Kerreen Reiger - The Disenchantment of The Home - Modernizing The Australian Family, 1880-1940-Oxford University Press, USA (1986)

The disenchantment of the home
Modernizing the Australian

family 1880-1940
The disenchantment
of the home
Modernizing the Australian
family 1880-1940
Kerreen M. Reiger
Melbourne
Oxford University Press
Oxford Auckland New York
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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©Kerreen Reiger 1985

First published 198 5
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Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Reiger, Kerreen, 1946-.

The disenchantment of the home.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 19 554594 X.
ISBN 0 19 554593 1 (pbk.).
1. Family-Australia-History. 2. Home economics-Australia-

History. 3. Australia-Social life and customs-18 5 1-190 1.
4. Australia-Social life and customs-20th century. I. Title.
306.8'5'0994
Edited by Valerie Haye

Cover designed by Jan Schmoeger
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Contents
Preface Vll
Abbreviations lX
Introduction 1
1 Setting the questions: the theoretical context 11
PART I PRODUCTION
2 The architecture of daily life 32
3 The administration of the home 56
PART II REPRODUCTION
4 Modernizing confinement 84
5 Planning the family 104
PART III SOCIALIZATION
6 Producing the model modern baby 128
7 The remaking of childhood 153
PART IV SEXUALITY
8 The sexual enlightenment of the young 178
9 The rational management of sex 190
10 The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment 210
Appendix On sources and methods 222
Notes 233
Bibliography 254
Index 264
v
For Jean Martin
without whose encouragement and example
I may not have kept going; at last the end
of the long apprenticeship!
Preface
This book is a revised and shortened version of my Ph.D. thesis, 'The

disenchantment of the home, the rationalization of domestic life in
Victoria, 1880-1940', La Trobe University, 1982. The research took
place over several years during which I carried considerable teaching and
other responsibilities. Over this period, therefore, many people - col-
leagues, friends and family - have provided support and assistance. In
particular, I wish to acknowledge the support and guidance of my two
thesis supervisors, Jim Hammerton and Rosemary Wearing. Although
there were often lengthy periods in which work seemed at a standstill,
and others during which motivation dwindled, their steady encourage-
ment and interest helped keep me going. On a formal level, acknowl-
edgement must also be made of the research time made available in
1980 by the former Preston (now Phillip) Institute of Technology, which
allowed me to finish the last stages of research. Thanks are also due to
the organizations which allowed access to their records, and to the
individuals who gave their time and assistance, in particular those kind
people who generously granted interviews. I am also grateful for the
access to the Vera Scantlebury Brown papers given by Cath James; to
the Wallace papers by Mrs Dawson; and for the assistance provided by
Mark Richmond, University of Melbourne Archives.
Many friends and colleagues have shared both the tasks of emotional
support and intellectual encouragement. In the UK helpful discussion
concerning oral history and comparative data was provided by Elizabeth
Roberts of Lancaster University, and by Paul Thompson of Essex Uni-
versity. Also at Essex, Leonore Davidoff provided insight, interest and
stimulation; indeed the 'push' which steered the project onto its final
tracks. Closer to home, friends at La Trobe and Phillip Institute have
helped in various ways over the years; in particular Lyn Richards and
Vll
Anne Doble Manne with research issues, and Rob Watts who earns
warm thanks for all sorts of encouragement, not least for introducing
me to the critical theory tradition. Others, including Bob Connell, Ian
Davey, Peter Beilharz and Valerie Haye have made valuable suggestions
and critical comments during the revision process, and my students at
Phillip have shared in trying out the ideas. To all of them I offer thanks,
although the end result remains my responsibility.
The lengthy period of research, the excitement of writing and the
tedious, seemingly everlasting process of revision have been literally
squeezed in around other aspects of my life. The weight of my teaching
and administrative load as well as domestic responsibilities has been
eased by the care and consideration of many friends, and Grace Colosimo
and Livia Helou have borne the brunt of the typing. Finally, my family
have had to live for a long time not only with me but with this project,
and without their practical as well as emotional help it would never
have been accomplished. Moreover, without the richly rewarding expe-
rience of childrearing which Caitlin, Marcus and now ] eremy continue
to provide, my understanding of much of the source material would
have been greatly diminished. To them, therefore, and to Arthur, my
partner in that enterprise and supporter in this, I offer the most important
thanks of all.
Kerreen Reiger
February 1984
Vlll
Abbreviations
AAAS Australian Association for the Advancement of Science

ACER Australian Council of Educational Research
AEHR Australian Economic History Review
AGPS Australian Government Publishing Service
AIDE Australian Institute of Domestic Economy
ALP Australian Labor Party
ANL Australian National Library
ANU Australian National University
BMA British Medical Association
CPD Comtnonwealth Parliamentary Debates
CPP Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers
DBR Decline of the Birth Rate (Royal Commission)
FKU Free Kindergarten Union
MDNS Melbourne District Nursing Service
M]A Medical Journal of Australia
MMBW Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works
NHMRC National Health and Medical Research Council
PRO Public Records Office
RHA Racial Hygiene Association
RVCN Royal Victorian College of Nursing
SHWCV Society for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria
Trans.Aust.
Med. Cong. Transactions of the Australian Medical Congress
Trans.lnt.
Med.Cong. Transactions of the Intercolonial Medical Congress
VBHCA Victorian Baby Health Centres Association
lX
VPD Victorian Parliamentary Debates
VPP Victorian Parliamentary Papers
WCTU Women's Christian Temperance Union
WEA Workers' Education Association
X
Introduction
The half century or so spanning the latter part of the nineteenth and
the first decades of the twentieth century. was a major formative period
in modern Australian society. In this study I shall be concerned primarily
with the social structuring of family and personal relationships. During
this time the material context of the family was rapidly assuming its
essential twentieth-century features: the replacement of production centred
in the home by that of industrial manufacture, the growth of suburbia
and the introduction of technology into the domestic home. Demographic
change-increased life expectancy of both adults and children and de-
creasing family size-was altering the very shape of the family itself.
Furthermore, a piecemeal but coherent reforming effort was being di-
rected at the interior of family life-at the patterning of family rela-
tionships-particularly at the wife-mother role, the rearing of children
and the management of sexuality.
The book's major task is describing and drawing out the full signif-
icance of the attempts to transform the Australian family in the years
between the 1880s and the 1930s. The dates are somewhat arbitrary as
the developments discussed cannot be defined by a strict chronology.
Nonetheless, the 1880s did inaugurate a major period of transition to
the 'modern era' of the twentieth century, a period lasting until the
First World War. It was a period of considerable urban growth and was
marked by a spate of legislation at both State and, after 1901, at Federal
levels. The State became increasingly involved with the everyday life of
the citizens. A multitude of laws and regulations affected working
conditions and wages, health, education and welfare, and legislation
directly concerned with the family was passed governing the age of
sexual consent, divorce and provision for children whether defined as
'neglected', 'feeble-minded' or 'normal'.
1
2 The disenchantment of the home
The last years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth
century also witnessed the establishment and growth of many organi-
zations aimed at reforming family and personal behaviour, or offering
advice and assistance. These ranged from temperance, 'social and moral
hygiene' and physical health reform groups to those with a charitable-
cum-educational focus such as the kindergarten movement. The full
flowering of many of these earlier developments was reached during the
interwar years, even as the 1920s and 1930s also held the promise of
things to come after 1945. The spread of industrialization, of commodity
production with its advertising and mass media heralded a new style of
consumerist culture associated with advanced industrial capitalism. In
Australia the first waves of this culture are discernible in the interwar
years, but the major developments occurred after the Second World
War. Thus the period from 1880 to the late 1930s involves a two-stage
transition from -a basically pre-industrial, colonial Australian society to
that of the late twentieth century. This study describes how this transition
involved- not only changes in .production and technology in the public
sphere, but important developments in .what has become defined as 'the
private world' of home and family.
The core argument of the book is somewhat complex, dealing with
the connection between broader economic, social and cultural forces and
change in familial and personal relationships. In the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century in Aust-ralia, and likewise in similar Western
societies, we can see a relationship between a series of -programmes to
transform family and domestic life. The strategies included efforts- to
introduce technology to the household and to define the housewife as a
'modern', 'efficient' houseworker; to change patterns of reproduction by
placing contraception, pregnancy and childbirth under conscious-,- usually
profe-ssional, control; to alter childrearing practices in the light of 'hy-
giene', seen as both physical and mental; and to bring sexuality out
from under the veil of prudery and silence. In each of these areas of
personal and family life, the reforming attempts were initiated by a
similar group of people, who are best characterized as an emergent class
of professionals, technocrats or experts. This group included members of
the medical profession, teachers- -and kindergarteners, domestic science
and child guidance specialists. Usually they worked hand in. ·hand with
fractions of the dominant class in Australian society, the older bourgeoisie
as it is often -termed. The role played by these technical experts, the
trained specialists, was however profoundly contradictory. Their attempts
to change the family were undenaken both on behalf of, and in the
Introduction 3
interest of, the dominant class, but represented a fundamental threat to

some deep-seated social arrangements. A major contradiction emerged
between the established 'bourgeois' ideological construction of the family
and the experts' 'modern' notion of the family as a set of rational and
manipulable social practices. The bourgeoisie, as the leading social class
of nineteenth-century industrializing capitalist society, had emphasized
personal life as private, as a refuge of warmth and emotional intimacy,
and the family as primarily a natural entity centred on woman's 'femi-
ninity'. In this dominant interpretation constructed by the bourgeoisie,
the realm of homejfamily jpersonallifejwomen was seen as the antithesis
of the cold, calculative, rational world of capitalist commerce, industry
and the State.
This book describes and interprets the undermining of this model by
the emergence of a new social group which attempted to 'rationalize'
the domestic world: to extend the principles of science and instrumental
reason to the operation of the household and to the management of
personal relationships. These alternative principles of instrumental or
goal-directed social action were not immediately perceived as presenting
a threat to the dominant model of the family, but they were seen as
appropriate to the new industrial society and the need to reconstruct the
social world in accordance with scientific knowledge. The dilemma
presented by the operation of quite different models of home and family
is of much greater significance than has generally been recognized.
A major theme of this study of Australian developments, then, is
their intrinsically contradictory nature. The attempts of movements, such
as infant welfare and domestic science, to extend new 'scientific' principles
of organization and action to the household are part of what some
theorists have referred to as a general extension of 'technical rationality'
in the modern world. Not only Max Weber, but many other social
theorists have taken the spread of means-end, rationally calculated, goal-
oriented action as a central concern in their analyses of the emergence
of modern industrial societies. Weber referred to this as the 'disenchant-
ment' of the world. A recurrent theme has indeed been a critique of
this very 'rationality' as not necessarily rational or reasonable at all. A
clear distinction has been made between practical or substantive reason,
and merely 'technical' rationality. The critique of the latter hinges on
the possible replacement of moral and ethical issues, and debate about
the ultimate goals of a fully human existence in a good society, with
much narrower, more limited interests in efficient organization and
control over material resources. These issues will be discussed further at
a later point, but I must point out here that they have not generally
been discussed with regard to the organization of the family or the
position of women in modern societies. The major texts in the relevant
areas of social theory have been 'sex-blind', insofar as the social construc-
tion of gender has rarely entered the domain of discussion. On the other
hand, feminist social theory has not engaged with the critique of technical
or instrumental reason. Similar concerns with emancipatory praxis, with
social action to create a better future, come from both sides of the
theoretical gulf, but a bridge has not yet drawn them together. Although
this exploratory study cannot claim to do this single-handed-and
fortunately other writers are now contributing to the ambitious project-
it does at least raise many of the important questions.
It is this focus and its theoretical underpinnings which makes the
goal of this book somewhat different from other historical works on
women's or family history, including those also using Australian sources. 1
It provides not only a description of a series of developments in Australia
but suggests .that these were part of related movements taking place
throughout industrial capitalist societies. Although the attempts to 'mod-
ernize' and reform domestic life took various forms in different national
contexts, their overall significance can, I argue, only be understood with
reference to broader issues of social change. In particular, the attempts
to extend technical rationality to the domestic sphere of home and family
suggest the operation of fundamentally contradictory structural tendencies
in advanced societies. Although the research material used in this account
concentrates on the specific activities of individuals and class groups in
Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the impli-
cations of my argument are much wider. They raise the issue of how
the social relationships of capitalism relate to the social relations of a
patriarchal society in 'modern times'.
A wide array of theoretical writing and empirical study has tackled
the thorny issues involved in explaining patterns of domination and
exploitation in our society. The social, political and economic structures
of industrial capitalism have been distinguished, conceptually at least,
from those of patriarchy-a system of domination of women by men
based on socially constructed gender roles. I shall leave aside at this
point the debates about the definitions of these terms and about the
articulation of the relationship between the two systems. Nonetheless, it
is important to indicate here that the thrust of this study goes against
many of the currently held notions of their interlocking and comple-
mentary interdependence. Rather, what will be developed in the body
Introduction 5
of this study is an argument concerning certainly the interpenetration of

capitalism and patriarchy, but also their potential contradictoriness. The
concept of contradiction, long central to the tradition of Marxist analysis,
is taken here to mean 'an opposition or disjunction of structural principles
of social systems, where those principles operate in terms of each other,
but at the same time contravene one another'. 2 Whereas the tendency
of much socialist feminist theory has been to see capitalism and patriarchy
as distinct social systems somehow fitting together, I would argue that
this is not an adequate understanding of lived reality. In our own times
and in those of past generations, human beings produce and reproduce
a social world always with regard both to the physical nature of their
bodies as those of women and men, as well as with regard to other
aspects of material existence. Giving pride of place to the latter is of
course the basis of the feminist critique of traditionalist Marxist and
general socialist theory. We need to start by conceiving of society as a
complex set of practices brought about by human beings in their dealing
with all aspects of their material world. These practices then also constrain
social action. In modern industrial capitalist societies, class and gender,
along with race, are structural features which together quite literally
colour and shape all aspects of daily life, penetrating our experience at
every turn. Starting with this assertion need not however, as it frequently
does, lead to emphasis upon the inevitable 'functions' each aspect plays
in reproducing the other.
The range of evidence drawn together in this study of Australian late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social relationships points to
some clear tensions between gender and family patterns and practices
associated with economic relations. The nature of the contradiction
between technical rationality and the then held family model can be
outlined as follows. As already noted, the assumptions about women
and the family held by the socially dominant group, the bourgeoisie,
centred on the intrinsic 'naturalness' of maternity, and femininity more
generally, as the foundation of domestic life. Although it is not difficult
to see the threat to this concept posed by an emphasis, for example, on
mothercraft and domesticity as needing to be learned rather than natu-
rally given, the full significance of the conflict implied here is not so
readily apparent.
Some insights of feminist theorists into the cultural processes of
construction of femininity and masculinity as opposing categories are
essential to exploring this issue. It has been demonstrated, I think
convincingly, that the relative social power and status of women has
almost universally been less than that of men but that the patterns of
this have varied historically and cross-culturally. One of the major
considerations in such variability is the nature of the socio-economic
system and, in particular, the extent to which the mode of economic
production is based on direct exploitation of natural resources. Societies
based on hunting and gathering and 'primitive' forms of agriculture
certainly seem to have made distinctions between the sexes; we do not
have the evidence so greatly desired by many feminists of any truly
gender-egalitarian society. Nonetheless, in societies not producing a
marked social surplus and heavily dependent upon co-operation with
rather than dominance of natural resources, the inequality of women vis-
a-vis men seems to have been a good deal less than in the 'patriarchal'
societies. Where we see the growth of men's cultural dominance over
women, we also see it accompanied by increased power of some men
over others in the struggle to control the fruits of material production.
Although the intrinsic relationship suggested here between gender and
class inequality cannot be discussed further at this point, it provides the
basis for the argument concerning the extension of technical rationality,
a mode of practice oriented to manipulation and control, to the sphere
of women and family. I am suggesting that, according to Simone de
Beauvoir's classic formulation and its development by others, notably
Sherry Ortner3 , the construction of masculinity as power and human
agency in the natural world is predicated upon the construction of
femininity as an opposing category of passivity and natural 'givenness'.
That is to say that women have been seen by men and frequently seen
themselves as aligned with, or part of, the given natural world which it
is 'man's' destiny to stamp into shape. It has also been argued most
persuasively, I believe, that an outstanding feature of capitalism is the
extent to which its productive force has extended the range of such
domination beyond all previous bounds. 4 Moreover, the attempt to
manipulate and control all aspects of both social existence and of natural
processes such as reproduction, growth and decay which we can see
around us in the twentieth century has led us to the brink of calamity.
As Ruether has pointed out, writing of the Western religious emphasis
on transcending the natural world, and its basis in sexual stereotypes:
'The patriarchal self-deception about the origins of consciousness ends
logically in the destruction of the earth'. 5 The interpenetration of gender
and class exploitation nonetheless contains an irreconcilable tension.
Extending technical modes of power and control to all facets of everyday
life has run counter to the continued definition of women as symbols of
Introduction 7
nature whose presence in the home can not only provide refuge from
the alienation of this public sphere of domination and exploitation, but
even save it from itself.
This discussion has only been a brief and as yet inadequate exposition
of the nature of the contradiction which can be traced in the develop-
ments explored in the following chapters. It is also apparent from this
lengthy exposition that even a cursory outline of the relevant issues is
not an easy task. The study is basically exploratory, placed at the
crossroads of several concerns, not all of which are of equal relevance to
every chapter. Since much traditional history has been predominantly
empiricist and mainstream sociology has tended to lack historical depth
and imagination, I have drawn on alternative models, particularly those
provided by critical sociology and the socialist historiographical tradition.
In combining social theory and an historical analysis of aspects of
everyday life I have found few models which could be easily emulated.
The debates concerning the role of theory in relation to social history in
recent years do not seem intrinsically unresolvable, but attempting a
resolution in specific historical practice is where the real rub lies. The
problem confronted in this project was twofold: how to stretchjfindj
manipulate available source material to answer the questions of theoret-
ical interest, and how to do theoretic justice to the complexity of
experience and the 'trivia' of material existence. The goal itself of course
was not unitary, as Raphael Samuel has pointed out: 'ambitiously
handled, an understanding of subjective experience and everyday social
relationships can be used to pose major questions in theory'. 6 This did
eventuate, particularly in the areas of childrearing · and sexuality, but
proved a difficult task. The process of constructing theoretical under-
standing and the substantive analysis proceeded dialectically, each gen-
erating new insights, sometimes in tanderri, sometimes at odds with
each other. For different aspects of the material separate theoretical strands
proved of value; but the book as a whole attempts a combination of
feminist insights with a critique of instrumental reason and an analysis
of the role of the professional-managerial sector in its dissemination.
The major theoretical issues surrounding my argument are discussed
in Chapter 1, specific methodological points being dealt with in the
Appendix. In this chapter I have not provided an exhaustive account of
the relevant literature, but drawn together the insights I found most
valuable from debates in several quite disparate areas of social theory.
Although Chapter 1 sets the interpretative context for my historical
analysis, some readers may prefer to turn to it after becoming familiar
with the Australian developments charted in subsequent chapters. The

rest of the book is divided into four major sections, deriving from
Mitchell's now classic formulation of the structure of women's position:
production, reproduction, socialization and sexuality. Part 1 outlines
some attempts to alter the physical environment in the period, changes
which provided the context in which women and their families found
themselves. The growth of urban and suburban society, changes in
production and consumption and in living costs were the background
against which the rationalizing domestic economy movement emerged.
These chapters also show the interplay between clearly ideological en-
deavours and the changes taking place in the material context of the
family household. Out of attempts to remedy the social problems of
urban industrial society, such as the health and housing reform move-
ments, there developed a major strategy directed at the organization of
work within the household and at ensuring what were seen as 'appro-
priate' and 'right' ways of family living. This dominant strategy is seen
in sharpest relief in the emergence of the domestic economy movement,
which deliberately set out to construct a new model of the efficient
housewife. At the same time, however, a nineteenth-century conception
of the home continued. Throughout the. period the home was stressed
as a place of emotional warmth and tranquillity, a retreat for men from
the world of industrial work and the natural habitat of womenfolk.
Detailed examination of women's actual tasks within the household
shows the extent to which this image of the home was highly ideological,
romantically misrepresenting several aspects of what women experienced
as everyday work tasks. While the separation of the men and women's
spheres continued, the home was subjected to increasing external pres-
sures. Both through technology and the introduction of new notions of
efficiency, women were facing a complex task of negotiating the inter-
action between domestic and public worlds.
In Part II I suggest that attempts to control and direct women's
reproduction, while strongly asserting the ideology of women's 'natural-
ness' in childbearing, inadvenently placed in their hands the opportunity
for funher purposive-rational action, the technical means of reproductive
control. The chapters on reproduction examine the medical discourse on
women's health and on the national significance of their childbearing
capacity. They trace changes in attitudes and practices relating to con-
traception, pregnancy and childbirth which reveal the dominance of
science and the growth of professional control. By the interwar period,
not only conception but pregnancy and parturition were being placed
Introduction 9
under greater professional surveillance, usually, though not totally, under

the direction of males. These efforts to 'modernize' the reproductive
process contradicted the ongoing insistence on the naturalness of women's
reproductive processes. Despite repeatedly expressed concern about the
effects of urban industrial life on women's health and procreative abilities,
the solutions sought by technical experts, such as routine anaesthetized,
hospitalized childbirth, further removed women from 'natural' condi-
tions. Women were, however, participating in these developments as
social agents and not just as passive victims. Through the charitable
efforts of bourgeois women, the professional activities of women as
doctors and especially as nurses, and through their own initiatives, women
made their own contribution to the changing management of reproduc-
tion.
Part III on socialization explores the growth and significance of the
infant welfare movement and the associated strategies to change patterns
both of infant care and the socialization of older children. In particular
I trace the impact of psychology, which profoundly altered the discourse
on children by the end of the period. Not only was infant care to
become more scientific and guided by professional experts, but the
rearing of older children was rendered more difficult by a growing
emphasis on individual development and motivation. In both areas,
women in particular were bombarded with a deliberate programmed
redefinition of their role as mothers. The co-operation of early kinder-
garteners and creche initiators with infant welfare supporters and school
medical officers suggests a concerted strategy. There was a clear difference
in orientation, however, between those who saw the reform of childhood
as primarily directed at the working class, and those who envisaged a
wholesale transformation of family relationships and childrearing
throughout society. In Chapters 6 and 7, I argue that the emerging
professionals in public health and the specialists in child welfare were
attempting to bring about the latter by institutionalizing new styles of
'rational' childcare.
Finally, in Chapters 8 and 9 I examine the extension of rationality to
sexuality. Around 1900 moral reformers from a religious background
became active in promoting the specific instruction of children in sexual
matters, solely of course to discourage illicit sexual activity, especially
on the part of working-class adolescents. I describe the co-operation
between this group and a seemingly more liberal group of professionals
who took a more secular approach to sexuality, both with regard to the
sex education of the young and of adults. This group was preoccupied
with the 'healthy management' of sex, seeing sexual hygiene as a matter

