 1941 . ‘the efficiency of the home front is as necessary as on the battle‐front’ . Housewife , 11 ( 3 ) March : 13
- 1943 . ‘There is no limit to the value of the war work mothers are doing by bringing up their families….Their efforts provide the population which is essential to national defence’ . Housewife , 13 ( 7 ) July : 2 – 3 .
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 5 ) May : 14 – 17 . They included the Lady Mayoress, Mrs Edward Campbell, Dr Doris Officer from the Victorian Baby Health Centres, Jean Daley who was the organising secretary of the Women's section of the ALP, Mrs Essington Lewis of the YWCA, Mrs R. Mills of the Country Women's Association, Lady Harrison Moore of Travellers’ Aid, Mrs Herbert Brookes and Mrs I.H. Moss, both of the National Council of Women. Accounts of both meetings appear
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 7 ) July : 2 – 4 .
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 9 ) September : 13 – 16 .
- 1944 . Housewife , 14 ( 10 ) October‐November : 2 – 4 .
- 1945 . Weekly Times , 10 July
- 1945 . Housewife , 15 ( 8 ) August : 23
- 1949 . Argus , 3 May : 8 By 1949, only 6 councils had taken an ‘active interest’, the remaining 191 councils giving ‘negative replies’ to approaches fron the Housewives’ Association
- Grimshaw , P. , Lake , M. , McGrath , A. and Quartly , M. 1994 . Creating a Nation , 270 Ring wood : McPhee Gribble . Marilyn Lake has also noted recently that the post‐war exaltation of domestic values was slanted towards the atomised and isolated family unit rather than the collective notion of the home which had united rather than divided the pre‐war women's movement
- 1945 . Housewife , 15 ( 10 ) October : 5 22 – 6 .
- 1945 . Housewife , 15 ( 11 ) November : 2 – 4 .
- Vamplew , Wray , ed. 1987 . Australians: Historical Statistics , 396 – 7 . Sydney : Fairfax, Syme & Weldon . Even though the ‘powers referendum’ of 1944 was lost, 47 per cent of the population had voted for greater government controls, and in the 3 powers referendums of 1946, all questions attracted an overall majority ‘yes’ vote, though only the one (giving the Commonwealth power over pensions and allowances) was passed in the requisite number of states
- 1946 . Housewife , 16 ( 3 ) March : 2 – 4 .
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 12 ) December : 10 – 11 .
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 3 ) March : 2 10 This accusation came from a member of the executive, Mrs Pearce. See also Housewives’ Association of Victoria, Minute Books 1947, PA92/7, State Library of Victoria, LaTrobe Collection
- 1946 . Houswife , 16 ( 10 ) October : 2 – 4 . 7 – 18 .
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 6 ) June : 2 – 3 . 13 – 23 . Mrs Downing's opponent was Mrs Old of the Fitzroy branch
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 11 ) November : 2 – 4 .
- 1947 . Housewife , 17 ( 10 ) October : 10 – 15 .
- 1948 . Housewife , 18 ( 4 ) April : 21
- 1948 . Housewife , 18 ( 5 ) May : 2 – 4 .
- 1948 . Housewife , 18 ( 6 ) June : 1 – 2 .
- 1948 . Housewife , 18 ( 6 ) June : 13 17 The candidate was Mrs G. Pearce Secretary of the Box Hill branch, and also a member of the executive. The results of the election were Downing 97, Pearce 43. The treasurer was also opposed — by a member of the Camberwell branch — and won by a similar margin
- 1948 . Housewife , 18 ( 6 ) June : 10 – 11 .
- 1948 . Argus , 10, 11 and 18 August
- 1949 . Argus , 3 May
- 1949 . Argus , 4 May
- 1948 . Argus , 9 November
- White , Kate . “ ‘Bessie Rischbieth, Jessie Street and the End of First‐Wave Feminism in Australia’ ” . In Worth Her Salt Edited by: Bevege , James and Shute . 319 329 for further discussion of the effects of the post‐war international political polarisation on non‐party women's organisations
- This paper is based on a conference presentation at ‘Suffrage and Beyond’: The Suffrage Centenary Conference, held in Wellington, New Zealand, August 1993. The research began as an entry for the Australian Dictionary of Biography and further detail about Downing's life will be available there. ‘For the Good that We Can Do’ was the motto of the Housewives’ Association of Victoria.