K Darian-Smith

On the home front : Melbourne in wartime, 1939-1945

This engaging book is an essential insight into how the Second World War transformed daily life in Australia .Kate Darian-Smith s imaginative research and her wonderful eye for the detail animate every page. Michael Cathcart What really happened on the Australian home front during the Second World War? For the people of Melbourne these were years of social dislocation and increased government interference in all aspects of daily life. On the Home Front is the story of their work, leisure, relationships and their fears-for by 1942 the city was pitted with air raid trenches, and in the half-light of the brownout Melburnians awaited a Japanese invasion. As women left the home to replace men in factories and offices, the traditional roles of mothers and wives were challenged. The presence of thousands of American soldiers in Melbourne raised new questions about Australian nationalism and identity, and the carnival spirit of many on the home front created anxiety about the issues of drunkenness, gambling and sexuality. Kate Darian-Smiths classic and evocative study of Melbourne in wartime draws upon the memories of men and women who lived through those turbulent years when society grappled with the tensions between a restrictive government and new opportunities for social and sexual freedoms.

Up the country: Histories and communities

During the 1990s the issues confronting rural Australia have more often than not been collapsed into a simplistic and undifferentiated set of ‘problems’ within political and media discussion. This article examines the mobilisation of concepts of history and community in rural Australia and the challenges this poses for historians.

Child's play : Dorothy Howard and the folklore of Australian children

An American academic who pioneered as an advocate for the play of children in the 1950s, she observe and documented the play and folklore of children in Australia, meticulously documenting accounts of childhood games such as hopscotch, marbles, and string games. Her insights into the world of the child are truly relevant today.

Memory and history in twenty-first century Australia: A survey of the field

This essay surveys the fields of oral history and memory studies in Australia since the publication of the landmark volume Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia in 1994. It argues that the practice of oral history has been central to memory studies in Australia, and explores key texts relating to the memory and commemoration of war, colonialism, Indigenous histories, trauma and witnessing in Australian society.

Australian children's play in historical perspective: Continuity and change on the school playground

In the 1950s, the visiting American folklorist Dorothy Howard was the first scholar to research and analyse childrens play in Australian primary schools. Subsequent studies have since observed childrens school playground activities, documenting how their play has been influenced by such factors as bureaucratic and pedagogical practices, the impact of new technologies and demographic changes in the ethnic and cultural composition of the Australian population. In the Childhood, Tradition and Change research project conducted in 2007–2011, a multidisciplinary team of scholars collaborated to produce the first national survey of Australian childrens playlore in primary school playgrounds in the early twenty-first century, with the aim of comparing this data with that of prior studies. This article provides an overview of the types of playground activities that were observed by the Childhood, Tradition and Change project in 19 schools across Australia. It considers some aspects of play within its historical context, with brief reference to cultural diversity, gender and the school playground environment as among the key determinants of the change and continuity that were observed in contemporary Australian childrens playlore.

The ‘girls’: women press photographers and the representation of women in Australian newspapers

In 1975, Fairfax News commemorated International Women’s Year by appointing Lorrie Graham as its first female cadet photographer. Women only joined the photographic staff of newspapers in significant numbers from the 1980s and were more likely to be employed on regional newspapers than the metropolitan dailies. This article draws on interviews with male and female press photographers collected for the National Library of Australia’s oral history programme. It provides an overview of the history of women press photographers in Australia, situating their working lives within an overtly masculine newspaper culture where gender inequity was entrenched. It also examines the gendered and evolving photographic representations of women in the Australian press, including those of women in positions of social and political leadership. Although women press photographers have achieved greater recognition in the 2000s, the transformation of the media industry has impacted the working practices and employment of press photographers.

Outside country: histories of inland Australia

Outside country: histories of inland Australia ALAN MAYNE & STEPHEN ATKINSON (EDS), 2011 Wakefield Press, Kent Town 360 pp. ISBN 978-1-86254-960-9,

Books worth (re)reading

34.95 (soft)

Neoconservative progressivism, knowledgeable ignorance and the origins of the next history war

When the first book-length study of Australian children’s rhymes, Cinderella Dressed in Yella, was published in 1969, it was greeted with excited interest. Here was a collection that carefully documented the everyday chants and verbal lore of the playground, and took the activities of children seriously. Such an approach resonated among an Australian population increasingly aware of the origins and existence of a rich national folklore, and open to progressive educational ideas that recognised the contemporary culture of childhood. Cinderella was an important book of its time, running to several printings and a minor censorship scandal about children’s ‘vulgarity’, with a revised edition published in 1978.

‘Contentment, Civic Pride and Progress’: the built legacy of community and everyday modernism in Australia

This article outlines the relationship between neoconservative politics in Australia and history education. It categorises the neoconservative view of this relationship as first, one founded on an updated version of Whig progressivism and second, one founded on ‘knowledgeable ignorance’, arguing that a future Coalition government will almost certainly base its proposed reforms of history education on these misconceived approaches. This article has been peer reviewed.