of national importance and hence an arena of State and professional
intervention. In Chapter 8 I argue that a further contradiction emerged.
On the one hand, sex was proclaimed to be a natural activity-private,
personal and still sacred-a matter for family intimacy and feminine
reticence in particular. On the other hand, it was now talked about more
publicly, becoming part of the wider commodity culture and starting ·to
be seen as a matter in which technical expertise was of value. There was
considerable irony in the combined efforts of religious moral campaigners
and secular, hygiene-oriented reformers to remodel the most intimate
human experience into a matter of rational calculation and public
discourse.
In each of these aspects of the 'disenchantment' or rationalization of
the domestic world-reconstructing housewifery, motherhood, childrear-
ing and sexuality-the technical experts of the professional middle class
led the way. The ensuing account shows that they frequently worked in
close alliance with religious reformers and, most notably, women of the
bourgeois philanthropic or charity network. I believe, however, that they
were engaged on a mission of their own which was more significant
than they realized. The implications of this are discussed in the final
chapter.
1
Setting the questions: the theoretical context
The research reported in this book not only used a variety of historical
sources, but drew upon a complex area of social theory to ask questions
and to order the empirical material. My aim here is to discuss the social
theory which informs the study and to which it in turn contributes.
Several debates are germane to my argument: first, those concerning the
nature and significance of changes in family patterns in Western societies;
and second, those to do with the emergence of the professional middle
class and the role of ideology in the reproduction of the social structures
characteristic of industrial capitalist societies. As I am arguing that
contradictory formulations of womanhood, especially of domesticity and
maternity, suggest structural contradictions in industrial capitalist socie-
ties, each of these areas of social theory also requires critical appraisal in
the light of feminist theory. The origin of the theoretical debates is
primarily European, but they throw light on Australian developments.
The attempts of the 'experts' or professional middle class to extend the
principles of science, efficiency and organization to the Australian home
echoed similar efforts in North America, Britain and elsewhere. In many
respects it is this similarity which is stressed, although particular char-
acteristics of Australian society, such as the concern with building a new
nation, were also highly significant.
Historians and sociologists, both overseas and in Australia, have
detailed the development of contemporary family forms. At a more
theoretical level, they have debated both the nature of, and the expla-
nation for, the types of family patterns predominant in advanced Western
societies. The interpretation which stresses the significance of the 'bour-
geois family model' has emerged out of such debates. In the 1960s and
11
1970s the rapid .growth of historical demography threw new. light on

changes in the nature and significance of kinship patterns in Western
societies in recent centuries. In panicular, the relationship between the
nuclear family and the processes of industrialization has come to be seen
as much more complex and variable than sociologists had formerly
supposed. What has emerged from the skilful research of demographic
historians of the family is that the extendedjnuclear change in family
structure, especially in England and her colonies, is not the outstanding
feature of recent times. What is of considerably greater importance is
the family's changing economic role, its relationship with the wider
community and, most importantly, its emotional or psychic structure.
As the major part of economic production was removed from the family
household to the factories of industrial capitalism, women's role narrowed
but took on a new significance in the management of the em~rging
private sphere of life.
Much of the new family history has been descriptive and uninformed
by any clear theoretical framework, but some accounts deal with broader
explanations of family change. In social history generally, there is an
elllerging dichotomy between those working within a tradition of mod-
ernization theory and those within a broadly Marxist tradition. The
former stress the social significance of industrialization and urbanization,
and the latter the impact of capitalism on everyday life. Although the
modernization tradition derives basically from Max Weber, the analyses
it has produced are often far less critical than Weber's own, reflecting
instead a rosy view of 'modernity'. Edward Shorter and Lawrence Stone,
despite his disclaiming modernization theory, stress a shift in cultural
values as the motivation for changes in family relationships. 1 Although
they acknowledge the economic features associated with the development
of industrial capitalism, it is the market or exchange nature of capitalist
society rather than its property and production relations that they see as
significant. The rise of what Stone calls 'affective individualism' is
considered the keynote of the new style of internal family relationships
characteristic of the modern nuclear family. Both these historians suggest
that changes such as the growth of romantic love in courtship, of
companionship norms in marriage, and of a new emphasis on domesticity
and the significance of childrearing were led by the new middle class
which emerged after the seventeenth century. They view these changes
in generally positive terms as representing liberal progress, especially the
extension of individualism throughout society. American historian Jay
Mechling, in a brief but provocative comment, has however pointed to
Setting the questions 13
a much more critical notion of 'modernization' than that common in

past writing on the family and social change. 2 He argues that historians
have two empirical tasks to perform: they need to explore on the one
hand changes in family behaviour, and on the other, changes in patterns
of consciousness and ideology. He suggests that a theoretical framework
for the study of the 'modernization' of the family which does not
emphasize its positive adjustment to industrial society, or rely on a model
of uni -linear progress, can be derived from the critique of technology
and capitalist rationality. Furthermore, as Howard Gadlin points out,
the implications of such a critique for the analysis of the family involves
dealing with the structure of socialization and personal relationships in
the wider context of industrial capitalism. 3
An alternative interpretation of the emergence of modern family
patterns is more sceptical of their beneficial and progressive attributes.
Mark Poster, for example, has argued that the picture of the European
family described by Shorter and Stone should more accurately be seen
as a particular patterning of family relationships espoused by the
bourgeoisie and intimately related to their unfolding social and economic
dominance. 4 He suggests that rathe.r than some magical 'wish to be free'
producing spontaneous, emotional individuals, as Shorter implies, what
recent historical developments reveal is the deliberate imposition of the
bourgeoisie's family model on other social groups, not only on the
working class but even on the old landed aristocracy. He characterizes
this family pattern as involving a narrowing of both affective and
authority relations from the wider community to the smaller family unit,
a stress on privacy and on sexual repression. Poster's interpretation draws
heavily on the psychoanalytic tradition; he argues that the bourgeois
methods of childrearing were aimed at producing a particular form of
personality structure suited to the interests of the developing class of
capitalist owners. His discussion reflects the argument developed by the
Frankfurt School of theorists concerning the perpetuation of capitalist
social relationships through the mechanism of personality and family
structure. The studies of authority, family and character patterns amongst
German workers, which were undertaken by Horkheimer, Fromm and
others in the 1930s, raised important questions about the nature of the
relationship between the organization of the wider society, the structuring
of the family and the formation of the ego. These are themes which
have not been adequately explored in the Australian context. 5
Not only in their work up to 1939, but also in later elaboration of
similar themes, the critical theorists associated with the Frankfurt School
emphasized the contradictory nature of bourgeois family patterns and

their implications. In Aspects of sociology, they argued that the family is
neither a purely natural nor entirely social phenomenon. It is not just
'in-between' as a bland mediating institution, as many sociologists would
have it. Rather, they insist that the family, especially in capitalist society,
is an area full of conflict and tension between individual and society. 6
They articulated a theme on which I will draw considerably:
One must become aware of the antagonisms with which the family has
been shot through since the beginnings of bourgeois society. In the midst
of a total condition defined by exchange ... the family remains an essen-
tially feudal institution, based on the principle of 'blood', of natural
relatedness. Therefore it has held fast to an irrational moment in the
midst of an industrial society which aims at rationality, the exclusive
domination of the principle that all relations must be calculable...
They suggest that the social world itself is irrational or unreasonable in
the substantive sense, and that the family has become not only anach-
ronistic but contradictory. The German critical theorists, drawing on
Freud, focused on the role of the father in the formation of the superego
through resolution of the oedipal complex. They argued that the con-
tradictions of the nineteenth-century bourgeois family reveal positive and
negative elements. On the one hand, the internalization of the father's
authority produced an autonomous self and the family provided some
love and protection for the individual against harsh social pressures. On
the other hand, there was still exploitation of some family members,
especially women and children, while increased sexual repression in the
bourgeois period made the family panicularly effective in instilling the
demands of an oppressive society. This theoretical tradition, I believe,
raises much more searching questions and suggests more complex answers
than either traditional sociology or 'modernization' theories of family
history. It alens us to the connection between family forms and class
structure insofar as the 'modern family', characterized by nuclear struc-
ture, privatization and intense internal relationships, was largely the
creature of the bourgeoisie, a class which rose to power with the growth
of industrial and finance capitalism in Western Europe.
By the later nineteenth century, however, capitalist societies, including
colonial offshoots like Australia, were developing further, and· critical
theorists have also sought to relate changes in the class structure and in
broad economic and cultural patterns to those in the family. As patterns
of capital ownership changed with the growth of large-scale corporations
and monopolies, the nature of the class structure was modified. The
increased scale of capitalist enterprise and of the State sector produced
greater bureaucratization, with a rise in particular of a new management
group. Both non-Marxists and Marxists have categorized this extension
of the 'middle classes' into the technical, management and professional
stratum. Debates have revolved around whether, along with the related
growth of the State, this new group plays a role in later industrial
capitalist societies which was unforeseen by Marx. Earlier Marxists,
following Marx himself, had argued that there would be a dwindling
away of the old 'petit bourgeoisie', the main 'middle' group outside the
basic class polarities of capitalism. This potential new third group, the
professionals and managers, has been variously termed the 'new petty
bourgeoisie', 'the professional-managerial class' or the 'new class'. How-
ever, accounts of their position in the class structure of advanced capitalist
societies have been quite diverse: some writers insist they are fundamen-
tally aligned with the working class; others· that they are 'lackeys' of
capital; and others that they inhabit a 'contradictory' location. 7 Whether
they are a 'class' in the standard Marxist sense of sharing a similar
relationship to the means of production, or only a 'fraction' of the ruling
class, the bourgeoisie, is still a matter of controversy, but the rise of the
'experts' is generally accepted to be a major feature of modern societies.
The shift from industrial to advanced capitalism during the twentieth
century not only increased the role of various 'experts' but produced a
growing emphasis on consumption and hence the development of the
mass media and of advertising. These various changes have been linked
by critical theorists to significant change in family dynamics and person-
ality structure. Their fear, both in the 1930s under Nazism, and since,
has been that the potential 'emancipatory moment' of the bourgeois
family is being lost-that:
its disintegration by no means has solely the positive aspects of libera-
tion ... Even if the repressive traits of the bourgeois family may be growing
milder, this does not necessarily mean that freer, less authoritarian forms
are taking their place. Like every proper ideology, the family too was
more than a mere lie. 8
According to these theorists, the strength of personality structure pro-
duced in the bourgeois family was one of its advantages. However, the
changes in the labour force since the nineteenth century which have
eroded the economic base of the father's authority have consequences for
the family in the formation of personality. The concern of critical
theorists, including Christopher Lasch, is that under advanced capitalism

the demise of paternal authority allows the production of weaker egos
that are less able to resist external authority. This fear is related to that
of the potential totalitarianism of modern industrial societies, insofar as
the mass media, peer group and the State supplant the father's authority
role and individuals are less resistant to manipulation and exploitation. 9
A crucial factor has been the emergence within the middle class of the
'human service' or helping professions. This group has played the leading
role in a conscious assault on the family as an 'anachronistic' or 'natural'
institution, attempting to bring familial behaviour into line with the
norms of calculative exchange characteristic of the wider society.
Several writers have drawn attention to the role of 'experts' in the
extension of a 'rationalist' consciousness to widening spheres of life,
including the family and personal relationships. While non-Marxist
writers Berger and Kellner refer in general terms to the 'carryover' of
rationality into other spheres of life 10 , Christopher Lasch in particular
has been strongly influenced by German critical theory. Various profes-
sionals, according to Lasch, have played a conscious and significant role
in the· spread of alienating and oppressive social relationships originating
in the production system of industrial capitalism. In his account, the
coming of the counsellors, as Halmos refers to them 11 , has led to the
undermining of parental authority and a fatal lessening of parental
competence and confidence. The fluctuations in childrearing prompted
by some of the experts, especially the extension of 'permissiveness', are
seen as contributing to the formation of the modern personality type:
the 'narcissist', 'who sees the world as a mirror of himself and has no
interest in external events except as they throw back a reflection of his
own image' . 12 Lasch attributes the growing dominance of narcissist
personality traits to the alienating effects of the modern work world,
both industrial and bureaucratic; the 'mechanical reproduction of culture'
in the mass media; and the loss of faith in the future which he refers
to as 'the world view of the resigned'. He blames doctors and psychiatrists
in particular, but also the other 'helping professions' - social workers,
child psychologists and sundry other therapists - for encouraging the
culture of narcissism. In Haven in a heartless world, Lasch argues that a
series of interventions have left the family prone to the degradation of
dependence on the expert.
The significance of the 'experts' is central to a critique of late capitalist
culture's transformation of the family and of personal life which comes
from an emergent French tradition. Jacques Donzelot's The policing of
families is concerned with the expansion of what he terms the 'psy'

complex, the medico-psychiatric-social work field of intervention. Don-
zelot acknowledges his debt to Michel Foucault, applying a similar
analysis as that developed by Foucault in recent years, including his
provocative suggestion concerning 'bio-politics'. Foucault argues-as have
Frankfurt School theorists including Marcuse, though certainly along
different lines and on different premises-that the nature of domination
has changed from the direct exertion of economic and political control
in earlier stages of capitalist society to a more subtle but pervasive
manipulation taking place in late capitalist society. Foucault draws
attention to the 'administration' of everyday existence, but especially to
the 'administration of bodies and the calculated management of life' 13 :
the increasing surveillance over sexuality and intense preoccupation with
all its aspects. Foucault rejects the notion of decreasing repression of sex
in modern society, arguing by contrast that we must study its new form,
its 'putting into discourse'. He sees the family as at the centre of an
earlier system of alliance, a juridical system of control, and also as at
the centre of the emergent system of deployment of sexuality. The family
has been reorganized and, in particular, 'psychiatrized', a theme further
developed by Donzelot. Donzelot discerns two main strategies concerning
the family in recent centuries in France, on the one hand that of
traditionalists or familialists, 'the men of the Church, the barracks and
the Courts', and on the other, that of the modernizing progressives, the
medico-psychoanalytic reformers of the family. He argues that the emerg-
ence of the modern family and the expansion of the 'psy' organizations
is a single process and one 'not politically innocent'.
The Foucauldian and critical theory traditions thus share some com-
mon themes despite their markedly different intellectual origins. The
changing nature of domination and control in modern societies, the
constitution of sexuality as problematic, and the interest in the experts'
transformation of the family and its relation to increasingly subtle forms
of manipulation of the individual, are recurrent themes. Both interpre-
tations reject traditional Marxist analysis, largely out of dissatisfaction
with its economism and inability to illumine the connections between
the public and private spheres in advanced technological societies. Un-
fortunately, they share a fundamental weakness: an inadequate concep-
tualization of the process of social structuring. Not only theoretical
considerations but the historical material used in this book show that
class and gender relationships are basic to understanding issues of
domination and control. The two substantive contributions most akin in
interests to this study, that of Lasch on the one hand, and of Donzelot
on the other, are lacking in their analysis of both. A re-orientation is
required which incorporates the insights of feminist theory into analysis
of family change and its relation to the class structure, especially the
role of the professional middle class.
The Frankfurt School's general stress on the significance of paternal
authority, and on male socialization as the normative process, implies
fundamentally male-biased assumptions about reality. On the whole
their analysis excluded women's perception and experience, and Lasch
especially has been accused of virulent anti-feminism. Although I would
not go so far, it is clear that he sees women as having collaborated with
the experts in breaking down bourgeois family patterns. Donzelot's
account has also been indicted along similar lines: that he sees women
as 'guilty' of alliance with the doctors. As Barrett and Mcintosh argue,
Lasch and Donzelot to some extent mourn the patriarchal family, and
blame women for the passing of this organic basis of social order. 14
Earlier writers of the Frankfurt School at least argued that the bourgeois
family was an ambivalent phenomenon, not least for women. They
acknowledged, if only in passing, 'the brutal oppression' of women and
'the economic injustice in the exploitation of domestic labour'. Adorno
and Horkheimer also noted a relationship between the domination of
women, sexual repression, and the development of Western civilization
itself. 15 However, it is possible to go much further than this; indeed a
good deal of recent feminist theorizing shifts the focus of analysis entirely.
Although no full account of the feminist re-assessment··of psychoan-
alytic theory is necessary here, some points are relevant. Many feminists
have been deeply suspicious of psychoanalysis, theoretically because of
Freud's taking of maleness as the human norm, but also because of the
growing critique of therapeutic abuse of women. Nonetheless, many
feminist theorists have now re-examined not only the Freudian tradition
but other psychoanalytic formulations. Like the critical theorists, they
recognize that some complex psychological mechanisms must be oper-
ating in the perpetuation of widespread systematic social oppression. The
work of Nancy Chodorow, in particular, sets out to explain the psycho-
dynamics of the construction of femininity and masculinity and the
devaluation of the former. 16 Chodorow is one of the 'gynocentric' theorists
who reject the 'phallocentric' Freudian emphasis on the father -and on
male development, stressing instead the primary identification of children
of both sexes with the mother. They see pre-oedipal attachment as more
significant than issues of paternal power and authority. Chodorow em-
phasizes the differences in the experience of girls and boys as they

separate themselves from the mother and develop the socially defined
gender identity; but her stress is on the tenuousness of masculine identity.
The resulting problems include the rejection of the feminine and the
general devaluing of women.
Although it is necessary to grasp this essential shift of focus away
from paternal authority to maternal attachment (and also power), there
is another aspect of Chodorow' s discussion which is of particular relevance
to my purposes. She has pointed out that women's role in mothering,
although biologically based, is largely culturally constructed: women
being assigned to childrearing as well as childbearing. Drawing on
Michelle Rosaldo's analysis of the social distinction between the public
and domestic domains, she suggests that the extent to which men
participate in childrearing, and its general cultural valuing, varies cross-
culturally and historically. In particular, some societies more than others
distinguish between public and domestic spheres and enforce a corre-
sponding sexual division, with women primarily located in the latter
since they and their 'sphere' are seen as lower in status. Separate sexual
spheres was a dominant feature of the bourgeois family model of the
nineteenth century. Chodorow and many other writers have pointed out
the ways in which the development of industrial capitalism narrowed
women's social role to that of domestic labour, childbearing and rearing
within an increasingly private sphere. What is more, the decreasing
number of children in a family, and the increasing public interest in
issues of quantity and quality of the population which occurred around
the turn of the twentieth century, added further refinements to women's
'mothering' task. By the early twentieth century, as Chodorow notes, it
came more and more to centre on psychological tasks, the management
of personal relationships within the family. Even in their ongoing
domestic labour, women's tasks were eventually to be seen largely in
terms of management of resources rather than actual production. Thus
by the interwar and post-Second World War period, their role as
organizers of domestic chores and, most importantly, as directors of the
family's patterns of consumption came increasingly to the forefront of
public discussion on the role of the housewife. This produced a redefi-
nition of women's familial tasks as efforts were made to teach women
new 'scientific', 'efficient' and 'modern' ways under the direct tutelage
of a variety of experts from the professional middle class.
From this discussion it follows that the changes taking place not only
in the bourgeois family, but in working-class families too via the
extension of these norms, should not be seen just in terms of the position
of the father. Potentially more significant than the undermining of the
economic basis of the father's authority, was an undermining of the
position of the mother by reducing her role to the execution of tasks
along lines laid down by outside experts.
This process has been the focus of the work of Ehrenreich and English,
who have described in detail the prescriptions issued by health and
welfare professionals to American women. 17 Ehrenreich has also argued
that the activities of the professional managerial class, in trying to reform
housewifery practices for example, were part of the broader imposition
of bourgeois culture on the working class.18 While the Australian evi-
dence in many ways supports that interpretation, I have tried to go
beyond this analysis. Ehrenreich and English too readily assume the
effectiveness of the experts' message, neglecting the contradictions it
frequently involved and the opposition it engendered. A conceptual
framework for going further requires first a feminist analysis of the
position of women in the bourgeois family; and second, a fuller critique
of the ideological nature of the experts' role. It will be on this basis
that I argue that the bourgeois model of womanhood and the family
was profoundly undermined by the discourse and practice of the ration-
alizing technical experts.
A great deal of the evidence on nineteenth-century family patterns,
not only from the neo-Marxist tradition but even from liberal historians,
indicates that a certain construction of femininity was pivotal to the
bourgeois family. Feminist theory suggests this was more significant than
has generally been recognized. Although it is not possible here to explore
the many facets of this construction, the Victorian 'ideal of true wom-
anhood' has several features which relate to my argument. First, a strong
emphasis on women's nurturant and maternal capacities was linked to
a discourse on moral sensibilities. Increasingly women came to be seen
as more morally responsible and of course more chaste than men. This
tied in closely with the concept of separate spheres for the sexes, women
seen more and more as economically and socially dependent on their
menfolk and fundamentally located in the domestic sphere rather than
in the 'masculine' world of politics, industry and commerce. Two essential
points emerge from this summary portrayal of Victorian womanhood.
First, it was overwhelmingly the production of a particular class, the
bourgeoisie. Many other historians have described the 'angel in the
house' characterization of femininity and its creation by the bourgeoisie,
and I have no evidence from my own research that leads me to dispute
their conclusion. 19 Furthermore, as Catherine Hall has argued, the actual

patterning of gender divisions actually helped in the construction of the
bourgeoisie as a class, unifying them and demarcating their specific
culture from those of the aristocracy and the working class. 20
There is an aspect of the bourgeois ideology of womanhood, however,
which has been less widely discussed. This is the way in which it drew
upon, but reformulated in a contradictory manner, older cultural asso-
ciations of women with 'nature', men with 'culture'. 21 The bourgeois
emphasis on women as weaker, more passive and dependent beings, as
sexually innocent yet spontaneously nurturant and maternal, was a refined
and romanticized version of an age-old theme in Western culture: the
association of women with aspects of existence regarded as threatening
to masculine-defined cultural reality. As Rosemary Radford Ruether has
cogently argued, not only women but non-white races and slaves have
been portrayed as representative of the lower half of a dualism, the
'inferior realm of bodily "nature", while ruling-class males identify
themselves with transcendent spirit'. 22 She goes on to suggest, as have
other feminist writers such as Simone de Beauvoir, that Western culture
in particular has seen 'the relation of spirit to body (as] one of repression,
subjugation and mastery. Material existence is ontologically inferior to
mind and the root of moral evil'. While at first glance bourgeois
femininity seems to represent a curious inversion of the identification of
women with the body and with evil, particularly sexual lust, I think
Ruether rightly suggests that the basic cultural dynamics remained. The
Victorian ideal of true womanhood was only the top half of an often
unspoken, even unrecognized dichotomy between 'ladies' and prostitutes
specifically, but working-class women more generally:
The bourgeois ideal of the frail, lily-white lady of leisured society had
as its unspeakable underpinnings the sweat shops where working class
women labored long hours for slave wages. 23
Furthermore, the superficial reversal of earlier typologies-the represen-

tation now of bourgeois women as moral, men as materialistic-served
to support the removal of moral, spiritual and interpersonal values from
the public world of industry and commerce. Safely located with women
in the domestic sphere, they were devalued and marginalized but kept
alive in a haven for the work-worn alienated male. This development of
course also laid the basis for women's claims to enter the public world
to 'purify' it through temperance and other campaigns.
During the nineteenth century this model of the bourgeois home and
women was loudly supported by the clergy and the medical profession.
By the 1900s, however, other professionals such as teachers, public.
health officials and psychologists were joining the chorus of prescriptions
for domestic life, but to a new tune: that of the modern world of science,
technology and rational, calculating efficiency. A major task of this
stratum was clearly ideological: the manipulation of societal consensus
in the interests of the dominant class. It has been a feature of the claims
of the professional middle class that they could reconcile opposing
interests in society; that their technical, trained expertise pointed the way
to a new social future in which rationally applied knowledge would
replace outmoded social conflict. 24 In the early part of the twentieth
century, Australian intellectuals, like those in Britain and the US,
proclaimed the need for 'rational' and 'social' efficiency. In the chapters
to follow, the themes of science, precision and management, whether of
housework, children or the body as sexual object, reflect the experts'
claims to special knowledge in these areas. Tim Rowse has shown the
extent to which Australian intellectuals have been preoccupied with 'the
problems of the political and moral unity of the Australian people, and
the schemes of reform to end or defuse class struggle'. 25 His analysis
stresses the role of the intelligentsia as ideologues operating largely,
though not always directly, in the interests of the dominant capitalist
class. He also suggests that they had an explicit discourse of their own,
that the new liberalism provided the coherent philosophical basis of
their reformative programmes. The tenor of the experts' ideology con-
cerning the domestic sphere reveals the theme of social efficiency to be
part of a broader ideology of technical rationality.
It is not pertinent to this discussion to backtrack over the many
disputes about the historical development and contemporary usage of
'ideology'. Rather, I will simply assert that the most fruitful usage is
related to the analysis of power and domination in society. I therefore
mean more by ideology than simply a system of beliefs or values. I
believe ideology is best understood as one aspect of the human production
of culture, as a process of creating symbolic systems of meaning with
which to make sense of and act upon the material conditions of
existence. 26 Thus the terms culture or consciousness refer to this general
process, but ideology refers to an interpretation or representation of
reality put forward by a dominant group or class to veil or mask the
full reality of the situation to the advantage of that group. 27 Whereas
some discussion of ideology from both Marxist and non-Marxist sources
has assumed a simple and direct correspondence between the material

interests of the dominant class and the ideologyjies produced, the re-
emergence of Marxist interest in culture and ideology has produced more
subtle conceptual formulations. Raymond Williams, for example, pointed
out that the traditional basejsuperstructure metaphor is outworn and
inadequate; the so-called 'base' is process, a system of relationship rather
than a static entity. 28 Like others since, he turned to Gramsci's concept
of hegemony to articulate the complexity of the 'superstructure' as a
process also, but one which is always unfinished and 'fraught with
difficulty'. Others have described the social totality as 'structured in
dominance', and stressed the role of language in the unconscious struc-
turing of historically defined forms of consciousness. Hegemony therefore
refers to a variety of processes through which a fundamental group, not
so much a simplistic 'ruling class' but an 'alliance of class strata', strives
to achieve social, cultural and political leadership as well as economic
dominance. 29 The ideology of technical rationality was the particular
contribution of the emergent technical experts acting generally on behalf
of the dominant class.
Although an ideology can be examined in terms of what is frequently
termed 'discourse', the articulation of symbols, values and beliefs which
maintain the status quo, it is also crucial in organizing practices and
shaping lived experience itself. One of Althusser's most useful contri-
butions was his insistence that 'ideology has a material existence'.
Althusser argued that ideology operates through an individual's actions,
taking place in the context of everyday life and hence material existence. 30
This claim raises the issue of how ideology actually operates to take
effect. Althusser has suggested that ideology acts upon the individual
by 'interpellating' or 'calling out' the individual as its subject. The
relationship between 'ideology' and 'subject' is one of simultaneous
interdependence. Ideology does not function in a simple manner by
being imposed upon the individual; rather, it is continually created and
recreated by its subjects through their participation in its partial repre-
sentation of reality, which assumes that they are already its subjects. To
use an example which will be evident in later chapters, ideologies
concerning women as wives and mothers frequently address them as
such, as already constituted subjects, wives and mothers, thereby rein-
forcing and recreating a social system in which this is how women are
primarily defined.
A difficulty which has beset much theoretical consideration of ideology
concerns the two-way nature of this process of 'calling out'. It remains
not only conceptually difficult but presents especial problems in empirical

research. People clearly do respond in complex ways to ideological
discourse and to the constraints of the patterning of everyday existence,
the rituals of organizing life and so on. Although theoretical debates are
inconclusive, deterministic Marxist writing which implies that people
are totally manipulated through ideology to serve the interests of the
dominant class is obviously inadequate. 31 A different approach comes
from the French theorist Foucault, whose recent writings at least stress
the ubiquity of power, because it both embraces everything and seems
to come from everywhere. 32
Foucault therefore appears to offer a better alternative for grasping
the processes of resistance to ideology as well as those of participation
in its formulation and operation. He uses terms for the latter which in
themselves have proven of some utility in the historical analysis devel-
oped in this book. In particular the notions of the programme-the
strategy and technologies of power-also derive, like that of 'political
anatomy', from Foucault's analysis. By a 'programme' is meant the
intentional patterning of the formation of social reality. Individuals and
groups of individuals have 'programmes' they wish to carry out-not
all of which are even effective, of course, and many of which have effects
other than desired. The term 'strategy' refers to how they go about it,
the means for carrying out the programme. Foucault and Donzelot argue
that we live in a world of multiple programmes, but that there .is no
single programme or strategy. To the extent that Foucault, even unwill-
ingly, does acknowledge what I ·have discussed as heg~mony, he describes
advanced industrial societies as characterized by 'bio-politics', a system
of surveillance and bureaucratic administration focusing on the individual
body and the population at large.
Although Foucault's 'pluralist' interpretation of power is a useful
reminder that no single hegemonic ideology is likely to be totally
effective, it remains inadequate. As Giddens and others have pointed
out, Foucault's account, like that of Althusser, denies the consciously
acting human subject. 33 What is required is detailed analysis of both
the creativity of the construction of ideology on the part of individuals
and groups, including fractions of major social groups such as those
based on gender or class, and the human inventiveness of participation
in others' ideological strategies. The study of ideology in any given
historical situation involves acknowledging that people are more than
passive puppets in social situations, and recognizing that some have
more resources than others to influence outcomes. In more abstract
language, Giddens refers to this as the 'duality of structure', an emphasis

on human agency in conjunction with an emphasis on structured con-
straints on individual action. 34 Maintaining this balance in the analysis
of specific ideologies still remains difficult, especially where source-
material is loaded on the side of the powerful groups thus producing
their representations of reality. It becomes particularly impor.tant, there-
fore, to discern not only the commonality and coherence of the ideological
structures of a society, but the diversity and tensions also likely to be
evident. Social theory has tended to stress the former, focusing especially
on the patterns of consciousness and of everyday life which reproduce
the social system of industrial capitalism. A significant critique has
emerged which characterizes modern societies as dominated by a means-
end orientation, a merely 'technical' rather than real rationality. Both
non-Marxist and Marxist sociologists have analysed the 'discontents' of
modernity and emphasized the significance of technology, the latter
including it in their discussion of the changing nature of class exploitation
under capitalism. 35 This theme requires some consideration, as I am
arguing that a major feature of the professionals' role has been the
extension of technical rationality throughout society, including the home,
where it rested most uneasily with bourgeois domesticity.
The critique of modernity owes much to Weber, whose distinction
between formal and substantive rationality and posing of the dilemma
of bureaucracy, the 'iron cage' of contemporary rationality, was remark-
ably prescient. 36 For Weber the rational accounting and calculation
characteristic of the capitalist enterprise was the hallmark of modern
society. Weber stressed the fundamental importance of technique-the
application of instrumental rationality to the material world-and saw
this as linked to, but not identical with, the application of technical
reason-a means-end orientation-to social activity. Moreoever, he pointed
to a changing world view, the 'disenchantment of the world' (the decline
of myth and magic and the establishment of rational-legal norms in the
institutional structures of modern society). The process of the rationali-
zation of the modern world Weber believed to be inexorable. His
pessimism about its outcome reflected a German philosophical tradition
of rejection of industrialism and the dominance of modern science and
technology. Despite Weber's fatalistic resignation to the routinization,
secularization and rationalization of the world, his lasting contribution
has been directing attention to the irony that as civilization has freed us
from the tyranny of myth and superstition, a new form of slavery has
been substituted for the old.
The Frankfurt School theorists shared Weber's anxiety about reason,

explicitly tracing the problems of rationality back to the Enlightenment
concept of reason. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and
Adorno took up the problem of the domination of instrumental reason,
pointing to a fundamental contradiction in the Enlightenment notion of
reason itself: that between liberating reason and reason as the domination
of the natural world through science and technology. The latter, instru-
mental reason, involves subject-object relations of humans to nature;
hence, insofar as humans are also natural beings, the domination of
nature can mean that people, like _material objects, may be valued only
as instrumental to the purposes of other humans. 37 As for Weber, the
distinction between practical or moral reason and technical or instru-
mental reason reflected the fear that the latter was in the ascendancy,
that the 'eclipse of reason', a powerful 'irrational' rationality was evident
in the domination of modern capitalist industrial society. Adorno and
Horkheimer suggested that although the technological order of modern
capitalism was the apotheosis of this development, its genesis lay in a
dualism of mind and matter deeply embedded in Western history.
Continuation of the critique of the sundering of practical and technical
reason has also been fundamental to later critical theory, especially the
work of Marcuse and Habermas. Marcuse argued that oppression had
taken a new form, describing the 'one-dimensional' society: the demise
of criticaL thinking brought about by technology, material affluence and
the mass domination of a managed, uncritical consensus. 38 Marcuse has
been criticized for a romantic rejection of science and technology and for
underplaying the ongoing significance of class conflict in the supposedly
'administered' society. Habermas has addressed similar themes, arguing
that it is not technical reason itself, but the reduction of a broader
concept of reason to its scientific and technological forms that is the
problem of advanced societies. Like Giddens, Habermas points out that
capitalism is a unique economic and social system in that it actually
institutionalizes economic growth and hence the permanent expansion of
a means-end orientation. 39 Capitalist rationality or, as Habermas refers
to it, the 'technocratic consciousness' has therefore relentlessly expanded
throughout all sectors of the society and is legitimated by science and
technology which have themselves become a productive· force. Although
Habermas does not believe that the domination of the technocratic
consciousness has been fully achieved in advanced capitalism, he argues
that both capitalist and advanced state socialist societies tend in that
direction. Moreoever, what is at stake in this development, he suggests,
is not just class domination but the essential interest of humanity in

liberation through critical reflection. 'Technocratic consciousness reflects
not the sundering of an ethical situation but the repression of 'ethics' as
such as a category of life.' 40
Although at the conclusion of his essay on 'Technology and science
as ''ideology'' ' Habermas hoped that student protest could produce
rebellion against the expansion of technocratic consciousness, in subse-
quent work he has directed further attention to 'legitimation crises' in
late capitalism. He discerns one such crisis in the undermining of the
motivational basis of support for capitalist society, panicularly the decline
of achievement ideology and possessive individualism. 41 He suggests
contradictions between the technocratic consciousness and other bourgeois
values. What he does not explicitly address, and well might have in
this very context, is the extension of technical rationality to the sphere
of home and family. Although he sees the recent women's movement
as one possible basis for· a new motivational ethic in society, only in
very recent work is Habermas starting to explore these issues. 42
The rationality of technology, a purely instrumental or means-oriented
definition of reason, has therefore been described as an outstanding
feature of industrial capitalist societies. However, there are several clear
inadequacies in this pattern of analysis as it stands so far. In particular,
Weber and the critical theory tradition have been accused both by
orthodox Marxists and by non-Marxist sociologists of an overriding
cultural pessimism. Giddens, for example, complains that both Marcuse
and Habermas fall into the same trap as the 'post-industrial society
theorists of mainstream sociology {in their] belief that the ''technocratic
consciousness" has submerged pre-existing economic divisions and con-
flicts' .43 Their downplaying of class divisions has led the critical theorists
to be criticized for political impotence, and to allegations that their
analysis does not suggest strategies for major social change which might
avoid the fate of modernity to which they, like Weber, have pointed.
Yet there is an even more significant drawback in the critical theorists'
picture of the disenchantment of the world-its neglect of issues of
gender. Usually there is only passing reference to the position of women,
and there has been no full exploration of the implications of the 'dialectic
of enlightenment' for relations between the sexes. Although this major
task is inevitably beyond the scope of this study, something can be said
here. My suggestion is that we must move beyond the difficulty to which
Giddens and others have alerted us: the somewhat 'free-floatingness' of
a critique of instrumental reason split off from a careful analysis of the
realities of class and other power relationships, especially those of gender.

We can, at least in part, do this by paying closer attention to ·the main
proponents of technical rationality, the professional managerial or middle
class. Further, the specific role of this stratum in trying to spread the
rationality of technology to an arena as replete with traditional values
and deeply held assumptions as that of women and the family provides
a fruitful chance to study the actual power dynamics involved and their
broader significance.
In the late nineteenth and increasingly in the twentieth century,
members of the professional middle class spearheaded a series of attempts
to modernize domestic life according to the principles of science and
technology and the rational efficiency thought characteristic of capitalist
industry. Although the experts were seemingly unaware of any contra-
dictions between their general project and other aspects of domestic
ideology, most were quite clear about the breadth of their mission: it
was to re-form not just working-class family life, as others may have
thought, but even that of bourgeois families. In their efforts to alter
both the material shape of the household in such aspects as housing
design and equipment, and to change patterns of behaviour such as
childcare, the emergent professional class sought to make the domestic
sphere compatible with the public world.
The extension of this modern technocratic consciousness to personal
life and the organization of the home, however, was fundamentally
incompatible with some of the assumptions upon which the dominant
bourgeois family model was based. In particular the emphasis on the
bourgeois home as a refuge, a sanctuary of affective relations in a cold,
impersonal world, was directly threatened by the importation into the
domestic sphere of the principles of action characteristic of industry and
commerce. Furthermore, technical rationality, the type of human action
most based on mind and will, ran counter to the bourgeois interpretation
of femininity which stressed the naturalness of women's performance of
domestic labour and of childbearing and rearing. The contradiction which
emerged as a consequence takes on some significance in the light of
feminist theorizing about gender inequality.
The identification of housework and childcare with women, taken for
granted in Western societies until the latter part of the twentieth century,
has reflected long-held and widespread assumptions about the nature of
femininity. Simone de Beauvoir and later feminist writers have, I think
convincingly, argued that the subjection of women to men has involved
a subject-object relationship with women relegated to the secondary
status of the domestic domain. Women have been seen as more 'earthy',
less 'cultural' than men; largely because they have been perceived as
closer to nature than men, closer to a lower sphere over and above
which all cultures assert transcendence. However, not all cultures equally
devalue nature and exalt humanly constructed culture, nor has the low
status of women by any means remained a universal constant. 44 In
Western society, as Adorno and Horkheimer noted in their Dialectic of
Enlightenment, the progress of 'civilization' has regularly been associated
not only with sexual repression but with the strict social control of
women. 45 Furthermore, the domination of the natural world, to the
exploitation of which science and technology are devoted, has frequently
shown a close relationship to the devaluation of the 'feminine'. 46 The
'rape' of the earth has been seen as the inevitable concomitant of modern
civilization, or at least of its industrial capitalist form. The ideology of
the bourgeois family stressed women's 'natural' qualities of nurturance
and altruism, acknowledging their displacement from the public world.
However, by the twentieth century the pattern of social action charac-
teristic of that world was being imported into the home by the new
professionals in health, child care and domestic management. My task
in the following chapters is to show how this took place in Australia.
Part I
Production
2
The architecture of daily life
During the period between 1880 and_ the Second World War many
developments changed the context of everyday life within and without
the urban family households in which most Australians lived. The
expansion of suburbia and the extension of transport and other public
facilities are features of the period which are easily discernible. Within
the home too significant changes were taking place, both in the patterning
of familial relations and in the physical environment. As in other
comparable countries, in Australia the family household system was
being affected by wider developments: by those in the industrial sector
of production, by public health provisions, by the diminishing supply
of domestic servants and by the introduction of modern technology into
the household. With these developments came changes in the layout
and furnishing of the house and, as the period wore on, the introduction
of new notions of housewifery.
Australian historians have so far paid more attention to urban devel-
opment-the expansion of industry and public utilities-than to the
changes within the seemingly 'private' household. Even where attention
has been focused on the experience of women, there has been greater
emphasis on their role and struggles in the paid workforce than on their
domestic contribution of services and production of goods. Changes in
the relationship between the forces of production external to the house-
hold and patterns of domestic production were a crucial feature of the
late nineteenth century.
The increasing emphasis on separating the public world of work from
the private domain of the home was a significant development. Theorists
have frequently discussed this separation, but have not always acknowl-
32
The architecture of daily life 33
edged its contradictory nature. 1 On the one hand, there emerged in the
nineteenth century a strong emphasis on a sexual division of spheres of
life, which was part of a broader ideology of home and family as a
retreat from the industrial world. This was underpinned by efforts to
improve the physical environment of the home, and later planners even
hoped for the physical separation of industrial from residential devel-
opment. On the other hand, not only were there many ways in which
the family household was affected by industrial developments, but there
was a deliberate extension of principles of scientific management to the
home. The importance of efficient household management and the great
faith in the advantages of the application of modern technology to the
home were significant themes in Australian sources by the early twentieth
century.
The leaders of these changes in the late nineteenth century tended to
be religious, moral reformers-philanthropists with a general humani-
tarian intent. By the turn of the century and in subsequent years, they
worked in alliance with an emerging group of professionals: experts in
public health, housing and the management of the household and family.
Although the 're-formers', both those of philanthropic and moral incli-
nation and the newer technical experts, formed a dominant group in
terms of immediate bourgeois class interests, they were neither homo-
geneous nor always unified. The former, the 'philanthropic' reformers,
frequently owned industrial or commercial enterprises, even fairly small
ones, or were wives or daughters of employers. In particular, they were
likely to be Noncomformist in religious affiliation: in the Australian
context Presbyterians or especially Methodists. In Melbourne, however,
they were often associated with a breakaway Presbyterian group, the
Australian Church, whose leader, the Reverend Charles Strong, was a
significant figure in social reform movements such as the anti-sweating
campaigns of the 1880s. Some members, generally women, of the upper-
class gentry, the 'squattocracy' as it has been known in Australia, were
also involved in movements to provide domestic science education and
infant and maternal health services. However, it was primarily from the
urban bourgeoisie that the major initiatives came to improve living and
working conditions through housing, factory and health reform. Their
motivation combined religious and charitable compassion with fears of
working-class unrest, especially after the 1890s depression. Throughout
the book I have used the term 'upper-middle-class charity network' to
refer to the interlocking group of reformers who led a variety of
34 The disenchantment of -the home
campaigns such as those for pure milk, kindergartens, playgrounds and

temperance. There are of course problems -here with terminology, as this
seems to imply a fixed layering or stratification of society. The reality
was a- complex social process of class formation and interaction in which
some groups strove to gain and consolidate power over- others. In
Australia in this period, the _'squattocracy' and urban industrial and
commercial entrepreneurs together can be termed a 'ruling c-lass', but
the new professional middle -class were also becoming significant. ·The
power and prestige of the latter derived not from property ownership
but from their training and the sale of their expertise. Their power base
was often the growing state bureaucracy but their interests were ·also
promoted by professional associations such as the British Medical As-
sociation. The social background of these professionals, the reforming
experts from science, medicine, education, architecture and so -on,- was
different from that of the bourgeois philanthropists. -Frequently their
fathers were employed in white collar jobs, clerical or small-scale man-
agerial positions.
Not only class background- but gender was an important differentiating
factor amongst those -.responsible for the variety of attempts to ·re-shape
family -patterns. The bourgeois women led many of the charity organi-
zations, and the development of professions such as teaching, including
kinderganens and domestic :science. as specialities, and nursing opened
up opponunities for other women to move into careers. So two groups
of women formed sources of.initiative and support for the ·developments
to be discussed in this and the -following chapters.
The several attempts to .re-form, re-shape, the organization .of· the
family household system involved many separate stmtegies. Most, how-
ever, were interlocked and a network~ of reformers, bourgeois and profes-
sional, men and women, emerged.in each major-capital-city and to some
extent at national level. Many of the reformers were prominent in several
campaigns or strategies t-o. change domestic life. Through all of them
we can see -shared concerns but sometimes a different focus. A consid-
erableceffort was being made to spread particular concepts of appropriate
household management and family relationships: those seen to be con-
sistent with the demands of modem, industrial society. In the- ear]Jer-
developments initiated by bourgeois- reformers the focus was~ primarily
on working-class families, but lat.er, certainly by the interwar period, the
aims of the professionals were much- broader, directed at their own and
middle-class households as welt Ironically enough in retrospect, many
significant women actively supported, even initiated, the professional
prescriptions that emerged concerning their family role. Furthermore,

labour representatives often encouraged the re-making of the working-
class household along lines acceptable both to bourgeois and professional
reformers, with an economically dependent wife ensconced in a well-
managed, thrifty and hygienic household.
Analysis of these various attempts to mould the family household
will begin with their late nineteenth-century roots, both ideological and
material. Examination of developments in public health, housing reform
and the introduction of technology to the home shows that the basis
was being laid for the social construction of 'the housewife' by the
domestic economy movement of the early twentieth century.
Despite the significance of rural myths in Australian culture, the major
frame of reference for the household has been the city and suburbs.
Melbourne's urban growth for example in the late nineteenth century
was considered by contemporaries to be quite remarkable, and this meant
in particular the growth of suburbia. 2 Although home ownership rates
were not as high in the capital cities as in country areas, approximately
a third to a half of Sydney and Melbourne homes seem to have been,
or were being, bought by their occupiers in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. 3 The overwhelming common pattern was that of the
single domestic dwelling on its own block of land, both house and
allotment size varying considerably with social position.
Images of Australian suburbia have often been as negative as those
of later American suburban development: of dullness, mediocrity and
the tedium of everyday life:
Around us the area is undistinguished and uninspiring. The sea is miles
away and there is no river or large park. From our balcony all that can
be seen is a big shallow basin full of houses with the Malvern Town
Hall poking up at the edge. There are few very rich and few very poor,
writes Brian Lewis of his childhood experience around 1914. 4 And

novelist George Johnston, who also lived in that 'basin full of houses',
but in a smaller one than the Lewises, refers to 'that undistinguished
house .. .in a flat and dreary suburb'. 5 Autobiographical and literary
accounts have pointed to the significance of the suburban home in the
everyday experience of most Australians, but historians and sociologists
have been slow to follow their lead. The lifestyles of Australian suburbia
have not even been adequately described, let alone their significance fully
analysed. Considerable data does exist on major aspects of urban devel-
opment, but here only a very brief sketch of population developments
and the provision of major urban facilities is necessary to provide a basis

for my discussion of the growing involvement of State instrumentalities
in activities impinging on the family household.
Australian urban growth was rapid in the 1880s and declined with
the depression of the 1890s, only recovering slowly in the years after
the turn of the century before the First World War. In the 1920s and
1930s a period of suburban growth was again followed by the stagnation
of a major depression. These developments reflected the overall processes
of capital formation and utilization which were part of international
developments. The major cities grew first as major commercial centres,
with industrial development increasing from the 1880s on, but not
becoming the dominant force until into the twentieth century. 6 Even in
the late nineteenth century, Sydney and Melbourne sprawled over a
considerable area because of the popularity of the detached, single-storey
dwelling on its own piece of land. The social patterning of suburbs was
clear by the late nineteenth century, continuing along similar lines in
later years and reflecting the visual attractions of hills and waterside
views. The appeal of both was reinforced by nineteenth century notions
of disease. Germs were thought to be spread by foul air: hence great
store was put on the fresh air available on well-drained hilltops or near
the sea.
The rapid expansion of the major cities and the increase of population
made the extension of public health services a pressing need. Several
aspects of public health were of particular relevance to the management
of the household, especially the provision of clean water and pure food
and milk; the disposal of wastes; and the management of infectious
disease. Along with housing reform, these were focal points of the
attempts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to ameliorate
urban living conditions. Other historians have described in some detail
the complexity of motivation and achievement of social reformers' work
in these areas, but have neglected the extent to which women, as
managers of the family household, were affected by such developments.
Reformers as various as churchmen, urban planners and public health
and welfare workers who disagreed~ on many other political aspects of
urban reform showed considerable unity when it came to discussion of
women and their family responsibilities. They were engaged in nothing
less than a project of 'housewifery reform', seeing poor living conditions
and poor housekeeping as twin evils. Their attempts to change both the
physical environment, and attitudes and behaviour, also have to be
understood against the backdrop of a broader ideology of home, marriage
and family. Although the concern with domesticity was stronger amongst
some social groups than others, most reformers shared the assumption
that the home should be a place of rest and refreshment from the cares
of the world. Several writers have drawn attention to the nineteenth-
century romanticization of the home as a retreat, which was particularly
characteristic of the bourgeoisie as a social class. 7 In Australia the onset
of industrialization occurred later than in England or the east coast of
the US, and at least until the 1890s depression, greater optimism
prevailed about the dawning of urban industrial society. In Melbourne,
for example, the heady days of extravagant expansion in the 1880s were
characterized by dreams of greatness for a new generation growing up
in a land of plenty. The home was promoted as the foundation of
national stability. In this context the home was described more in terms
of a positive fountainhead of energy and righteousness than as a 'haven
in a heanless world'.
The ideology of home and family which characterized Australian
society until after the First World War consisted of several complex,
intermingled strands. The main sources available to the historian are the
published accounts of clergymen, politicians and other public figures,
who on many occasions reiterated assumptions which they took for
granted were shared by their audience. On other occasions, they put
forward arguments for maintaining a style of home and family which
they considered now under attack, particularly because of the pressures
of urban, industrial life and women's move into the public world. In
these sources, the imagery of suburban domestic life presented in speeches,
sermons and stories was generally one of peaceful homes in which a
clear-cut sexual division of labour existed between husband and wife;
children were orderly, 'well-governed'; and neighbourhood relationships
were helpful and harmonious. That this was not always the case is quite
obvious from other sources, but the ideology remained nonetheless. The
intermingled themes of home as a sanctuary and as primarily woman's
sphere show that the bourgeois domestic ideal was promoted. The
Methodist paper the Spectator, for example, in 1880 referred to the
family as the 'springs of our national life', saying that 'England's rulers
and aristocracy would have ruined her many times in the past', but
the steady habits and good moral ways of a large number of the great
middle and lower classes helped to balance the wickedness in high places,
and kept the ship from going on her beam ends. There was a sobriety,
a moral strength, in the great heart of the nation that no power could
destroy bur itself. 8
The religious newspapers, in particular the Methodist and Presbyterian

papers, continued throughout the period into the twentieth century to
reinforce the emphasis on the moral qualities of good family life. Moral
tales, often reprinted from overseas sources, told over and over again of
children straying from the paths of virtue only to encounter the reforming
endeavour of a companion from a wholesome home background. Al-
though often the message about the home and good family living was
implicit, in many instances it was quite explicit and the focus of a
didactic tale.
The core ingredients of the dominant familial ideology-the home as
a sanctuary and as woman's sphere-rested upon the assumption of the
complementarity in marriage of a sexual division of labour. Articles and
stories emphasized the importance of clear masculine and feminine
spheres. These were primarily directed to a middle-class audience as
assumptions were made about the husband's occupation and about
material possessions. A 'word to husbands' in 1888, for example, stressed:
'You have no more right to be poking around in the kitchen than she
has to walk into your place. of business and give directions to your
employees'. 9 It was assumed in late nineteenth-century advice to women
that they were to manage the household smoothly and not to worry the
husband with domestic trifles, as he had the cares of the business world
on his shoulders. Rather, they were to turn the home into a place of
refreshment and peace. Although the pervasive comments about the
home as a haven were couched in general terms, it was implicitly as a
haven for men that it was seen. In definitions of 'home' solicited by a
suburban paper for its women's page in 1904, this theme is a recurrent
one; 'Home is the resting place for the workworn, and shelter for the
storm tossed'; 'a world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in'. 10 The
theme occurs in all sources throughout the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century, although it becomes less marked after the First World
War. The home and family were thought to be characterized by intimate
and personal relationships inappropriate to the public world of industry
and commerce. The 'sentiment of domesticity', as Shorter refers to it,
was certainly not peculiar to Australia but was part of a widespread
bourgeois ideology of the family. Its strength in Australia was doubtless
increased by the ideology and actual patterns of home ownership. The
emphasis on the home as the place of rest and expressive relationships
was of course more appropriate for men than for women; for the latter
it continued to be the locus of their daily work, whereas men were
increasingly away from home in the industrial workforce. The separation
of the spheres of home and work was an integral part of capitalist

industrial development, which was represented as a natural sexual di-
vision of labour and influence.
The ideological stress on the tranquillity and warmth of the domestic
domain drew on desire, on nostalgia for memories of family and affection
and the hope that love can be institutionalized in the home. On the
other hand, of course, there was ample evidence that domestic relation-
ships were often far from blissful and the hearth a site of hard-pressed
labour and bitter struggle. Women's magazines only sometimes acknowl-
edged this, but both metropolitan and suburban newspapers featured
stories of domestic violence and marital and neighbourhood conflicts
which defied ideological notions of peace and harmony. Incidents reported
by a local Melbourne paper, the Preston Post, for example, give some
insight into alternative experiences in which material conditions did not
support a rosy family existence. Stories of parents mistreating children,
of neighbours squabbling over noise and livestock, and many accounts
of the sufferings of deserted wives show something of life in working-
class suburbia. Although oral history tends to produce pleasant rather
than unpleasant memories of family life, the picture which emerged
from interviews also based on Preston was of considerable strain and hard
work rather than rosy domesticity. In particular, women who had to
support themselves, or who had large families and no domestic help,
had long and arduous working days in the domestic 'haven'. The
sentimentality about woman's position at the centre of the happy home,
characteristic of sermons and speeches, banned from collective conscious-
ness alternative experiences of the family. The myth had to be preserved.
The importance attached to mother as the 'precious jewel' at the
centre of the home was increased by fears that British traditions of home
life were deteriorating in the colonies. In the late nineteenth century
repeated concern was expressed that the more relaxed way of life and
outdoor amusements made possible by the temperate climate would
undermine the institution of the family. Women were therefore the
lynchpin of hearth and home, and on their nest-building efforts would
depend the future of the nation. 'Woman's true sphere is her home,
and here her queenship may become perfect, her power for good im-
measurable. Of her husband and little children she should be the guiding
star.' This was to be woman's contribution to the new nation, according
to the prize-winning essay in the New Idea's 'Woman and the Com-
monwealth' competition. 11 Women's work in the household was not the
focus of these pronouncements; rather her role as comforter of husband
and formative influence on her children's character. Norah, of Ibsen's A

Doll's House, was often cited as having acted in a scandalous fashion.
Moreover, she was not truly happy: she had found 'herself as a writer
but was lonely and unfulfilled as a 'woman'. Thus the message was
reiterated: the 'new woman' ran the risk not only of destroying the
family and hence the new generation, but of destroying herself in the
process. 12
The years around the turn of the century and the 1920s and 1930s
in particular were marked by discussion of 'woman's sphere'. In the
latter period there was a conservative reaction against the feminists' stress
on women's contribution to the public world. For example, whereas- the
New Idea in the early 1900s carried a series of significant articles on
women's work outside .the home and interviews with prominent women,
by the 1930s the domestic sphere was promoted more heavily than
before by its successor, the Everylady's journal. Throughout the period
fears were expressed that factory and shop work, in particular, would
unfit women for the requirements of marriage and motherhood. It was
frequently assened that housewifery was the job most suited to the
feminine nature. The perceived threat to women's domestic role presented
by their acquaintance with the outside world led to a variety of 'remedies'
being proposed. Since much of the discussion took place in the context
of binh rate and contraception controversies, ideas of forcing women
back into the home to have babies were pronounced. Another significant,
and ultimately contradictory, solution to maintaining women's position
at heanh and home was to increase its status by 'upgrading' the skills
required in 'home-making'. Whereas the dominant ideology stressed
woman's natural home-making capacity, the principles of the emerging
domestic economy movement emphasized modern scientific housewifery
and the need to teach women domestic skills. As in the US, the roots
of this development lay in several health reform campaigns of the late
nineteenth century.
The leading reformers engaged in the attempt to improve public
health had a striking missionary zeal, exemplified by the activities of
the Australian Health Society. This was formed in Melbourne in 1876,
and at its peak until the turn of the century included many of Mel-
bourne's leading citizens, particularly the medical establishment. The
aims of the Society were:
To create an educated public opinion with regard to sanitary matters in
general, by the aid of the platform, the press, and other suitable means.
To induce and assist people, by personal influence, example and

encouragement, to live in accordance with recognized laws whereby health
is maintained and disease prevented.
To seek the removal of all noxious influences deleterious to public
health, and to influence and facilitate legislation in that direction. 13
The Society held regular meetings at which lectures were given, and
published a number of 'Sanitary tracts for the people'. While some of
the tracts were of local origin, the Society clearly identified itself with
similar movements in England and the US, and some were reprints from
the English Ladies' Sanitary Association. The significance of the Mel-
bourne group is indicated by a membership of over three hundred by
1881, the establishment of a central office and a library, and its prop-
aganda work. The material in the library and the topics of lectures
included such titles as 'A day with my liver', 'Dyspepsia', 'Cremation',
'Under the floor', 'Health in the home' and 'Home and its duties'.
The Society's members were clearly engaged in an effort to reform
the traditional role of women and were the main bearers of the earliest
message of domestic science to Victoria. In an effort to reach working-
class women, about whose housewifery standards the Society was partic-
ularly concerned, a series of 'meetings for wives and daughters' was held
in the industrial suburb of Collingwood in 1884. 14 A report of these
was published in an effort to stimulate further such activity. The Society
claimed that teaching hygiene in schools was important, but contended
that the home was where sanitary habits had to be learned: 'Hence its
endeavours to secure the co-operation of the home-ruler, be she mother,
wife or daughter, by interesting her personally in the work of health
reform.' Nonetheless, the efforts of the health reformers were not without
resistance on the part of their subjects; it was only dogged house-to-
house canvassing that produced the attendance of eighty to a hundred
women at the meetings.
Although working-class women were a prime target for their efforts,
the health reformers of the late nineteenth century also saw themselves
as engaged in a broad task of health education. The issues in which
they were interested were various: practical matters of diet and hygienic
clothing; the management of infectious disease; the importance of fresh
air and sunlight in the home; and drainage and garbage disposal
problems. These were also viewed as moral concerns, however. Many
attempts to transform the material conditions of the urban household
were packaged in a strong ideological message of cleanliness equals
holiness equals citizenship. The strength of such sentiments is apparent

in many sources: the tracts of the Australian Health Society, government
reports, secular and religious newspaper articles. To most of the health
campaigners it was self-evident that 'Ventilation is an essential part of
cleanliness, which is next to Godliness, or rather, is physical Godliness',
hence all attempts to 'ameliorate the physical conditions of society must
infallibly tend to promote its moral welfare'. 15 One of the clearest
statements of the attempts to change the consciousness as well as improve
the material living conditions of the people comes from a second
generation health reformer, Dr Jane Greig, who was one of the first
school medical officers in Victoria. Reflecting on the significance of this
new service, she wrote in 1914:
The creation of a health conscience, a sort of extra sense-sanitary

sensitiveness-will eventually, by its preventive value, prove the best and
most enduring of our efforts. . . Hence the teaching of hygiene in schools,
though of little direct value at present to the community, is nevertheless
educationally of vital and immediate importance, for, as the years pass
by, increasing waves of hygienically disposed minds are entering the ocean
of our civilization to remedy the stagnation of ignorance and superstition. 16
Optimism that health reform and education would produce a new society,
emptying the jails and mental hospitals, was a recurrent theme. Although
not all were confident that improving the environment would be suffi-
cient, some reformers turning therefore also to eugenics, several public
health and social reform measures introduced around the turn of the
century gained support on the basis of such claims.
The problem of urban milk supply aroused great indignation on the
part of reformers because it was seen to touch on the very life of the
future citizens, the community's infant population. In the last decade or
so of the nineteenth century, the attention of the public and the medical
profession was drawn to the problems of infant feeding. The relationship
between impure even adulterated milk, unhygienic home conditions,
summer diarrhoea and infant mortality rates was becoming recognized. 17
Improving the quality of the milk supply and ensuring good hygienic
standards more generally, was opposed by vested local interests which
resisted government regulation. In the early 1900s in Melbourne, for
example, administrative controls were tightened up, but pressure from
dairies modified the power of legislation to control milk supplies. Despite
agitation from the press, women's organizations and leading public health
campaigners, responsibility for superv1s1on of food and milk supplies

was left with the municipalities, despite their poor record in this respect. 18
The discussion concerning the milk supply became invested with
emotional overtones when associated with population issues. In order to
ensure at least some pure milk for Victorian babies, a special research
institution was established to collect milk from selected dairymen, test
it and distribute it to families with infants. Households were provided
with an ice-chest in which to store the milk and nurses supervised the
babies' progress, thus providing the first precurser in Melbourne to the
baby health clinics established after 1917. The initiative behind the
'Talbot Milk Institute' came partly from doctors, but they were stirred
to action by women's groups and particularly the efforts of Margaret
Talbot, wife of the governor of Victoria, Sir Reginald Talbot. The
precedent for such an 'educational' milk supply had already been estab-
lished in France and the US; in Melbourne and in other Australian cities
it represented a definite attempt to teach the public, especially women,
about 'the dangers lurking in milk'. This phrase comes from Dr James
Barrett, a leading medico with an interest in almost all these reform
developments, who participated in the Melbourne campaign. His com-
ments reveal how directly the reformative work was consciously aimed
at women: 'Much of the trouble arises after the milk is delivered. For
example, a worn-out mother going to bed at night is liable to take the
bottle from the ice-chest and place it under the mattress, where it
incubates rapidly'. 19 Whether or not the working-class women to whom
Talbot milk was distributed were interested in the principles of science
and hygiene, their middle-class sisters took them up on their behalf. Dr
Barrett went on to report that fifty ladies from the National Council of
Women 'attended a course of lectures given in the University of Mel-
bourne by the lecturer in bio-chemistry, Dr Rothera, on the chemistry
of milk'.
From the last decades of the nineteenth century onwards, women
associated with the Australian Health Society joined public health profes-
sionals in making a strong attempt to impart the scientific reasons for
home hygiene. Other aspects of the Society's attempt to spread 'sanitary
sensitiveness' to the family household concerned the disposal of wastes,
the management of infectious diseases and the appropriate siting of a
house. Partly because of the increasing control over drainage and waste
disposal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the
eventual demise of horse-drawn vehicles, the frequency and severity of
the major infectious diseases: declined. Typhoid rates fell sharply after
1889, diphtheria in the 1890s, scarlet fever from the 1880s··on, and
tuberculosis in the early twentieth century. 20 The changing patterns of
infectious disease were not on the whole due to marked changes in
medical treatment of the diseases, but women's management of their
family's health was subjected to increasing direction from outside au-
thorities as preventive medicine increased. The Australian Health Society,
for example, gave detailed instru.ctions concerning drainage matters and
advice for running the . sickroom in the case of infectious. illness. The
extent to which such guidelines were not only practical but moral and
aimed at the working .class. reveals the strong ideological overtones of
the public health movement. Many of the instructions for the manage-
ment of disease did not even acknowledge that it would have been very
difficult for families in cramped accommodation to follow them. Isolating
a sick person in a separate room, severing contact with neighbours and
kin, keeping children quarantined for the requisite period: none of these
directions for the actual management of illness, nor those -for actual
equipment and medical care, was easily attainable for those- without the
necessary material resources. Yet there is silence in much of .the health
reform literature on such matters.
Even in the 1920s,. when a major campaign against flies was underway,
the exhortations to cleanliness were easier for middle-class women to
take seriously than for those living in the sort of slum housing conditions
described in the various government inquiries. That the health reformers,
with their heightened 'sanitary sensitiveness'. did indeed take their own
advice seriously is suggested by the diaries of Dr Vera Scantlebury
Brown, whose role in the infant welfare movement will be described in
a later chapter. Dr Scantlebury Brown net only reported preparing posters
of 'Swat the fly' for display in baby clinics, but that _her husband and
the resident mothercraft nurse had competitions about their respective
tallies. Soon their swatting was joined by a commercial weapon: 'These
spots [on the page) are ''Monein'', Eddie and Miss Wilson are dancing
round like school children shooting the gun and killing the flies whole-
sale'.21 By then, an alliance had been formed between the producers of
the new cleansers and insecticides and the promoters of a .new health
conscience. Advertisements for. such products began to increase in the
1920syc many of them playing on the health conscience of women. Thus
it. was women's responsibility to bring the home environment into line
with external _public health- developments, ancl on their shoulders was
placed a heavy burden of 'sanitary sensitiveness'.
Similar themes and ideological emphasis are apparent in housing

reform and in the introduction of technology to the home. There were
several major aspects to the overall attempt to transform domestic
housing between the 1880s and the 1930s. On the one hand, there
were inquiries into slum housing and schemes for the provision of
'working men's homes'; on the other, the shift to smaller middle-class
homes and changing patterns of architecture. Linking these were the
town planning movement and the efforts to apply 'sanitary sensitiveness'
to the interior of the household. Australian developments reflected trends
in Britain, Europe and the US. The interest in town planning, particularly
in the garden city movement, produced a new emphasis on suburbia in
the early twentieth century. The growing separation of the sphere of
home from that of work has often been commented upon by historians
and sociologists. What has been noted somewhat less is the extent to
which this was actually promoted by reformers rather than just being
some obscure and haphazard byproduct of capitalist industrial devel-
opment. The town planning movement assiduously promoted the sep-
aration of residential from commercial and industrial areas and the ideal
of suburban family living. Ideals of community and social cohesion led
architects, engineers and new professional 'planners' to espouse zoning
principles, furthering the social homogeneity of residential areas which
was already becoming apparent in modern urban areas. The rational
tools of science, emphasis on precision, measurement and calculation,
provided the justification for their zoning concepts. Moreover, this sci-
entific planning was seen as closely akin to what should govern the
actual planning of a house:
I would try to plan a new town in the same way as a house is planned-
in each particular portion of the house you have various departments.
There is the kitchen department, the living apartments for dining and
sleeping, which are set in a proper position in relation to their surround-
ings. In connection with the planning of a town the commercial or
business centre would be separated from the noxious trades and manu-
factures. These should be placed in the best position to do their work in
a manner which would be most effective to the inhabitants. The residential
portion should be placed in the best position, having regard to the health
and convenience of the inhabitants. 22
The speaker here was a leader in the field, Mr John Sulman, president
of the Town Planning Association of New South Wales and an architect.
The overlap between the functional planning of house and town was
reflected in the professional overlap between architecture and broader

urban design.
From the 1890s, architects began asserting a professional identity and
marking out a role for themselves. By the First World War, this included
town planning as well as increasing professionalization. In the next
twenty years they joined other attempts to solve urban problems through
slum abolition and housing. reform. Social reformers, particularly some
leading churchmen and sections of the Press, were leading demands· for
slum clearance, frequently in the hope that environmental reform would
improve moral standards and prevent further physical deterioration of
the racial stock. As a welfarist, charitable impulse towards housing
reform developed, so too did the professional interest of architects and
public health workers in the town planning movement, already becoming
well established overseas. Australian developments had strong roots in
English urban planning schemes and legislation; in housing and related
government inquiries of 1912-18 frequent reference was made to the
British experience. Despite the strength of overseas examples, however,
town planning never became a particularly successful movement in
Australia. In Melbourne, for example, the 1922 Town Planning Com-
mission was never effective in implementing its proposals, partly because
of political instability, but more fundamentally because of the hostility
of property interests. 23
The advocates of town planning and slum reform expressed dedication
to economy, efficiency and to the improvement of the workforce by
environmental reforms. As Sandercock points out, by the 1920s the
more radical, utopian wing of the movement was being outweighed by
a pragmatic, technocratic tendency amongst the majority of planners,
who increasingly justified their proposals in terms of economic produc-
tivity and cost-saving to the state. 24 It was primarily the health and
performance of working-class families which was expected to benefit
most from a radical improvement in living conditions. Witnesses at the
1913-1 7 Victorian Royal Commission on Housing who described Eng-
lish and German schemes were explicitly asked if factory workers looked
any better or happier. Through most of the housing inquiries of the
period, the interest in financing and developing appropriate homes for
'working men' was a dominant interest. By the 1920s in most States
some attempt to provide such housing was underway, but the strength
of the home ownership ideal remained. Less attention, therefore, was
given to providing homes for rental than to long-term loans enabling
eventual purchase.
In other ways too, the housing reform movement reveals the extension
of particular concepts of the home to working-class families. One theme
which is of clear relevance to this study is the extent to which appropriate
family patterns were a concern of the investigations. Several major issues
are apparent; underlying them was the fundamental assumption of a
sexual division of labour: the man in paid work and the woman at
home. Women's ability to be good housekeepers in poor surroundings;
the importance of both physical and emotional support for the male
breadwinner; appropriate sleeping arrangements for the sexes; and su-
pervision of children by their mothers were the outstanding interests of
commissioners and witnesses. Many assumptions about family roles and
appropriate living patterns were shared across the overt political spec-
trum, suggesting some form of collusion in these matters between
religious and moral reformers; the modern professional, technical 'experts'
of public town planning and architecture; and representatives of em-
ployers and labour. This is not, of course, to argue that their interests
or approaches were identical; for some humanitarians and unionists, in
particular, demands for improved living conditions were a clear attack
on the social, economic and political structures. Nonetheless, a certain
coherence is evident with regard to women, home and family.
Interest in housewifery standards and domestic science was reflected,
for example, in many of the questions and responses at the Royal
Commission. The chairman, R.H. Solly, a Labor parliamentarian, asked
the Reverend Charles Tregear, superintendent of the South Melbourne
Mission:
-What do you think is the cause for a woman living in a dirty place?
-Intermittent work, consequently small wages, so they cannot afford a
big rent. I also think that factory life has a good deal to do with that
kind of thing. The girls marry from the factories, and are utterly
undomesticated, and have no idea how to manage a home. That is at
the back of a lot of poverty and wretchedness. I found it was not so
much lack of wages or work as, in many instances, lack of capacity. 25
The line of questioning continued unabated; it was a favourite issue in

particular for Mr Richardson, a Liberal Legislative Councillor: 'Your
contention is that a great deal of the misery now found in these homes
is due to the girls marrying without being domesticated?'. 26 He then
also dwelt on the numbers and health of their children. Although the
Labor chairman showed somewhat more sympathy for the actual plight
of women, domestic science teaching and the provision of support services
such as kindergartens were discussed as possible remedies for what were

seen as inadequate domestic skills. Fears were also expressed- that if· the
women were nof doing their job properly, the men too would become
confirmed in poor habits. Sister Faith, from the Collingwood Mission,
strongly recommended compulsory domestic science training f-or girls
'because I have seen so much shipwreck through the bad management.
Really, some of the homes are--not homes for. the men. If I were a man
I would not care to come home to some of the homes they come home
to. There is no comfort'. 27 So of course the man was thought likely to
drown his sorrows away from home, and further exacerbate the problems.
Adequate sanitary provision and cooking facilities were discussed, not
only in tetms of the general ~health or the convenience of the housewife,
but because it was important that the breadwinner himself have a regular
bath: 'You mentioned about baths being essential for men who are
working at dirty occupations'; '. . . I think cleanliness always elevates
men, and women too'. 28 The general support for the garden suburb
concept was based on similar notions of moral uplift, and the idea of
distributing flowers and bulbs to poor families became popular too. 29
Clear concepts of what were appropriate patterns of family living also
emerge from housing reform inquiries. Persistent concerns with the 'right'
use of various rooms and with the general 'moral tone' of a household
were shared by a wide variety of reformers, who expected that steps
could be taken to encourage 'right living' through the instruction of
women. Discussion took place, for example, on whether it- was- the role
of the church or charity organizations to send 'appropriate' women in
to teach others-that is, wo~king-class women-'to advise these people
and help them to clean up' .30 One of Melbourne's earliest social workers,
a Presbyterian deaconess Janet Jfenderson, whose sister was involved in
the domestic science movement, expressed her fears for working-class
family life in 1914: 'Sanitary arrangements at the front door are so
common that I have got quite accustomed to them. I do not_ notice
them now. That must deteriorate the people' .31 Children, particularly of
different sexes, sharing bedrooms and beds, as well as sharing the parents'
bedroom was seen as- involving -grave moral danger. A clerk from the
Sydney Gty Council, for example, would not allow more than one
married couple in a flat unless they were relatives, nor would he allow
teenage children of mixed sex to share a bedroom. 32 In discussion of the
size of allotments and the provision of playgrounds and kindergartens
for children, it was expected that mothers should supervise their chil-
dren's activities carefully. Thus a definite model of the appropriate-pattern
of family living repeatedly surfaced in the discussions of housing reform;

it included ideas of the proper use and layout of rooms and of the
distribution of bodies within them. This was summed up by such
comments as 'if you put a family in a good house, they will rise to the
position; if you put a family in a bad house, their tone will be lowered.
A slum house makes a slum person, a nice house makes a nice person'. 33
What did working-class women themselves think? That they had ideas
of their own about their housing conditions is without doubt, although
they were not often asked to express them publicly. From occasions
when they did, it seems that they shared some of the expectations about
what were 'respectable' patterns of living, but had pertinent comments
from an actual house-worker's point of view. Mrs Eleanor Wheeler, wife
of a Melbourne journeyman printer, had reared children in poor condi-
tions in South Melbourne before moving to a better house in Moonee
Ponds. Questioned about the number and use of rooms in her present
house, the kitchen in particular, she replied:
We have breakfast there, and also any cold meals, but we cannot eat our
hot meals in that room where it has been cooked, because it gets too
warm. We use the kitchen for meals to save work, as I find the carrying
of the meals from the kitchen to the diningroom very heavy work. 68
When she discussed the even worse conditions of the cramped, single-
fronted houses in South Melbourne, it was practical considerations that
stood out:
the long draughty passages are very objectionable, as they make a great
deal of additional work for the women of the house. They are enough
to give a woman varicose veins in these single fronted houses running up
and down for the butcher and baker, as everyone of them must come to
the front door. No woman likes her food delivered down a right-of-way,
and the only alternative is the front door in such places. She may be at
the back of the house and if a tap is running she cannot hear anyone at
the front door until perhaps a neighbour calls out 'Mrs. so-and-so, your
front door is being knocked down'. You cannot leave the door open on
account of the danger of robbery. That means she must keep her mind
upon both her work and the front door and race up and down the
passage perhaps six times in a morning, which is a great waste of energy. 34
Other women also emphasized the actual work problems created by poor
housing, but on the whole it was not their views which dominated the
housing reform movement. Slum reclamation projects of the interwar
period continued the earlier preoccupation with working-class morals,
hygiene and 'efficiency' in the industrial workforce.
By the interwar period some significant developments were also taking

place with regard to housing that slightly more affluent social sector
generally known as the upper-working to middle class. There was a
growing interest in providing suitable living accommodation for the new
model family of the twentieth century, a smaller family with its efficient
mother-housekeeper at the helm. In the late 1920s architects and
developers in Australia, as in England, were addressing themselves to
the design of the appropriate 'small family home'. Debates also took
place about the advisability of flats for family living but, although
known to be popular in European cities, they were thought unsuitable
for good Australian family life, which should be based on home own-
ership.35 Owning one's home was considered important for the stability
of society at large, but also for the moral worth of the individual,
particularly of men. In the suburban building boom of the 1920s, for
example, a Melbourne building firm publicized its houses by arguing:
To own your own home is the hallmark of Good citizenship. It marks
you as one possessing the virtues of a Real Man . . .Few Men, indeed,
would be content to rent and never own their own household furniture.
What happiness or confidence could your loved ones have in the knowl-
edge that their natural protector was a weakling, who lacked both the
courage and the desire to own even the table from which they partake
of their daily bread. . .. The joy of Home Ownership is natural. It is the
parental instinct of man, animal or bird life. It forms the very basis of
the Happy Man-ied State. 36
The Australian pattern of suburban home building was well estab-
lished during the nineteenth century; the attachment of Australian
families to single-storey dwellings in separate freehold allotments was
remarked upon by overseas visitors. The availability of land meant that
the suburban detached house was already the common pattern by 1900.
Its virtues, proclaimed to be privacy, fresh air and a garden, were
regularly promoted by land development companies. The second wave
of suburban growth in the 1920s corresponded with a similar expansion
in England and the US, where interest also grew in designing a smaller
efficient home for the now servantless housewife. In Australia, however,
a shortage of servants even by the late nineteenth century had meant
that most women, other than of the upper class, were sharing a similar
suburban lifestyle, despite still considerable differences in its degree of
comfort. The disparity of the role of women of different classes was
further reduced as the dominance of the ideology of woman as housewife
increased.
The material basis of this concept was provided by changes in the

shape and internal arrangement of the Australian suburban home. It
was affected by a variety of factors: developments in building materials
and the labour market; the rise of the architect; and the need to adapt
to changing social patterns, such as smaller families, and to new concepts
of hygiene and home management. The most popular and characteristic
Australian house has continued to be a basic bungalow or cottage.
Although regional and State, as well as class, differences altered the
materials of which the bungalow was constructed, and the fashion of
each decade modified its stylistic features, a basic model of the Australian
domestic dwelling is readily apparent. In the early years of the twentieth
century technical developments and rising labour costs led, however, to
changes in building practice. The increasing mass production of many
materials, including fibrous plaster and plywood, and the introduction
of other quite new products such as reinforced concrete, allowed alter-
natives to traditional building methods and styles of decoration. The
First World War exacerbated the demands for low-cost, new-style hous-
ing, as building materials and decorations such as wallpaper and im-
ported timbers became expensive and difficult to obtain. The postwar
house often had to make do with substitutes for, or alternatives to, the
effects previously produced by skilled tradesmen. The construction of
homes was therefore directly affected by developments in the industrial
sector and the labour market.
Although the role of local builders and developers continued to be
important, architects increasingly claimed the right to shape the average
Australian home and by the late 1920s and 1930s participated in 'Ideal
Home' exhibitions to make their point. As architecture was becoming
more firmly established as a profession, a wider role was carved out for
the new breed of specialists and the domestic market was an obvious
target. Although the search for the most suitable design for 'the Aus-
tralian house' had been going on since the nineteenth century, architects
pursued it with special vigour in the interwar period, increasingly linking
it to advice on domestic management. In a 1922 inaugural edition of
For every man his home, a short-lived but significant journal produced
by leading Melbourne architect Desbrowe Annear, the editor claimed
that the architect should be consulted far more often regarding the
planning of the home. 37 On another occasion he inveighed against the
'feminine conventions, of traditional plans: 'If women would consent to
live better, simpler and more honest house lives, they would get better
houses; and until they so consent, it will be impossible to give them
better houses'. He argued for two-storey houses, a maximum of window

areas, small and functional kitchens and bathrooms and, most of all,
for supervision by an architect. His derogatory attitude to women suggests
that architects too, as well as the new domestic science and child-rearing
experts, were aiming at altering women's lives and placing them under
professional dominance. The editorial commented:
All habitations are women's workshops, but the real need of a home is
man's need ... man is ever an idealist, and subconsciously strives to attain
to perfection in his surroundings.
The value of a man is measurable by what he can do.
The value of a woman is what she is. 38
The conclusion he drew was that male architects knew what was best
for man's needs in the home and how women should provide it!
It was in their emphasis on hygiene and on rational, scientific and,
most importantly, functional planning that the architects echoed and
applied the sentiment of others, particularly the domestic economy
advocates. Even the late nineteenth century health reform tracts placed
great stress on the appropriate siting of a house, the necessity of attending
to matters of sunny aspect and of drainage. The stress on the hygienic ·
qualities of sunlight and fresh air characterized both domestic economy's
message to women and later that of the infant welfare movement, which
recommended 'sunkicks' for baby and walks for pregnant and nursing
mothers. By the late 1920s house plans often featured verandahs fly-
wired in as 'sleepouts', so that 'open air sleeping can be indulged in to.
excess or in moderation'; and even open-air schools were tried as an
experiment for improving the health of inner-suburban children. 39
Other aspects of the home were also to be planned according to
rational, scientific considerations. Encouragement of built-in -furniture
and fewer ornamental finishes stressed decreasing surfaces for dust and
dirt. It was in the planning of rooms, most importantly of the kitchen
and dining areas, that architects took up the cry of the domestic
economists. 'In short, a kitchen should be scientifically planned and
treated as a laboratory which in fact it is', claimed one architect in the
Real Property Annual in 1917. 40 It was readily acknowledged that the
demise of- domestic servants necessitated a more functional arrangement
of working are3.s for the middle-class housewife. Devices such as serveries
between kitchen and dining-room were introduced to save steps, and
the internal arrangement of the kitchen itself was gradually altered to
suit the dominant concept of it as a workshop or 'laboratory'. 'It is not

proper for anyone to have meals in the kitchen, which room being the
laboratory of the house, should not be more than 11 ft. wide or longer
than 14 ft., with fittings designed simply and with great care and
thought', wrote a leading architect. 41 The typical house plans of the
interwar period certainly reveal the kitchen shrinking in size and show
features such as shorter passages to minimize the housewife's labour.
The changing shape and functional arrangement of the kitchen also
reflected technological developments and changes in domestic production.
New domestic appliances affected the organization of both kitchen and
bathroom; space, for example, being left for a refrigerator in the model
kitchens of the 1930s. Moreover, as women's domestic production role
lessened with the growing mass production of foodstuffs, the size of the
pantry diminished, and for a while in the 1940s and the 1950s, it
disappeared altogether. Whereas the old-style pantry or larder had been
the warehouse of the productive woman, pantries by the 1930s were
built for a rapid turnover of purchased goods. Even the kitchen as a
centre of activity became increasingly circumscribed. The absence of a
central table, for instance, decreased the sociability of the kitchen; and
the sink against the wall left the housewife with her back to others in
the room.
The introduction of new technology, and other changes in household
equipment, such as furniture, not only themselves implied changes in
domestic labour but often came with the advice of domestic economy
experts attached. Gas companies and, later, electricity suppliers followed
a deliberate policy of providing demonstrations and specially compiled
recipe books to encourage the use of their stoves. 42 It is clear that many
developments were closely connected. Not only did changing cooking
and food preparation patterns eventually alter the plan of the kitchen,
but some appliances themselves encouraged the use of others. The decline
of the large container of hot water ever-ready on the wood stove, for
example, in itself created the conditions for the introduction of new
separate hot water services. The actual appliances were also linked to
other changes in patterns of furnishing and styles of decoration, bringing
with them further outside 'expert advice'. An advertisement for the
Australian General Electric Company in the 1920s was entitled 'The
modern home and light'; it suggested that 'modern architecture calls for
soft shadowless light even more so than does the older style of decora-
tion ... furniture, carvings, printings and statuary are seen to perfection
if the rooms containing them are correctly illuminated' .43 Thus not only
were the 1920s and 1930s housewives faced with more daylight into
the home through bigger windows, but the full illumination of electricity
at night fell not only on the furnishings but on dust and cobwebs as
well. The Australian General Electric Company offered the services of
'an illuminating engineer' to help with· lighting problems, but it was
left to scientific housewifery to fix the 'illuminated' dust.
Other changes in furnishings and in colour schemes were also accom-
panying the arrival of technology. In particular the functionality of
furniture became increasingly stressed, part of the broader emphasis on
scientific and rational planning for use rather than appearance which was
fundamental to the Modernist style of architecture:
Times have advanced, hygiene is studied, harbors and resting places for
dust and dirt are eliminated, and a practical, simple, effective type of
furniture is in vogue ... A successful easy chair is one built to the line of
the human body when sitting in a state of perfect relaxation. 44
Any household furnishings which were not 'functional' and most im-
portantly hygienic-according to the advice of interior designers, health
experts and domestic scientists-should be removed. Carpets should be
only squares over polished boards or linoleum and heavy curtains should
be replaced with lightweight blinds. 45 New products were sold on the
basis of the qualities of hygiene and usefulness, but again the interlocking
of themes becomes apparent. A brand of paint, for example, was
advertised as producing a 'moral effect' on the house's occupants: 'clean
surroundings assist in making clean minds ... ''United'' paint will work
wonders in brightening and beautifying your home surroundings' .46 It
would, it was claimed, therefore even help the health and mentality of
family members, a claim also made for the introduction of electricity
itself. The burden of housework was to be lightened by labour-saving
appliances and the health of women improved by freeing them from
'their continuous long hours of domestic work, many of which are spent
in the torrid heat of an iron-roofed kitchen' .47
This chapter has so far presented an overview of substantial changes
in the material environment which were accompanied by conscious
attempts to reform women's role in home management. This not only
introduces several other topics but elucidates certain core strands of my
overall argument. First, it is clear that material developments, such as
urban and industrial growth, and changes in the suburban home itself,
both provided the basis for and reflected a number of other develop-
ments, such as the attempted imposition of certain standards of family
behaviour and housewifery. A second major point is that several strategies

were coming from various class fractions: from an upper class with its
own concerns, and from professional groups. The interests of public
health reformers, town planners and architects were united with those
of housing reformers and the new advocates of domestic economy. These
in turn often shared a frame of reference with eugenists and reformers
of infant care and childrearing. The chief common frame of reference
was that of technical rationality as the dominant type of social action in
modern Western society. The preoccupation with science, with hygiene,
with efficiency, united professionals of various kinds. Their efforts to
transform the home involved both an onslaught on its material shape
and functioning and on the patterns of labour and social relationship
which took place within it. Although they worked in many ways in
concert with, and on behalf of, reformers from a class position somewhat
different to their own-those more clearly part of the dominant or ruling
class-the new professionals' interests were not always in harmony with
those of the ruling class. In particular, the 'experts' on home and family,
while ostensibly promoting the separation of sexual spheres and the
privacy of the home, were invading it at every point, demanding that
women learn and apply the principles of the capitalist industrial world.
Such principles, however, flatly contradicted notions of the naturalness
of women's maternity and housewifery.
3
The administration of the home
Over the space of two generations Australian domestic life was being
radically altered as home and family became further enmeshed in the
social system of industrial capitalism. In the early twentieth century
women's traditional chores of cooking, cleaning, sewing and generally
servicing the needs of others were redefined as scientific work of national
importance. This chapter focuses on the social construction of the modern
housewife and women's response to the pressures of their daily lives.
The evidence suggests both that women negotiated the ideology of
housewifery according to their actual circumstances, and that major
contradictions underlay this aspect of 'modernizing' domestic life. In
panicular, the theme of the family as a refuge from an increasingly
harsh and alien world was widely promoted. The domestic world was
also seen as fundamentally the world of women, whose assumed natural
instincts were towards 'nest-building'. Yet home and family were being
profoundly affected by changes in the material environment, and prin-
ciples and techniques of management originating in the world of indus-
trial capitalism were now being applied to the domestic sphere.
This was most clearly apparent in the growth of the domestic science
or economy movement which involved demands that women be trained
in modern home-making. It was argued that instincts were not enough
for the modern world: household management and cookery must become
part of the school curriculum for girls. Close examination of some of
the attempts to establish such training provides a basis for exploring the
broader implications of these developments. A group of philanthropic
social reformers were· collaborating with those seen as technical experts-
the professionals in science, medicine, education and architecture-to
56
The administration of the home 57
reorganize domestic labour through a series of strategies which were full

of ambivalence for women as houseworkers. New technology and ma-
terials, changes in architecture, shifts in the patterns of production: all
were legitimated through the ideas of household efficiency and economy.
The domestic economy movement had its modest beginnings in
cookery classes in state elementary schools between the late 1880s and
early 1900s. It was part of a growing emphasis on training in practical
skills which eventuated in the extension of kindergarten methods and
technical education. As with many of the other efforts to 'modernize'
the home, the establishment of domestic economy teaching tended to
be ad hoc, with diverse sources of support. A summary of the devel-
opments in Victoria shows some significant tensions between reformers
who were primarily interested in the working-class home and the profes-
sionals who saw a much broader role for domestic science. Both shared,
however, assumptions about the naturalness of women being housewives
which did not sit easily with their efforts to convince women that old
ways would no longer do.
Although the financial constraints of the 1890s depression delayed
the development of domestic science in Victoria, it was then that the
real initiative towards domestic science training began. Even the early
attempts were not without controversy. Partly in response to some
suffragist pressure in the 1890s, boys as well as girls were being expected
to master plain sewing; but evidently this did not meet with universal
approval. In 1895 one of the inspectors for the Melbourne area com-
mented:
There is no doubt this work is useful in making the fingers supple and
the little fellows generally handy, still, I should like to see knotting,
plaiting string or straw, and netting hammocks, fishing nets, etc. substi-
tuted.
After all, he said, the boys would prefer it and find it more useful 'in
after life'. A committee on plain sewing, which included two women,
however, noted approvingly the improvement in the plain sewing in the
schools they had visited and were pleased to see that 'little boys were
included in all the drill classes'. 1 Parental response to sewing classes also
seems to have been mixed. Hints of working-class resistance to domestic
training are evident in the committee's remarks that many parents did
not want sewing lessons for their daughters, requesting instead that they
be taught such 'middle-class accomplishments' as singing, drawing and
recitation. 'It was noticeable that in the better class suburbs the numbers
in the higher sewing classes were much larger than in the poorer districts.
The more neglected and untidy the appearance of the children the
smaller the numbers in the sewing classes.' The motives of these parents
are not specified, and by contrast, some parents were actually requesting
more practical activities for their children. The inspector for the Preston
district reported: 'It is the opinion of many in the community that the
older children are kept too long at mere literary work, and that, as a
result their attention is diverted from, and they are to some extent
unfitted for, the ordinary callings of life'. 2 Such views were also shared
by other more powerful members of the community, including employers
and politicians; and it was in the broader context of practical instruction
and manual skills training, therefore, that cookery and sewtng were
introduced into Victorian schools.
By 1899-1900, Mrs A. Fawcett Story was acting as directress of
cookery; a special college was planned; some basic domestic economy
teaching was being provided for the women teachers at the Teachers'
Training College; and thirty schools in the metropolitan area were giving
some instruction in domestic economy. However, despite the support of
the Fink Commission on Technical Education, and of the new director
of Education, Frank Tate, it was not until 1906 that a College of
Domestic Economy was finally established in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne,
mainly but not solely under Education Department control. In 1911-12
this became an actual technicalschool with its own council, and in 1926
a grander college was built on a new site, with the new title (the
significance of which will become apparent shortly) of the Emily Mc-
Pherson College of Domestic Economy. 3 In the meantime, several other
'domestic arts' schools had been established which were proudly an-
nounced as the first definite step towards the adoption of a curriculum
adapted wholly to the special needs of girls' .4 After the First World
War, domestic science teaching became widely spread throughout the
school system in line with similar developments in other States.
Several important questions emerge from this brief outline of the
institutionalizing of domestic science in Victoria. Who took the initiative
for such developments, what were their motives and arguments, and
what was the response to them? The evidence suggests the complexity
of class and gender factors operating.
In the 1890s and 1900s a group of women led the promotion of
domestic science. Organized loosely by late 1904 into the Australian
Institute of Domestic Economy, they held meetings, demonstrations and
competitions throughout 1905 as part of their pressure on the govern-
ment to establish a major training centre. When this at last eventuated,

however, they were defeated in a dispute with the Education Department
over its control. 5 In the group around AIDE, and providing the general
initiative for 'dom. sci.' as it was later known, were leading women
journalists, especially 'Rita' of the Herald, and teachers in both state
and private schools. They were supported by leading upper-class women
such as Janet (Lady) Clarke and Margaret (Lady) Talbot, who was also
involved in the pure milk campaign. Women's organizations, especially
the National Council of Women, the Women Teachers' Association and
suffrage groups, were other important supporters. The thrust of domestic
economy was accepted by Labour as well as non-Labour political groups. 6
Educational administrators such as Dr John Smyth, principal of the
Melbourne Teachers' College, were also active in their support. Most
vocal publicly were professional women, such as Dr Jane Greig, school
medical officer, and Dr Edith Barrett, a founder of Bush Nursing. They
participated in curriculum development but also institutionally through
membership of the college council. They also took a broad ideological
role, sharing with other publicists the promotion of preparing girls for
'their special business in life'. 7 Mrs Stella Allan, as 'Vesta', of the Argus
eventually replaced Rita Vaile of the Herald as a leading exponent of
'domestic feminism': that women's major contribution to the world was
as wives and mothers and that special training would improve their
performance of that role. Although something of a 'new woman' herself,
with LL.B. and M.A. degrees from New Zealand, Mrs Allan threw
herself into the cause, participating in Melbourne charitable activities for
over thirty years. Through 'Vesta's' column, she had a major influence
on public opinion on child and maternal welfare issues, and on the
importance of training girls in their domestic duties. 8 In 'Vesta's' articles
and in a variety of other sources can be seen several interconnected
concerns: with the problems presented by the shortage of domestic help;
the need for economy, and managerial skills; the dominance of science;
and the significance of new household equipment. These reflected major
developments in the public sphere which directly or indirectly affected
women's role as a housewife. Around them an overall ideological frame-
work developed, but one which spanned some basic tensions between
the class fractions involved.
The motives of some of the most significant supporters of domestic
science in Victoria were somewhat different than those of the professional
experts of the movement and their closest women colleagues. In particular
two bourgeois philanthropists, employers turned politicians, George
Swinburne and Sir William McPherson provided the institutional bases

in Melbourne for domestic science. Swinburne, with his wife's encour-
agement, supported the establishment of domestic science in the major
eastern suburbs technical schools which he helped inaugur~te and later
endowed. 9 Sir William provided £25,000 towards the building of a
new domestic science college in 1926, to be named after his wife, Emily. 10
As treasurer in the conservative Lawson government, he had been con-
scious of the need for a new building to replace the over-crowded and
underserviced College of Domestic Economy. His personal endowment
however came as a surprise announcement on the eve of the McPhersons'
departure for Europe. In his own words:
he was greatly impressed with the splendid work being carried on in the
interest of the young womanhood and especially the girls of the working
class of our community... My wife and I desire to do something to
forward a branch of education which we consider is of great value to the
home life of our people. 11
The significance of McPherson's benevolence towards 'institutions aim-

ing at the benefit of womankind' (he also endowed a women's hospital)
can be interpreted in various ways. On the one hand, he seems quite
clearly to have had the training of working-class girls in mind, both to
'improve' their home life generally and also to solve the shortage of
domestic servants of which members of his class had long been com-
plaining. On the other, his patriarchal benevolence was expressed in his
insistence that institutions be. named after his wife and daughter. In an
address to her students on the occasion of Sir William's death in 1931;
Miss Chisholm, principal of the Domestic Economy College, 'emphasized
the great value he had attached to home life, and recalled that he had
commented on the great comfort it had been to him to be able to step
from the stress and strain of business or parliamentary duties into a
home life of peace, affection and culture' . 12 Not only, therefore, did he
value the bourgeois home as a 'haven in a heartless world' but he
wanted to spread such homes to the working class. In later years, his
daughter-in-law, long associated with the College, recalled his strongly
expressed opinion that 'if a man was to be a good and useful member
of society, he needed and deserved a well-run home' . 13 His class position
was significant:
Too often in his capacity as an employer he had uncovered many cases
of inefficient home management destroying a man's capacity for doing a
decent job, owing to worry about home conditions, debt caused by bad
management, ill-health through bad cooking ... and he had very strong
views about women doing their job in the home properly. 14
The new experts, the teachers associated with domestic economy and
their professional colleagues in medicine, education and science did not
share Sir William's narrow focus on working-class families. Indeed they
explicitly rejected the idea that domestic science was to train servants.
Like her successors, Mrs Story, directress of cookery, was already quite
clear in 1900 about the broad role envisaged for domestic economy:
One point must be insisted upon. It is not the work of the State to train
servants. Girls should be trained and educated to fit them for their sphere
in the home, the duties of which no woman can neglect without culpability
and disgrace; they should be given the instruction for their benefit, and
for that of their home and family and country; and for no other persons
or purpose whatever.
People who imagine that cookery schools are established for the
convenience of mistresses requiring servants are very much mistaken.t5
Nonetheless, not only did the McPhersons think this, but Rita Vaile,
Lady Talbot and Lady Clarke had earlier been involved in these schemes
to produce domestic helpers as well. 16 Although what they wanted was
better-trained working-class girls, both as servants and to keep working-
class homes clean and thrifty, the professional advocates of domestic
science were aiming at a wider market, including their middle-class
sisters. This difference in motivation and emphasis, although obscured
by the co-operation of the different groups, was of long-term significance.
The principles of planning and management put forward by the profes-
sional experts for running the homes of the nation, and especially the
emphasis on training women for their tasks, really went against the
bourgeois stress on the family as a separate private sphere centred on
natural womanly qualities.
Even if domestic science training was not always inspired by a desire
to improve the standards of servants, it would appear that the response
to it cannot be understood except in the context of the emergence of
more working-class women into the industrial workforce. Fewer were
available as domestic labour for other women (and men) and complaints
about the shortage and poor quality of domestic servants were perennial
in Australia by the late nineteenth century. 17 The shaking of heads over
the unwillingness of girls to enter domestic service pervaded discussions
of women's paid work, of the decline of the birth rate, and of lightening
middle-class women's load by labour-saving devices and domestic econ-
omy training up to the interwar period.
The patterns of response to domestic science are not fully clear, and
the limitations of even oral sources probably means that, especially for
the earlier period, they never can be. What is certain is that it was the
women of the middle class who participated most keenly in these
endeavours. Not only did the teachers of domestic economy tend to
come from such backgrounds, but the women who attended the main
Victorian College of Domestic Economy did also. In the late 1920s and
early 1930s almost half the girls undertaking the full-time courses were
from private schools, and 'Emily Mac' was seen by some middle-class
families as providing a useful fill-in between school and marriage. 18 This
is less certain so far as the part-time courses are concerned, but more
students undertook single subjects part-time in training for marriage
than undertook courses as trade-training. The fees alone, even in the
early days, would have made it unlikely that working-class girls would
have out-numbered those from middle-class backgrounds. In 1910-13
fees for a ten-week general domestic science course were a not inconsi-
derable four guineas (non-residential) and for diploma courses in cookery
and domestic economy £16 per year for the two years. 19 The latter were
designed to prepare women to teach domestic economy and included
theory of teaching and development of appropriate lesson plans and age-
graded syllabuses. For some middle-class girls, therefore, new career
opportunities were opened up, as well as their being trained in women's
'life's work'!
Working-class women,- however, seem not to have taken up the
'dom.sci.' bandwagon with wild enthusiasm. Although overt resistance
is not readily apparent, it seems likely that many simply took it all
'with a grain of salt'. One woman interviewee, Mrs Best, did recall
going into the Queensberry Street Cookery Centre in the period just
before the First World War, but said that she did not learn much.
Feminist Alice Henry, commenting on early cookery classes, noted that
any deprecatory remarks about 'mother's ways of doing things' would
be quite amiss. 20 Even if they were made, however, working-class girls
seem not to have been impressed. As women, they frequently wanted
middle-class 'accomplishments' such as music for their children, rather
than such patently practical training. They therefore accepted aspects of
the new training which they considered useful, and went along with
others which only confirmed their established domestic practice. They
tended to ignore, however, such recommendations as keeping full ac-
counts or keeping to a rigid timetable for tasks. In accepting, modifying
or ignoring the advice, they were not passive but making a variety of
responses. Perhaps most telling of all is that as secondary education

spread in the interwar period, more girls chose the academic than
domestic courses at senior levels. The domestic science movement was
never as fully accepted in high schools as its advocates had hoped.
It can be seen therefore, that not only were separate interests involved
in the domestic science strategic attack on housewifery, bu~ a complex
pattern of response also existed. There were ongoing rivalries both
personal and practical. For example, during the First World War, 'Rita'
from AIDE delivered an onslaught on the 'low-grade' cookery methods
of the Education Department. One of their instructors, Miss Flora Pell,
denounced this as 'scandalous', inviting 'Rita' to observe demonstrations
at their cookery centres. 21 Miss Pell herself was embroiled in a controversy
in the 1920s over the publication of a cookery book for use in schools
without express departmental permission. 22 Such incidents, small in ret-
rospect, reveal the intensity of the domestic science movement's protegees,
but also alert us to the danger of seeing the movement as monolithic.
Although the efforts of McPherson and the like suggest a class interest
at work, for many of the women who becam.e the professionals of
domesticity it opened up avenues of employment and promised increased
status. And for many women, both working- and middle-class, the
movement bore directly upon practical concerns: those of stretching their
material resources and physical capacities to meet the demands made on
them.
Domestic economy or domestic science, the two names which were
given to the movement to reform and modernize the home are both of
some significance. They reveal the twin preoccupations with scientific
principles and efficiency which characterized its teaching programmes
and publicity. The prestige of science and modernity also involved the
conscious attempt to apply the organizational methods of factory and
office to the domestic domain. Such efforts, despite their evident ideo-
logical overtones were not totally irrelevant to the actual management
of both working- and middle-class households in the late nineteenth
century. As Heidi Hartmann's study of US developments suggests, in
many respects women's household experience was becoming more similar
across the classes as changes in material conditions occurred. By the
1930s Hartmann says: 'Women of all classes came to use similar products
with similar equipment and utilities in their houses. The efficient home
and the efficient houseworker became universal standards' .23 Financial
income became more important for families as traditional domestic
production was replaced by industrial manufacture, and even consump-
tion patterns became more standardized through the introduction of

mass-marketin_g. The remainder of this chapter, therefore, will examine
in more detail the actual domestic science message and its relationship
to women's experience in several aspects of their role as a housewife:
planning and cleaning, cooking and feeding, clothing and comforting.
There were several aspects to the pattern of home management
advocated by the domestic science or economy movement. In particular,
its leaders stressed careful economic management and planning and
efficiency in work. Although their references to economy and efficiency
in the household entailed their own special meaning, they also had
strong roots in widespread ideas about the importance of 'thrift' which
went back into the domestic manuals of the nineteenth century. An
emphasis on personal economy and on running a household with a
minimum of effort was also to be found in these manuals. Nonconfor-
mists in particular stressed the importance of living an unostentatious
but nonetheless comfortable life. Editorials in the Melbourne Methodist
paper in 1884, for example, explained the principles of life assurance;
recommended the use of Savings Banks and Building Societies; and
argued that 'he trusts Providence best who uses all rational and proper
methods which Providence puts within his reach'. Careful to stress that
they were not urging 'the hoarding up of money to the extent of
depriving the home of comfort, and making life a continual grinding
struggle', the Spectator claimed that:
What we want in Victoria, is economy in the household, less expenditure
on dress and amusement, temperance, and a reduction of the smoking
and drinking bills, and saving habits. Given these, there would not be a
more happy or prosperous people on God's earth?4
This concern with thrift continued throughout the period, also ap-
pearing in the goals of the many youth organizations which were formed
in the late nineteenth century. The stress on the moral value of economical
living was a recurrent theme of middle-:-class reformers, who were par-
ticularly critical of what they saw as the working class's excessive love
of pleasure, a point they regularly brought up in discussion on the
declining birth rate. In the 1890s the demands for economy were related
to a severe economic depression and, in this case at least, employers and
land speculators shared the acc\.lsations of wanton extravagance and
materialism.
The theme of economy or thrift again became dominant during and
after the First World War and in Victoria an annual 'Thrift Week' was
instituted. By then the exhortations to frugality drew both on older,

moralistic notions of thrift and on newer scientific justifications for
economy in the household. From conservative quarters domestic training
towards household economy and traditional 'thriftiness' were recom-
mended to counter what was thought to be the wild extravagance of
the immediate post-War years. The Argus claimed that much of the
evidence revealed 'wanton extravagance ... common observation and com-
mon knowledge are more eloquent than statistics in proving how ''easy
money" has gone easily in the last few years' .25 Some middle-class women
themselves took a similar position in a 'campaign against extravagance'
in late 1920, but also pointed to wider economic factors. A boycott was
proclaimed against the wearing of gloves 'in order to draw attention of
traders to the fact that they were tired of the high prices being charged
for wearing apparel, and were determined to stand them no longer'. 26
The community was bombarded with 'thrift' talks, and savings banks.
and friendly societies for 'thrifty' saving. The 1921 executive of National
Thrift Week included representatives from the major professions, the
trades, the public service and community organizations. Unlike the
moralizing commentators of the 1890s depression, this committee was
at pains to point out that 'the campaign was introduced not in the
interests of the wealthy, but primarily for those of limited means'.
Workers continued to be suspicious of its purposes, and they seem to
have had some cause for concern:
The purpose of National Thrift Week is to stimulate the individual to
fit his income and abilities into the purposes of a well-rounded rational
life, and to enable him to bear his full share of responsibility to his
family, his employer, society and the nation. 27
The stress on organizing and balancing the budget was however
directed most explicitly at women and was an important aspect of
domestic science. The techniques of accounting seen as characterizing the
modern office were also promoted as essential to the well-managed
household. From that early advocate of domestic economy, 'Rita' of the
Herald in the 1890s, to 'Vesta' in the Argus in the 1920s-1930s, a
recurrent but strengthening theme was the need to estimate all household
expenditure, to record purchases and, all in all, to plan most carefully.
The principal of the Emily McPherson College gave lectures stressing
the value of careful budgeting to meet the many calls on one's money.
In 1930 the Anglican Mother's Union newsletter provided the gist of
Miss Chisholm's talks for the benefit of its members. ' ''By wise economy
every woman can help balance the national budget'', said Miss Chish-
olm.' She recommended that women open savings bank accounts, and
teach children to divide their weekly pocket-money up and regularly
save some of it. 28
As well as the emphasis on preparing a budget and on saving, the
domestic economy experts also suggested a variety of cost-cutting tech-
niques, such as buying in bulk, purchasing cheaper cuts of meat but
cooking them better and so on. 'Rita' was an early proponent of these.
Although other writers, such as an 'Old Housekeeper', and earlier
housekeeping manuals had generally advised thrift or economy, 'Rita',
like later writers, went into considerable detail about how actually to
achieve it in the area of cookery. Her popular book Cottage cookery,
based on her Herald articles, sold thousands of copies within weeks. 29
'Rita' claimed to be writing for 'the masses' and did indeed have a
similar message for artisans' wives as for middle-class women with
servants. However, sometimes she decried working-class extravagance: 'I
am told by those who work most amongst the poor, such as ladies
connected with the various charitable organizations, doctors, nurses, etc.,
that it is hopeless to expect those who most require to manage carefully
to do so'. She said that women too often chose an expensive item,
'something tasty', when they could get more and better nourishment,
especially if they shopped according to a planned weekly menu.
The expectation that women should learn better ways of economizing,
planning and budgeting was, in many respects, a realistic response to
the altered conditions of the family household by the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Women's domestic world was becoming
increasingly tied into the market economy through the purchase of items
formerly produced at home. This entailed regular planning of pantry
stocks and shopping for consumables. Even the introduction of gas and
electricity to the home was part of the tightening of links between the
broader economy and the household. Regular payment of fuel bills
became necessary, replacing the provision of firewood which, if not
available from the immediate vicinity or through family and friends,
could at least be bought from a local tradesman rather than a larger
organization. The emphasis on household management touched upon
significant changes in the urban environment, in the system of capitalist
production and consumption and, therefore, on the operation of the
household itself. Moreover fluctuations in effective wages, or 'standards
of comfort', were part of the context in which women attempted to
balance family budgets.
In the early twentieth century, as economic conditions improved after

the Depression, women's task of juggling resources would have been
eased temporarily, but by 1911-12 prices started to rise much faster
than wages, a trend which continued until after the War. 30 In 1914
prices had risen sharply as the availability of imported goods declined;
a severe drought that year lessened rural production; and resources were
diverted into production for the War. 31 These developments aroused the
public expression of wage-earners' and housewives' wrath. Unions de-
manded Federal control of prices and industrial unrest increased. In
1915 a group of Melbourne middle-class women had formed a house-
wives' co-operative in order to buy in bulk and cut costs. As the
Housewives' Association, they held mass meetings to campaign against
the high prices of clothing and commodities. 32 Mrs Eleanor Glencross,
a well-known political activist, led the fight, attacking price rises,
demanding street markets and bulk-buying facilities. Throughout the
1920s and, to some extent, the 1930s, the housewives' campaigns
continued. They attempted to boycott pric~ increases, especially in the
price of bread, but ultimately were not very effective. With their small
numbers and internal divisions they were no match for the economic
forces they confronted. 33
Whatever the motives of its advocates, encouragement to women to
plan carefully, budget and economize was clearly relevant to the circum-
stances of both middle- and working-class families, the rising cost of
living being a favourite topic for letters in the Press. 34 Before the end of
the War, pressure was mounting for a full-scale inquiry into the basic
wage and its relation to the cost of living. The prime minister, W.M.
Hughes, made such an inquiry part of his election platform i~ 1919.
In 1920 he initiated the Royal Commission on the Basic Wage as a
measure towards fending off more radical demands and industrial strife. 35
Its chairman was Mr Justice A.B. Piddington, a liberal thinker, married
to Marion Piddington, who was prominent in Sydney women's affairs.
Both were leading advocates of many of the re-forming strategies with
which this study is concerned and Mr Justice Piddington had already
established a reputation, especially in New South Wales, for his role in
public activities.
The Commission's Report recommended a basic wage of £5 16s 6d
rather than the existing £3-4. When, to his disappointment, the report
was ignored, Piddington proceeded to agitate further for a national child
endowment scheme. In 1921 he published a pamphlet, The next step:
a family basic income, to vent his conviction that 'it is necessary to
68 The disenchantment of the· home
provide a -Family Basic Income, ie., a basic wage equal to the needs of
man and wife, plus an auxiliary . wage for mothers paid in the form of
an endowment for each child'. 36 He was quite clear about the economic
value of childrearing and domestic labour:
Such service to the community is just as real or just as valuable as the
work of the factory hand or of the farmer which· results in the- visible
products of· industry. In bringing fonh and nurturing the human factor
in the production of wealth, woman does her share in its creation. 37
Acknowledging the housewife's economic role- implied that it should be
given greater recognition, but also that it be subjected to increased social
control. Piddington and his- wife Marion regularly championed training
in domestic economy for girls so that _they would be better fitted. to
undertake their national duty-.
In the Report and minutes of evidence of the Royal ~ommission on
the Basic Wage, repeated references were made to 'a well-managed
home' and to what could be expected of a thrifty housewife. The extent
to which some clothing should be bought at sales, _and other clothes
adapted from parents to children and from one child to another was
discussed; for example:
The Commission considered that it would be unfair to expect. that men
or their wives should buy all clothing at sale prices. It could not, indeed,
be done. _On the other hancl, people· of average prudence do purchase at
sales to the e~tent of their opportunity. 38
The Commissioners admitted that housewives 'are amongst tne most
arduous toilers in the whole community', but were convinced both that
these economies were 'an admirable form of thrift' and that 'the work
involved is not· itself the most laborious of a housewives' duties'. The
Commissioners, particularly the employers' representatives, insisted
strongly on the duty of the housewife to ·provide, organize and manage
household resources to the best of her ability. The employers' counsel,
Mr Ferguson, went so far as to press the matter of women's home
sewtng:
Supposing a woman was keen on assisting the State through being
economical, and took an ordinary interest in the matter and had ordinary
intelligence?
Mr Gibson-Did you say assisting the State?
By Mr Ferguson-Yes. The war 1s over now, and every person, who
economises is assisting the State.
(To Witness)-Take an ordinary woman who is desirous of assisting her

family and the State and be economical-could she not make all the
garments you mentioned? 39
Such expectations of women's competence in all aspects of domesticity
were legitimized by the popularization of the message of domestic
science. A woman was to be taught how to do her duty to the family
and the State even more efficiently.
For the advocates of the new science of the household, it was not
only the spending of money which was the focus of economy but the
expenditure of energy as well. Even 'Rita' in the 1890s commented: 'To
my working hints, this should be added-work quickly. I do not wonder
at some women complaining of being tired. It is enough to tire one to
watch them move about, so slow are they' .40 Other writers of advice
literature gave detailed directions for the management of the housewife's
time. These instructions became more explicit and technical in the
literature of the later domestic economy movement. Miss Rankin, for
example, supervisor of cooking in New South Wales schools, wrote that
'The educated housewife is the economical one'. She had to manage
people, food, clothing and income as well as her own time. Like other
experts, Miss Rankin went on to prescribe an afternoon walk and a rest
period for the busy but well-organized housewife. She specified details
of a weekly routine: Sunday-rest; Monday-extra cleaning because not
done Sunday; Tuesday-washing; Wednesday-ironing, mending, put-
ting clothes away, and the afternoon free for visiting, etc.; Thursday-
thorough cleaning of dining-room, stairs, hall and silver; Friday-
thorough cleaning of kitchen, lavatory, drains, etc.; and Saturday-extra
cooking for Sunday. Moreover, Saturday afternoon should be set aside
for going out and recreation: 'To be always working is not a sign of
good housekeeping but rather of mismanagement'. 41
Not only the week's but the daily routine was specified in detail by
the home economic experts. Sometimes this was to guide any domestic
staff still employed, but more often it was directed at the mistress of
the home herself: 'A good plan is to have a time-table of work written
out and pinned up in some convenient place so as to be easily referred
to' .42 The housewife's day was to be organized according to a strict
regimen all directed towards the efficiency of time and energy. In 19 2 1
'Vesta' advocated a definite carry-over of wartime lessons into the home;
lessons learnt from industry:
That time means money and that method saves both time and material,
that co-ordination of work leads to efficiency, that exactitude in the

smallest detail is necessary if a perfect product is to be secured-what a
transformation of dom~stic work would result if these principles could
be brought to rule in the kitchen as they do in the factory. 43
'Vesta' argued that many women who had been exposed to organizational
principles should no longer be content with 'our wasteful empirical
methods of the past' but should bring into the home 'a passion for
efficiency; a zeal for method and organization, a knowledge of the value
of things, that will go far to solve the problem of domestic labour'.
The extent to which this explicit direction on the management of the
household was followed is not easy to ascertain. Advice on directing
maids or cleaning silverware was of course only likely to apply to upper-
middle-class women, and not all of them. In the early decades of the
twentieth century, however, it does seem that women had regular patterns
for performing domestic chores, and these are reported regularly in
autobiographies, diaries, novels and oral history interviews. The message
of domestic science, therefore, was probably not altogether foreign to
women, but entailed to some extent a codification of existing practices,
although now phrased in a gloss of industrial efficiency.
The washing on Monday or Tuesday was an accepted routine, although
some prepared for it on Sunday night by cutting up soap, sorting clothes
and preparing the boiler. Others were still influenced by strict Sabbatarian
principles and would perform only absolutely essential tasks on Sunday.
Mrs Best, born 1904, said that her routine was: 'My washing on a
Monday, my ironing on Tuesday, Wednesday was a free day, Thursday
I done all my cleaning, Friday and Saturday were for messages'. Her
friends had a similar routine and, like her, had learnt it from their
mothers. On Sunday they entertained family or friends, often to a high
tea. She recalled that she was not as strict about Sunday as the preceding
generatton:
We weren't even allowed to clean our shoes or peel a potato ... My mother
wouldn't do any washing or anything like that on a Sunday. Sunday was
a day of rest ... Mum would do a pie, a big pie, the night before... and
that would be warmed up and when she had had her dinner we would
go off to Sunday School, she would take a book and go and lie down ...
After spending the rest of the week labouring for a large family, she no
doubt needed her Sunday afternoon.
The women who gave evidence before the 1920 Basic Wage Com-
mission mentioned somewhat similar routines. Regularly referred to as
The home of domestic science in Victoria: Emily McPherson College.
From the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy Magazine, 1931.
New experts and a new audience: Miss Thelma Crump giving a

demonstration of gas cooking. From the Colonial Gas Association, Fifty Years
of Good Public Service, 1938.
Domestic Management
•
IS a Science
- with Electric Cookery
They used to say "good cooks are born, not
made", when each range had its own artistic
temperament-and cookery \Vas done on the
•·trial and error" method.
But now recipes are given with degrees of
heat to be applied for certain periods--just
like the ingredients you put in your dishes.
No more vague terms like "simmer slowly"
or ''cook till done." Cookery is a SCIENCE
no\v-not guesswork.
There's nothing which can match an elec-
tric range for preparing all kinds of food.
Electric heat can be absolutely controlled.
The achievements of science are now at the
feet of the Home-maker-at her service at
the snap of a switch. The electric range
gives you precisely the temperature that the
recipe calls for. It cooks the most difficult
dishes perfectly. And with its marvellous
dial controls, you don't even have to be there
to watch it!
Ask us for further details. We are at the
service of our public.
An Electric Appliance for Every Need
Showrooms:
238 Flinders Street
And Country Centres throughout the State
Technology and the construction of the modern housewife. From the

Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy Magazine, 1931.
'working men's wives', they rose early and toiled long. Some took in
out-work such as machining, but their evidence pointed so overwhelm-
ingly to arduous domestic labour that even the Commissioners were
impressed, suggesting in their final report that the basic wage ought to
be adequate to allow the housewife some leisure and an annual holiday.
The Commissioners asked the most extraordinary range of detailed
questions .on all aspects of home management; the evidence thus provided
gives a rich picture of the domestic economy of the working-class family
just after the First World War. Although the women who gave evidence,
somewhat unwillingly in many cases, testified to their busy lives, they
did not themselves refer to any influence from the domestic science
movement. Rather, it was the sheer pressure of economic hardship that
caused them to plan and shop carefully. Although they did not report
actually keeping household accounts on a regular basis, they certainly
showed great familiarity with prices and the purchasing patterns of their
households. Mrs Ruby Burley of Footscray, who had three children, gave
such an account of her work in the home that eventually the Chairman
quizzed her to ensure that she had never had help in the home:
Do you do the washing as well?-Yes, I do all the washing, ironing,

scrubbing, cleaning and everything in connection with the house.
As well as making the clothes for the family and making jam and
cakes? -Yes.
You may not be emancipated, but your husband will consider you a
treasure. - I am striving for emancipation; that is why I am here. 44
A few minutes earlier it had been put to Mrs Burley that she was
naturally industrious, to which she replied: 'Yes, and I am economically
forced to be industrious. [On sewing:} I have to make the things, and
I have to make the time to do them' .45 Other women made the same
point: they rose early and frequently worked at sewing, particularly
mending and darning, late into the night. Mrs Burley never even went
visiting without her knitting. And witness 'D' reported lengthy hours
of regular toil from 6.00 a.m. until 8.30 p.m., commenting: 'I am not
living now; I am only existing' .46 The sheer multitude of tasks to be
done made reliance on a routine a reasonable response to the situation
of a modern housewife without domestic help.
By the 19 30s, rising expectations of cleanliness put new pressure on
the housewife despite the worsening economic conditions. Not only was
a wider range of products being advertised for cleaning purposes, but

when bought, they and other equipment required regular use to justify
being purchased at all. The domestic science movement looked somewhat
scornfully at traditional standards of housewifery and proudly exalted
modern scientific housewifery. The application of the methods of indus-
trial efficiency advocated by the really zealous domestic scientists in the
US involved a quite unrealistic appraisal of the patterns of privatized
domestic labour. As Heidi Hartmann has pointed out, the nature of
housework is simply quite different from that of the factory and cannot
benefit from either scale of operation or totally routinized tasks. Although
it seems that Australian home economists did not go to such extremes
as some of their American colleagues, they did believe in the advent of
a new age of housewifery. Labour-saving devices would remove the
drudgery and the housewife would be left to enjoy her creative home
management role. For working-class women the equipment was not
readily available, but they were still exposed to the changing expectations.
As the new experts started providing advice through newspaper and
magazine columns in the 1920s and 1930s, old-style household hints
which women shared with each other became overshadowed, though not
totally replaced, by recommendations that they purchase cleaning prod-
ucts formerly made at home. Formalized housewives' pages took the
place of more general, homely and chatty journalism.
Working-class women were certainly the focus of much of the reform
of housewifery messages, although educating all mothers was being made
a prime national objective:
Many troubles in the family are too often caused by crass ignorance and
inefficiency. Babies are born into dreadful homes and how they survive
is a miracle. One cannot blame the mothers entirely. Some of them come
from homes probably equally filthy and mothers equally inefficient ...
the vicious cycle goes on until mothercraft and domestic science are made
compulsory in schools. Teach the girls of Australia how to use soap and
water, how to cook a meal, and how to attend a baby. We would then
find fewer men deserting their families and fewer children dependent
upon the state. 47
Women's response to these reforming efforts is not often recorded in the

sources, but hints of resentment and bitterness at some of their living
conditions are evident. Some of the women who were distressed at the
Press publicity given to their evidence to the Basic Wage Commission
in 1920 were worried about publicizing the conditions under which they
carried out their domestic role: 'they do not wish to give evidence of
this nature about how they really live' .48 When material resources were
inadequate, the expectations of spotlessly clean, well-managed homes
were just extra pressures for women to bear; and they used many strategies
of their own in return, including refusing to have too many children.
Even middle-class women, with more chance of meeting the modern
standards of housewifery, could find them a strain. One woman wrote
that
Modern homes, theoretically should be easier to look after than old-
fashioned ones. I have lived in both and the modern home with its good
lighting, light paintwork, polished floors, large windows, etc., shows every
fleck of dust, every fingermark and calls for a high degree of house-
cleaning. Modern cooking ... is more varied and the more one knows of
calories and vitamins the more the menu has to be studied. Modern
clothing although less than our parents thought necessary, is made more
often. All these things make living on a higher standard harder, not
easier, the continual mending and making, cooking and cleaning that has
to be done nowadays limits a woman's capacities in caring for a family:
each extra one is not a matter of money it is a limit of one woman's
energy and time to look after all the family competently according to
present standards of cleanliness and comfort. 49
She argued that mothers of large families years ago had become aged
before their time, and that 'those who had much money and were "well-
preserved" were only so at the expense of many poor drudges who
supported families only by doing the hard work for others'. Apologizing
for her lengthy letter, she made the telling comment, reflecting woman's
lot: 'frequent interruptions don't make for succinct thought'.
These perceptive remarks show a recognition of the new pressures
women faced. It was becoming evident that despite the exclusion of the
housewife's labour from the world of 'real' work, it was nonetheless
being profoundly affected by developments outside the home. Rising
standards of housewifery were produced partly by the changing material
conditions of urban industrial life, but were also consciously promoted
by the ideology of the domestic science movement. Not only did its
advocates seek to justify the removal of many of woman's traditional
productive tasks into mass commodity production, but at the same time
to extend its management techniques and standards, as well as general
'scientific' principles, to the sphere of domestic production.
In particular, this meant new pressures on women's performance of
kitchen duties: the planning, preparation and execution of meals. The
two major components of the attempt to transform the labour of food

production and consumption both reflected the influence of science, and
the advocacy of new modern equipment appropriate to each task and of
the principles of nutrition. One of the many ironies of the developments
with which we are concerned is that the importance of using the right
equipment and utensils was impressed upon the housewife at a time
when she was losing much of her traditional knowledge concerning their
effective use. It seems that the training in domestic skills of daughters
by mothers was diminishing as a result of geographical mobility, the
introduction of new methods and equipment, and changing ideas about
children's household contribution. Furthermore, increased knowledge of
nutrition was being demanded of housewives just when control over
many of the ingredients of their pantries, as well as many of their actual
products, was being replaced by outside forces of production.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the role of the
wife and mother in the kitchen was given added importance by increased
interest in health issues. Not only traditional adages about reaching 'a
man's heart through his stomach' were popular, but the growing focus
on the health and diet of children focused attention on the activities of
the kitchen. In particular, it was the principles of 'hygienic, scientific'
cooking that were put forward from the 1890s on. 'Rita' for example,
stressed 'modern cooking', 'modern dining', 'scientific cooking', con-
sciously aiming at streamlining and modernizing traditional household
habits. She stressed the right equipment in the kitchen-colanders,
saucepans and so on; adequate light over work areas; and in particular
the scientific principles of rational planning and orderly work. She cited
overseas developments in domestic economy and placed great emphasis
on hygiene. 'Briefly, modern methods and utensils are the outcome of
ideas promulgated by scientific men and cooks. These modern utensils
make cooking easier, cleaner and healthier. ' 50 The new, however, could
also make for more rather than less work; aluminium saucepans on gas
stoves required more scouring than the enamel ones rejected on the
ground of enamel particles contaminating the food. 51
Some of the advice was practical and sensible, such as cleaning the
chimney regularly and providing a chair in the kitchen to rest on. Other
prescriptions simply increased the pressures to perform as a housewife.
'Now that manufacturers are producing such gay and charming cooking
utensils, it should inspire women to make both their kitchens and their
menus more varied and picturesque in colour', 'Vesta' told her Argus
readers in 1938. 52 The popularizers of the new modern ideas complained
of the monotony and blandness of the Australian diet, exhorting house-

wives to vary menus, serve foods more attractively and shop with more
routine. The advice of the earlier period was less systematic in organi-
zation than that after the First World War, but the recommendation
that the housewife herself be systematic and organized in the kitchen
waS"· a recurrent theme.
As well as the rationalization of menus which was suggested, the
emphasis on science led to discussion of the chemical properties of
various foods and hence the best ways of cooking them. The amount of
technical detail strikes a late twentieth-century reader as surprisingly
specific; in later decades there is less knowledge of food composition.
The teaching programmes of domestic economy colleges were particularly
emphatic about the importance of such knowledge, but even cookbooks
and advice aimed more at the mass of women carried such information. 53
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s a growing interest in maternal and
child health and welfare, and in national fitness, produced heightened
awareness of nutritional issues. At the government level this was evident
in various Royal Commissions and other Reports, and particularly in
the formation of the Advisory Council on Nutrition in 1936 and the
National Health and Medical Research Council in 193 7. 54 Australian
developments were closely related to overseas ones, especially those under
the auspices of the League of Nations. Although conditions induced by
the Depression were part of the immediate context of the developing
interest in nutritional problems, the professionalization of state-employed
dieticians had already generated interest. In embryonic form, some of
the concern with the health of children and national physique can even
be seen in the medical literature of the late nineteenth century, especially
in comparisons between Australian and British epidemiology. One of
the major recurrent themes was that 'Australia needs not only a numerous
but a virile population and virility is very largely a matter of proper
feeding' .55 Much of the focus was on the health and nutrition of infants
and children, but this also involved general research on standards of
nutrition in the community. Between 1936 and 1938 the Common-
wealth Advisory Council on Nutrition carried out a major survey both
of household expenditure on and consumption of foodstuffs and the
physical condition of children in various States. 56 The Council was
composed mainly of leading members of the medical profession, but
also relied on State Committees which included other interested profes-
sionals from dietetics and domestic science, infant welfare and social
work. Although the Report found there was no undue cause for alarm
about nutritional standards in Australia, the work of the Council is

significant both in representing and in fostering the stress on the national
stake in the welfare of the individual.
It was of course to the women of the nation that the propaganda was
heavily directed. Women's magazines and newspapers' 'ladies' pages,
except those addressed to upper-class women, carried information about
techniques of food selection and preparation. With the advent of the
Depression in the late 1920s, women's role in managing resources to
the utmost was stressed, including the need to provide tasty nutritious
meals as 'thriftily' as possible. 57 When the Advisory Council on Nutrition
was underway, 'Vesta"s column stressed its significance for women,
discussing progress reports and using the opportunity to attempt to
educate readers on 'nutritive principles'. She also urged women's orga-
nizations to take up the campaign. 58
Ironically enough, but quite significantly, on this occasion 'Vesta' 's
column was flanked on one side by readers' own suggested recipes
(ragout of kidneys, pork and beans, pumpkin pie) and on the other by
an advertisement for Rosella soups. This featured a steaming bowl of
soup and was captioned 'There's a pleasing surprise when you serve one
of these nourishing soups. No others taste as good, for the skilful art
of expert chefs have made Rosella Soups incredibly delicious'. The
advertisers therefore cleverly drew on the theme of nutrition and skill,
implying, however, that no individual housewife could produce soup of
similar quality to Rosella. Such an example hints at the real changes
taking place in the domestic economy; that more food was becoming
available as commodities in standardized packets or tins. Although
Australian developments lagged behind those in the US, where the
domestic science experts were busily working in the kitchens of the food
companies, health educators were aware that commercial production used
their message for goals of profit. They therefore again turned to domestic
science teaching for girls at school to prepare them for their consumer
role. Instruction in food values and purchasing could potentially provide
a source of resistance to the increasing bombardment from the commer-
cial sector, but unfortunately it seems that women turned increasingly
to reliance on 'experts' on the one hand and to the blandishments of
the mass market on the other.
The ideology relating to women's role in managing the health of the
nation has therefore to be seen in the context of the removal from home
to industry of the production of many foodstuffs. Women's response
reflected their negotation of changing circumstances. The Advisory Coun-
cil on Nutrition found that only a small proportion of foods consumed

in the 1789 households studies had not been purchased. In their
Melbourne sample, only 2.56 per cent of the mean gross weekly con-
sumption per 'adult male' unit was home produce. 59 Other evidence
testifies to the ongoing nutritional and economic significance of such
produce in family diets: the value of the fruit, milk and eggs outweighed
its small proportion of the average weekly diet.
Women were at times hard pressed to stretch the family budget to
provide adequate meals, as the average cost of food and groceries relative
to wages regularly increased. Although wages rose between 1912 and
1920, prices rose faster, only falling again after the War, and then only
temporarily, for by 1924 they rose again. It was claimed that during
the War, food and grocery costs had increased by 55 per cent from
£1 4s to £1 17 s 2d. 60 When the dissatisfaction with the rising cost of
living eventuated in the Royal Commission on the Basic Wage in 1920,
detailed estimates were made of food costs for a family of two adults
and three children. The household budgets submitted to the Commission
were, according to the final Report, misleading in some respects; but
they also showed what working-class families would like to have, as
well as what they normally achieved.
The interpretation of living costs and food needs varied considerably
amongst members of the Commission, depending on whether they
represented the union or employers. Questions about using egg powder
rather than fresh eggs were a nice illustration of the employers' ideas of
economy and appropriate standards, as were some of their inquiries
regarding alcohol usage. 61 The housewives, on the other hand, were
concerned not only with the value for money, the nutritive and 'satisfying'
nature of the food they served-but also with matters of taste and
family members' idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, they showed a realistic
appraisal of needs varying between children or of the demands of their
husbands' occupations. Women were following their own rationale based
on experience and circumstances. While evidence of resistance to the
expectations laid on them is fragmentary, exchanges such as the following
suggest that they were not just passive victims but responded realistically
to the pressures upon them. Mrs Burley was asked by an employers'
representative about her housekeeping experience. She answered that she
had been the eldest of ten:
I suppose you do not know anything about calories?-No.
And when you order a thing, you do not estimate its caloric value?-
No, I do not go in for calories, but if I hear a thing is going up I

generally get a supply in. 62
In the area of clothing as well as in feeding the family, women's role
of managing to adjust the family to outside circumstances was also
important: they had to 'make do' in wartime and depression and 'keep
up' as fashions changed throughout the period. The movement for
simpler more hygienic dress was underway in the latter part of the
nineteenth century, but major changes escalated after the War. The
implications for women were considerable. On the one hand, they were
exhorted by advertising and 'advice to women' columns in magazines
to look after their appearance, but on the other, to be thrifty and not
vain. \X'hereas before the War fashion was a matter of good taste and,
to a lesser extent, practicality, by the 1920s and especially the 1930s it
was becoming a matter of mass-produced 'style', increasingly set by
overseas movie queens. For women of limited means, these decades
produced added pressures, as renovating old clothes for a new season
became increasingly difficult. Paper patterns were offered for the home
sewer, and it seems to have been taken for granted that most women
could sew, especially children's clothes, underwear and household linen.
This assumption was built into first the questions, and then eventually
the official calculations of the Basic Wage Commission. It conducted
minute calculations regarding the clothing thought necessary for a man,
wife and three children. The minutes of evidence reveal a fascinating
dialogue on the issue of women's role in clothing the family and about
a working-class family's actual needs. The questions of both the em-
ployers' and employees' representatives, and of the chairman, took for
granted that home sewing and 'cutting down' was an essential traditional
skill that women still possessed. They quizzed several witnesses about
their skills in this area, being particularly anxious to ascertain how much
family sewing the 'average' working-class woman could do. 63 What was
especially revealing was their refusal to acknowledge the women's own
perspective-one put forcefully by Muriel Heagney-that women's la-
bour also had to be casted and allowed for in the basic wage. From
many exchanges in this evidence it is clear that for working-class women
home sewing was not necessarily pleasant dressmaking as either leisure
or domestic production, but an oft-resented chore of darning, patching
and stretching limited resources. In the discussions of cutting-down
parents' clothes, for example, there are signs of considerable resentment
that this should even be expected of them. One woman commented: 'I
do not think that the fathers have that many clothes to enable the
mothers to cut them down for the children', and others pointed out
that working men's and women's clothes were not usually fit for this
anyway since they were quite worn out. 64
The links between the Commissioners' expectations of women's dress-
making skills and the influence of the domestic science movement were
made quite clear. Mr Ferguson, the counsel for the employers, empha-
sized it quite strongly with comments such as 'and remembering the
fact that all girls are trained in needlework at school'. When it was
pointed out to him that this was a recent innovation, he continued
unabashed: 'Would you mind going through the list and telling me
what an ordinary woman could not make. Some "romeo can make their
own hats'. On another occasion he asked Mrs Jennie Jobson, who was
apparently an accomplished needlewoman, 'Do not many women do this
fancy work as recreation or amusement, even wealthy women?' .65 The
clear answer, of course, was that sheer economic necessity was what
motivated many women to sew arduously. Mrs Ruby Burley, the 'hus-
band's treasure', pointed out that her health had suffered at times:
If I could have got the garments ready-made I could have saved a lot of
that, but I have all the time been economically forced to make them
myself. I have a great fear of getting into the degraded condition in
which I see some people, and that is why I sew so much.
In this passage Mrs Burley raised another point which also seemed to
fall on the fairly deaf ears of at least the employers' Commissioners: the
working class's quite rational desire for both comfort and self-respect.
Repeatedly throughout this series of questioning, claims were made
about what was, and what was not, an appropriate standard of clothing
for families on the basic wage. The women fought back quite strongly
about expectations of what they, their children and menfolk ought to
wear. The employers' representatives persistently complained that the
number of items of clothing claimed by the unions was too high; that
expensive materials were chosen when others would suffice; and that a
'reasonable standard of comfort' should not entail any consideration of
fashion. Witnesses pointed to the many problems of ready-made men's
suits and the far greater comfort and lasting qualities of those tailor-
made. Detailed questions ranged from the number of men's underpants
"rorn out per year; what various pieces of underwear were made of;
"rhether women now wore 'combinations' or camisoles and bloomers or
knickers. There is no space here to describe the extraordinarily intimate
exchanges which took place, but discussions of women's corsets, for

example, showed the importance women placed on comfort, practicality
and respectability. Women insisted that they expected certain standards
of clothing and resented implications that they should be satisfied with
less, either in terms of quantity or quality. Their task, then, was to
manage the resources of the family in order to maintain an appropriate
level of living, their definition of which did not necessarily square with
that of the employers.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, public rec-
ognition was being given to a further aspect of women's role in managing
the family household. The maintenance of both physical and psycholog-
ical health was now being defined as their duty to the State. As many
feminist social theorists have recently pointed out, the reproduction of
capitalism includes both the physical reproduction of the labour force
and the reproduction of the social relationships of capitalism. In this
period there is clear evidence of the close links between them: the
maintenance of the physical well-being of the family was definitely seen
as part of the teaching of 'right living'. Not only was woman's obligation
to reproduce proclaimed to be her national duty, but she was assigned
the responsibility of both preventive health care and the management
of illness. In the earlier part of our period, the latter was no mean feat
as childhood illnesses frequently proved fatal. The Australian Health
Society and other advice literature's detailed instructions for the prepa-
ration and administration of the sick room reflected an often grim reality.
The significance, the physical and emotional drain, of 'night-watching'
with the sick and dying appears in many accounts of deaths that were
printed in newspapers and magazines. These tasks eased in the twentieth
century as the risks of diphtheria and scarlet fever eventually abated.
As the burdens of physical illness lightened to some extent, other
pressures mounted instead. Although by the 1930s the role of the State
included funding a variety of educational and public health schemes,
such as the provision of free milk for children, the nation's mothers
were exhorted to do the rest. In particular, as personal relationships took
on extra significance as a realm in which to seek meaning in life, women's
task of administering that sphere also grew in importance. Not only
were women the main links in the kinship network, but through their
role in social, charitable and behind-the-scenes economic and political
negotiations they played a crucial part in reproducing the social structure
of the emerging industrial capitalist society. In the early twentieth century
women's handling of the essential tasks of social reproduction came
under scrutiny, and by the Second World War a variety of 'experts'

were offering advice not only on managing family relationships but on
how to be a woman. Two largely contradictory themes emerged. On the
one hand, the modern woman was to be, in some respects at least, the
famed 'new woman': one not confined only to interests of hearth and
home but an interesting person in her own right. On the other hand,
she was increasingly being advised on how to produce herself as a
physical object, as an item of exchange in a system of heterosexual
attraction, the marriage market-place. In both respects, through the hints
on how to be an interesting 'person', and on how to be desirable and
to win and keep a mate, women were being exhorted to produce
themselves as a mass commodity. 66
In the early decades of the century, close links were seen between the
reform of the home and the contribution of women to the improvement
of the outside world:
When women acknowledge that their work in the past has not been
well-done . . . instruction in domestic science will be demanded for the
girls of Australia, and we may hope to see architects compelled to build
healthy houses, plumbers to make drain and sink connections which are
not disease traps, ... butchers unable to sell bad meat, milkmen adul-
terated milk, grocers inferior provisions, and drapers shoddy material.
This desirable state of things will be brought about by women under-
standing their work and doing it. 67
Such was to be the burden of the housewife! In order to carry such
a load she had to fit herself for these mighty responsibilities by both a
liberal and domestic economy education. The emphasis on 'cultural'
activities, music and reading and the stress that went with them on
moral qualities, slowly diminished during the following decades. Al-
though public support for women's role in charitable activities continued,
and there were occasional pleas for women to participate more in political
activities, increasingly these were contradicted by the growing dominance
of the theme of woman as sexjfashion object. The production of woman
as 'mannequin' was still to be completed after the Second World War,
but the development was clearly set in motion during the 1920s. The
influence of the 'movies' produced a change in the attitudes expressed
towards beauty and the body. ] ust as domestic science informed the
attempts to re-shape the physical environment of the home, so too did
'scientific' beauty advice; but it was accompanied in the interwar period
by the glamour of movie stars and the advertising of the beauty care
products they were claimed to endorse. The extent to which women
accepted or resisted this message, like that of the domestic scientists and
other professionals, still needs more extensive investigation. Did the likes
of Mrs Ruby Burley, the epitome of the solid, practical working-class
woman of the 1920s, take any notice? Certainly, considerations of fashion
were not especially marked in the 1920 inquiry, either on the part of
the housewives or the commissioners. On the other hand, their model
of the thrifty, productive housewife was already being undermined and
replaced by a new one. Throughout the period under scrutiny, significant
changes in the production and promotion of commodities were certainly
related to the production of woman herself. The woman was to be
produced in order to continue her role as household and family manager
in a new guise. Increasingly shorn of her major productive role in food
and clothing, a twentieth-century housewife was to turn to 'scientific
housewifery' on the one hand, and the cult of youthful beauty and
modern mothercraft on the other.
Part II
Reproduction
4
Modernizing confinement
The period from the 1880s to the 1930s charted not only the rapid
growth of gynaecology as a professional specialty but increased interest
in obstetrics on the part of both doctors and some women's organizations.
By the end of the 1930s major changes had taken place in the organi-
zation of pregnancy and childbirth; in particular, the period included
the extension of ante-natal care, and of hospital-based, medically man-
aged, male-dominated labour and birth. It would be simplistic and
naive, however, to attribute these developments solely to the conscious
intention of the medical profession, whether interpreted as benevolent
or malevolent. Doctors' motivation combined compassion arising out of
their practical experience with a general taken-for-granted paternalism
towards females. Furthermore, the role of professionally trained women
was most important, as was that of the upper-middle-class women's
welfare network. Ordinary women themselves also contributed to the
changed management of their 'reproductive functions', turning to hos-
pitalization and anaesthetized labour in order to avoid the very real risks
of nineteenth century childbed. Sources drawn on in this chapter include
oral history and the records of the women who helped in the transfor-
mation of childbirth, as well as the predominantly male discourse of
the medical profession. In the popular advice literature a marked shift
over the period can be traced. First, guidelines for ante-natal care became
much more detailed and specific, and second, home-birth became no
longer assumed and directions for managing labour and birth correspond-
ingly diminished. These changes in the literature were symptomatic of
the major developments, producing an outcome full of irony: professional
male supervision thought essential to women's performance of their most
'natural' function.
84
Modernizing confinement 85
The late nineteenth century's increasing interest in health heightened

a\\rareness of the need for more hygienic and rational dress for women.
The advice offered to women in pregnancy was part of this general
health consciousness, focusing mainly on diet and exercise:
To sum up, a pregnant woman should breathe plenty of fresh air day
and night ... should have eight hours sleep nightly ... Her food ought
to be plain and substantial, with plenty of fresh fruit at meal times-
and she should above all things avoid spirituous or intoxicating liquor.
However moral improvement was as significant as physical:

Her mind should not be neglected. Beautiful pictures and books, suffi-
ciently intellectual to promote thought-though not so abstruse as to
impose severe mental strain-will help her, and improve her and her
child. 1
It was strongly emphasized that the state of mind of the woman \\ ould 7
have a direct and certain effect on the child. Although later advice also
assumed the need for a quiet and peaceful life, the expectant mother
was given more explicit directions on actual diet; and by the 1930s, the
idea of ante-natal exercise was starting to appear and medical supervision
was encouraged. 2
Oral and diary evidence makes an important contribution to our
understanding of the experience of pregnancy; it seems that modern
ideas of ante-natal care and professional supervision took some time to
filter through. Mrs Watts commented that she had no trouble with
either of her two pregnancies and could not remember that her friends
had either, but they lived a quiet life:
As for going out as people do today, it just wasn't done, you just didn't,
you stayed in seclusion until your babies were born, you'd go out perhaps
in a trap or something, but to go walking in the streets, it just wasn't
done.
The delicacy with which pregnancy was discussed publicly is suggested
by the euphemisms used: enceinte, 'time of trouble', 'the difficulty'. Even
the guide books produced under the auspices of the infant and maternal
welfare movement in the late 1920s and 1930s were restrained in their
discussion of pregnancy, and made little attempt to inform the woman
in detail of the physiological developments taking place. Although the
first signs of pregnancy and 'quickening' were mentioned, only a few
gave advice about problems of pregnancy such as morning sickness.
Rarely was any information given about foetal development, whether
from constraints of propriety or lack of knowledge is not clear. Most

women interviewed said they had known very little about what was
happening when they first became pregnant: 'I was under Dr White and
he wouldn't say anything much about it. I never learnt much at all'.
And Mrs Cope, born 1884, had to ask her sister's advice in 1913 when
she first began 'feeling different' after eight years of marriage. Her sister
replied: 'I think you're going to have a baby'. Mrs Cope pointed out
that only one visit to the doctor took place and there 'were no exercises
or anything'. The advice literature written by women for women generally
included instructions on preparing the baby's layette, a ritual of some
importance. 3 A woman doctor in general practice in the late 1920s
recounted how she was often delayed on her ante-natal calls by women
preparing afternoon tea and wanting to show her all the garments they
had made. Mrs Clifford told how she had been most unhappy to find
herself pregnant after only six months of marriage, and so chose the
cheapest dark flannel for the layette: 'My mother was disgusted with
me. Ooh I was a nasty wretch'.
Just before the First World War, with increasing interest in infant
mortality, the first suggestions appear of the concern with maternal
health which was to grow rapidly in the 1920s. In the discussion on
the 'baby bonus' in 1912, male politicians repeatedly referred to the
need to assist women in their 'time of stress and trouble'. Although
there were accusations that the Labour government was acting only from
political expediency, and disagreement over whether the maternity al-
lowance should be paid to single mothers, or for stillborn children, there
was general consensus that women's health at such a crucial time should
be safeguarded in the interests of family and nation. It was not until
the 1920s that a major effort was made to promote maternal welfare.
There was already ample evidence of the extent to which many mothers
lacked 'proper nourishment and rest'. The middle-class women on
hospital committees and other charitable organizations were aware of the
difficulties faced by their less fortunate sisters in preparing for, and
coping with, childbirth. The ladies working for the MDNS, for example,
visited all those who applied for a nurse at their confinement, reporting
in detail on the condition of the home and its occupants. The picture
which emerges is far from that painted by the advice literature of well-
fed women in comfortable surroundings having afternoon naps. On 24
May 1910 'the sister reported that her [Mrs McD.'s of Richmond}
mental state was much improved; she was apparently suffering from
hysteria induced by her condition and want of nourishing food'. 4 The
Encouraging modern mothering: the MDNS Ante-natal Clinic in the
1930s. From N. Rosenthal, People-Not Cases, the Royal District l\fursing Service,
1974.
Professional surveillance: the ante-natal examination. From N. Rosenthal,

People-Not Cases, the Royal District Nursing Service, 1974.
Above: New ways of infant
care: the daily 'sunbath' at
Tweddle Baby Hospital.
From the Society for the Health
of Women and Children of
Victoria, Annual Report,
1929-30.
Left: Dr Vera Scantlebury

Brown and baby Edward,
c. 1929.
phrase that the woman is 'respectable but in great want' was a frequent
comment, indicating that supervision of poor women's homes was replete
with moral as well as hygienic judgements.
Ever since the MDNS commenced midwifery nursing in 1906 these
home visits by committee members had taken place to ascertain the
woman's circumstances and physical environment. Although the reports
on the cleanliness of the dwelling and its inmates were closely related
to whether or not a nurse was prepared to deliver a baby in that home,
the committee members also used this evidence in judging 'the woman's
moral worth'. The decisions to provide a woman either with extra
financial assistance or with blankets, baby clothes or milk were usually
related to her cleanliness and tidiness. Women were 'accepted' by the
MDNS on criteria such as 'has nice baby clothes ready, and is clean and
respectable. Mrs Bugg, very poor but decent woman-send milk, squares
and binders'. 5 In some cases the moral scruples of the executive ladies
and the professional objections of the nurses were overcome in the face
of really dire need:
Matron reported that Mrs Howie, Newport, had had a very abnormal
confinement, twins, very large babies; her husband was violently drunk,
Mrs Nancarrow, South Melbourne, seemed unsuitable ... she had been
very objectionable last time. The President said she was not a fit person.
The Committee agreed to this, but Mrs Phillips thought for the sake of
the child someone should see her-most of her other children having
died. 6
In many cases there were attempts at overt social control of the women
requesting nursing. Many were told to clean the house, arrange extra
household help, or organize baby clothes, otherwise the nurse would not
take on the case. On one occasion an unmarried mother was encountered,
and the sister 'induced the man to marry her'. 7 Women who were
desperately in need of assistance were presumably not likely to resist
this control-the cases of women without furniture, even a bed, or
without so much as a nightgown for the birth. Some also needed
emotional reassurance as well as, or more than, material aid: 'Mrs
Witers-lost two children at birth and is very nervous. Nurse to call
and reassure her'. 8
Many working-class women were surrounded by a neighbourhood
network which offered both material and psychological support. Not all
women had this, though, and it seems likely that responses to middle-
class supervision varied. For women whose family and friendship net-
works were strong, reliance on charity and professional assistance signified
practical support rather than _emotional dependence. Others were more
vulnerable to surveillance_ and tb attempts to shape their. domestic
behaviour according to middle class norms. Although frequent expres-
sions of gratitude were passed on to the MDNS committee, .occasionally
there were hints of resistance to the supervision. One woman for example
refused to get in the ambulan-ce when it was summoned to transfer her
to hospital, preferring to stay at home. 9 Nor were the physical conqitions
under which poorer working-clas-s women lived conducive ·to -meeting
the advice they were given. on ideal standards of rest and nourishment
for a pregnant woman. This led to some problems for the professionals
when the instructions for -the welfare of mother and child were quite
incompatible with their material circumstances. In 1932, for example,
a patient of the MDNS ante-natal clinic could not follow the doctor's
advice: 'Mrs Hambly, who has no baby clothes, was recommended to
take fruit but cannot buy any'. 10
As doctors attended more deliveries they encountered the situation of
poor pregnant women more than in_ the nineteenth century where non-
professional midwives handled most of these cases. The significant role
in Britain played by local midwives has been stressed by Donnison, and
particularly by Mary Chamberlain, who points to the contribution mid-
wives often made by taking- household equipment and so on to families
in need. 11 The accounts of midwife Nurse Kirkpatrick in New South
Wales and, to some extent, of Australian rural infant welfare sisters,
suggest that even professional personnel sometimes carried on a similar
tradition of practical assistance. 12 Nonetheless, as trained nurse-midwives
and doctors increasingly dominated childbirth, their specialization and
time commitments, as- well as inclination, made the role of general
family assistant less and less ~likely. For middle-class families who could
afford other home help around the time of confinement, this mattered
less than for those in greater material need.
In line with many developments dis,ussed in other chapters, charitable
endeavours, such as that of. the auxiliaries of the MDNS, combined with
growing professionalization of medical care to produce changes in ante-
natal care .by the interwar period. Me-dical interest in pregnancy became
more marked after the establishment of the infant welfare movement
relieved the concern with infant mortality, and the MJA during the mid-
1920s reveals a noticeable increase in the number of articles and letters
on maternal health. It was recognized by the leaders' attempts to promote
maternal welfare that both doctors and women had still to be convinced
of the need for ante-natal supervision. Dr Marshall Allan, a leader in
the maternal health field, commented that pregnancy was a time of
stress and strain when every maternal organ is tested to the uttermost. 13
The supervision of all normal babies which was promoted by the infant
welfare movement became logically extended to their ante-natal period.
There were essay competitions amongst medicos and a burst of research
interest in maternal morbidity and mortality. In Victoria, in 1924, a
report of an inquiry by a BMA committee prompted the Edward Wilson
(Argus) Trust to donate £10,000 to the University of Melbourne to
appoint a director of obstetrical research for two years. The subsequent
report by Dr Marshall Allan was the focus for much debate, with 'Vesta'
and women's organizations leading the fray and demanding a chair of
obstetrics and more maternity hospitals. 14 In Sydney the Women's
Hospital was by 1921 requiring its midwifery patients to come at least
once before confinement for an ante-natal examination, and this decade
saw mounting enthusiasm for ante-natal work. In Melbourne, by the
mid-1920s, clinics were established at the Women's, Queen Victoria
and Alfred Hospitals. The Victorian Baby Health Centres Association
and Prahran Health Centre were also commencing the work. Nonetheless,
maternal mortality figures were still not as low as expected, and were
not decreasing fast enough. 15
The major reports on maternal health emphasized the further spread
of ante-natal care, improvement in the training of both doctors and
midwives and the extension of maternity hospitals. In order to encourage
still more women to place themselves under medical supervision, it was
also recommended that the £5 maternity allowance only be paid to
women who saw a doctor before as well as during confinement. From
its institution in 1912, the allowance has been tied to the use of a
doctor for delivery. The rates of women so attended steadily increased
from 63 per cent in 1914 to 77 per cent in 1923 for the Commonwealth
as a whole, and Victorian and South Australian figures were much
higher. 16 That these developments did involve a considerable shift of
attitude and behaviour was acknowledged by the doctors who wanted
still more education of the public regarding the importance of medical
care. A 1925 prize-winning essay argued that the customs and mental
attitudes handed down from mother to daughter through several gen-
erations were not to be transformed by a ·spasmodic and localized effort. 17
Like others, Dr E.S. Morris claimed that childbirth had to be seen as
an important surgical operation; at present the public regarded it too
lightly. The medical reformers were quite consciously attempting to

interpose. their expertise between that of women themselves. They were
aided in ·this project by groups of middle-class women acting from a
combination_ of charitable and nationalistic motives. Women generally,
however, were slower to take up the provision of ante-natal care than
they were to attend infant welfare centres; even there, though, they
received general health advice for themselves as well as for their babies.
By the 1930s fears were being expressed that the publicity on· maternal
mortality and the ante-natal campaign had actually exaggerated the
problems, .thereby increasing women's anxiety and producing more prob-
lems. One doctor asked in 1934:
Is not far too much fuss being made of the pregnant woman? She is told
to report to her doctor at once if something abnormal happens, that she
must do this and thus. -she is examined every month or at numerous
times during her pregnancy, and in the end she begins to think that hers
must be an unusual case. 18
He advocated minimal but reassuring care during pregnancy in order to
lessen fears concerning the birth. Only on rare occasions, however, were
doaors' own contributions to that anxiety acknowledged. Their attempts
to extend ante-natal care and to replace midwives without professional
training at deliveries reveals a combination of professional jealousy,
economic motives and genuine horror at the damage sometimes done
by 'Sarah Gamps'. But in t_heir attempt to sell their own services, the
risks-real enough for some of the parturient women-were constantly
dwelt upon. They also assumed that their own obstetric skills were
vastly better than those of midwives. When faults in their own practice
and deficiencies in training were pointed out, some doctors did not take
it kindly; nor when colleagues suggested leaving the managem~nt of
normal labour to a trained mic!wife. Attempting to stir up feeling on
the issue of maternal welfare, Dr Morris declared in 1925:
There is little doubt that if nature exacted the full penalty for every gross
act of ante-natal, natal and post-natal neglect or of unskilful treatment,
our statistics would be appalling. The fact that so many women survive
against tremendous odds is a tribute to our good luck rather than our
good management. 19
Those attempting to reform midwifery practice were often therefore
aiming at fellow doctors as well as untrained midwives and the public.
The concerted effort of doctors and of the emerging trained nurses'
organizations to remove untrained midwives from the field of obstetrics
is not unique to Australia. However, Australian patterns are interesting

in that while the overwhelmingly technological management of birth
reached in the US was not implemented, neither did as comprehensive
a system of external midwifery emerge as in England and some European
countries. Midwives' obstetrical techniques and lack of cleanliness were
regularly pointed out by doctors, but often in passing as they attempted
to educate fellow doctors in the necessity for strict asepsis. There was
no great campaign on the issue of midwives which could be said to
characterize the medical literature over a lengthy period; rather contro-
versy waxed and waned, usually in other contexts. A significant division
emerged between doctors who favoured training and registration of
midwives, and those who did not. This controversy lingered on, partic-
ularly in New South Wales, where it effectively delayed legislation to
control midwives until late in the period. From both quarters, though,
the goal was the taken-for-granted hegemony of the medical profession
in midwifery. The alternative viewpoints were clearly expressed before
the Royal Commission into the Decline of the Birth Rate in 1903. The
Commission plied medical and other witnesses with questions to ascertain
opinions on the effect of faulty obstetrics on women's capacity to bear
further children. The doctors who opposed registration of existing mid-
wives mainly expressed fears of a 'second class' of medical practitioners,
who would not recognize their own incompetence or work sufficiently
under the watchful eye of the medical profession. Likewise those who
advocated licensing did so on grounds of greater control:
I think the great lesson we have been teaching these women (and I have
taught hundreds of them in the last ten years from all parts of Australia
and New Zealand) is that their mission in life in this particular work is
to be subordinate to a doctor, and never, if they can help it, to attend a
midwifery case except with the help of a doctor.
So training was advocated in order both to ensure the teaching of asepsis

and to insist that the nurse was only a nurse-and never an independent
practitioner. 20 In ·Victoria the argument for registration and training won
the day as it did in Britain. Victoria's 1915 Midwives' Act was similar
to that of England in 1902, permitting the registration of untrained but
experienced midwives for a short time after the Act was passed, and
then ensuring training and standardized examination.
One factor which has not figured largely in accounts of British
developments is the role played by women themselves, particularly as
trained nurses: the new breed· of professional midwives. In Victoria, at
least, their reputation and -professional- consciousness_ was a significant

factor in midwifery developments. By the time the Midwives' Act
eventuated, Melbourne was already served by a. trained .external mid-
wifery service, that of the MDNS. It had been made ~clear at its com-
mencement that this was a charitable service, in no way meant to
compete with doctors; so the medical profession was plaEated at the
outset. The role of. the district nurses, however, soon -became a most
significant one in the- training of medical students, most of .whom had
their first external cas~~ under the supervision of a trained ·midwifery
nurse. One doaor recalled the extraordinary circumstances in which these
nurses worked, speaking of their work with great respect. 21 There were,
however, _local conflicts, jealousies_ and professional rivalries -in- the general
controversy about the training of midwives. For example, in Melbourne
the MONS and the Women's Hospital had several disputes concerning
the relationship of their trained_ midwives to the medical students. 22
Despite such -rivalries, it- is clearly apparent that a general attack was
being. made_ on the traditional untrained midwife and that she was being
undermined and replaced by -professionally trained women who~- on the
whole, accepted the superior status _of the doctors.
Although feminist accounts _of the male takeover of midwifery rightly
point to the destruction of women's traditional network and knowledge,
it is also important to acknowledge that many women suffered at the
hands of both midwives and doctors, and were- thus greatly -in favour of
better control. It was therefpre ordinary women as- well as the charity
network and the professional nurse$ who encouraged changes in mid-
wifery practice. Whether or· not untrained midwives had ever achieved
as esteemed a position in Australian working-class communities as in
Britain, further research migh.t show; but it certainly cannot be over-
looked that some women were only too happy to be .rid of their services.
Not many women in the oral history sample had experience ofold-style
midwives, but they were ---consczious of the risks and problems that
childbirth had entailed befere their time. They thus accepted that
'advances' in midwifery had been _thanks to professionalization of nursing
and -the role of the doctors. Some women looked back askance at earlier
practices. Mrs Clifford, for example, recalled using a midwife for her
first confinement in 1905 who was most unhygienic; when she tried to
wash her out of a cha-mber pot, Mrs Clifford told her to 'take that -filthy
thing away'.
The doctors, however, were often little better in their knowledge of
obstetrics than unskilled, untrained midwives, and even fellow doctors
continued to plead for greater attention to asepsis throughout the period.

As doctors' own attention to aseptic procedures increased, doubtless their
horror at other practices intensified. Their attitudes to midwifery practice
were also affected by issues arising within their own profession, partic-
ularly the relationship between GPs and specialists, and patterns of
medical training. It was well recognized that young GPs used midwifery
cases to gain entree to a family and thus slowly build up a family
practice. The competition of midwives on the one hand, and of specialists
on the other, was a threat to a 'bread and butter' aspect of their practice,
and both were to some extent resisted. There was recognition that the
necessary specialists should be encouraged through government subsi-
dized services, available through hospitals but not competing with private
practice and thus threatening the GP. Specialization was also accepted
on the grounds of bringing obstetrics greater prestige within the profes-
sion. Behind, or at least alongside, these discussions were claims that
increased financial reward must accompany increased status: 'the public
should be educated as to the value of our work' and even the 'industrial
classes could and would pay a somewhat higher fee for the obstetric
services and attention to their wives' .23 Improved training was however
recognized as necessary too. The reform of the medical curriculum
stressed increasing attention to obstetrics generally and to clinical practice
in particular. Accusations of 'sloppy' obstetrics were attributed to the
inadequacy of actual experience on the part of doctors, but a recurrent
theme was the need for a major shift of attitude, for greater attention
to asepsis and the provision of a 'surgical environment' for childbirth.
The reform of medical opinion was accompanied by an attempt to
change lay opinion also, to introduce perception of labour and childbirth
as medical events.
Not only were pressures arising within the medical profession but
there was a rising expectation on the part of at least a section of the
public that better medical care should be available for all parturient
women. The women who led the campaigns for better obstetrical care
shared with the professionals an emerging frame of reference: one which
valued the scientific knowledge base, the modern technology and the
professional specialization of the medicos. They not only wanted more
general attention to maternal health, but to spread medical supervision
of childbirth throughout all classes. Their motivation sprang from a
charitable, philanthropic impulse on the one hand, and from strongly
nationalistic concerns on the other. 'Vesta' and her colleagues- and other
women in a variety of organizations promoted the 'medicalization' of
childbirth, as it has now been referred to, as a significant component of

their attempts to raise the status of women's traditional role by upgrading
it according to modern techniques.
The doaors, as we have seen, had several other interests of their own
at stake and ended up in the peculiar situation of recognizing the 'non-
naturalness' of modern labour and parturition, yet seeing only solutions
which contributed to the situation they sought to remedy. The first and
probably most obvious aspect of the transformation of birth is the move
from home to hospital delivery. Whereas this has, in Australia at least,
generally been regarded as one of the most progressive developments of
modern medicine, in recent years it has generated considetable contro-
versy. Opinion has often polarized into conservative medical advocacy of
hospital deliveries versus claims from groups of women and a few
maverick medicos that normal deliveries should be returned to the home.
What is evident in these debates is an emphasis on psychological aspects
of both infant and maternal well-being which was totally absent in the
pre-Second World War discussions. From a review of the -medical
literature, it does not seem that the doctors generally had what could
be in any sense termed a campaign to encourage hospital delivery.
Throughout most of the period the discussion of hospital-based mid-
wifery took place in terms, first, of. its provision as a charity to the poor;
and second, of its provision of clinical experience for medical students.
Not surprisingly, of course, the two were linked insofar as the first
women to enter Australian hospitals for childbinh were those who were
ill and destitute. In the nineteenth century several major hospitals for
women were established in Australian capital cities, a development
related to women's entry into medical practice and initiated by leading
women themselves. Although these were primarily for working-class
women, the traditional use of the 'monthly nurse' by middle-class women
at home was to cease in the early twentieth century as they followed
their poorer sisters into institutionalized confinements.
The first stage of this development was still basically local confinement:
delivery taking place in a private 'lying-in' home run by a midwife,
with or without professional training. The popularity of these small
establishments, which varied in quality, was perhaps increased by the
provision of the Maternity Allowance after 1912. The control of such
lying-in homes was an ongoing concern of the medical profession; of
government officials, such as statisticians, concerned with problems of
registration of births; and of reformers concerned with protecting infant
life. Commissioners examining the decline of the birth rate in 1903, for
example, helped focus attention on these private concerns, fearing their

harbouring of untrained midwives and abortionists. Why women turned
to these private lying-in homes rather than be attended at home is not
yet clear. A recurrent problem they faced was the care of existing children
while away for the birth of the baby. Although for first births this
presented no obstacle, even then the acute shortage of domestic labour
left the women without much assistance at confinement unless family
and neighbours were able to help. Women's negative experience with
some 'old wives', combined with heightened sensibility to the dangers
of childbed prompted by increasing discussion of infant and maternal
mortality, may also have encouraged them to seek more extensive care
than formerly. Mrs Best's experience is perhaps suggestive:
I had the first couple of girls at home then I had him in the Women's
Hospital. He was the only normal birth I had ... The first girl I had in
the bedroom in there ... she was a breech birth ... she was alright ...
she came away all right ... and the second girl-1 nearly lost my life
with her . . . And then Neil, he was a breech, and the doctor said to
attend him for a little while and then go and have it in the Women's
Hospital-they wouldn't come to the house ...
Many other women found that the small local establishment allowed
nursing support following delivery by their own doctors, but still a
homely atmosphere and friendly contacts.
Amongst the variety of factors at work there was certainly at least
some pressure from doctors to spread the custom of hospital births. It
came mainly from the leaders of obstetrics and gynaecology who were
aware that they had to convince both women themselves and many
fellow doctors. It was through their emphasis on childbirth as a medical
event, one which should be seen as akin to a major operation, that they
attempted to do this. 'It is only when we deal with a woman in labour
as with an important case of surgical operation, with a special tendency
to septic problems, that we can be certain of our results', said Dr Way
in . 1896. 24 Although in this earlier period the hospitalization of all
women was unthought and unthinkable, the attack on unhygienic home
surroundings and the doctor's need to completely control the environ-
ment, gradually made such a course the logical alternative to home
births. It was not until 1920 that any clear pressure for more widespread
hospital delivery appeared, but again the 'surgical' theme predominated
in claims for extended hospital services: 'The public should be taught
that it is just as necessary to go to hospital for childbirth as for a surgical
operation'. 25 Universal hospitalized childbirth was a new concept and

not yet accepted, but there -was not much overt debate; it seems to have
become more and more taken for granted by the generation of doctors
training in the late 1920s and 1930s.
As this shift of professional opinion took place, advice literature to
women gave fewer instructions on home birth. By the time of the
booklets issued in association with the infant and maternal welfare
movement of the late 1920s, hospital deliveries were increasingly as-
sumed. Earlier books and pamphlets had often given detailed instructions
on preparing for delivery. 26 Equipment was specified and in some cases
instruction for preparing the bed itself: 'There are certain articles which
are required for every confinement case. As there is no excuse for leaving
matters till the last moment they should all be in readiness long before
the birth of the baby is expected', recommended Dr Muskett in the
Illustrated Australian medical guide in 1906. 27 Muskett, like most other
writers of the earlier period, was acutely aware of Australia's long
distances and therefore attempted to give straightforward directions in
.order 'that no-one need have any fear in helping a mother through her
trouble'. Amongst his recommended Special articles necessary for the
lying-in room were string, scissors, linen and cotton wool, and 'enema
syringe, additional syringe for the female passage, superior quality brandy,
best vinegar obtainable, liquid extract of ergot, teaspoon, jar, and smelling
salts'. Although some of these instructions continued to be given in the
late 1920s, the emphasis was different. Rather than attempting to explain
and simplify for lay consumption, reliance on medical assistance was by
then expected and fewer explanations of labour itself were offered to the
reader.
Many births must have continued along lines suggested by Dr Mu-
skett, taking place in comfortable homes with adequate linen, utensils
and assistance. However, for- poor women the removal to hospital
frequently meant removal from dark, dingy, unhygienic dwellings, often
lacking running water, let alone other facilities or comforts. It is not
easy therefore to assess all aspects· of the transition from home to hospital
childbirth; further evidence on the class background of women in
different institutions, on women's own perception of the development,
and of the detail of changing medical opinion is still needed. What is
puzzling about the attitudes of the doctors is their awareness, in many
cases at least, of external midwifery's success in Europe and sometimes
in England, yet the lack of major attempts to extend similar systems in
Australia beyond the early- efforts on behalf of the working class. In
Melbourne, for example, by the early 1950s the tide had swung so far
against home deliveries that even the MDNS discontinued its midwifery
services, against the inclination of those who still valued the home-birth
tradition.
In the actual management of the process of labour and birth, there
was some recognition of the 'non-naturalness' of modern women's con-
finements, but the suggested remedies contributed further to the prob-
lems they were aimed at solving. On several occasions doctors unfavourably
compared the parturition patterns of modern woman with those thought
to characterize her less civilized sisters. As we have seen, the concern
with the degeneration of women's reproductive functions under the
conditions of modern life was a recurrent theme in the medical discourse.
In terms of labour and childbirth in particular, practices such as lying
down instead of walking about in early labour; the experience of pain;
and difficulties of the birthing process were understood to be departures
from natural conditions. The theme of the doctors' thinking was already
expressed by Dr Felix Meyer in 1889:
If labour with the human species were the almost purely physiological
process it is with the lower animals, midwifery, as an art, would have no
need of existence; and what is often sneeringly termed 'old women's
work' might be safely relegated to old women. The conditions of life,
however, bring about so many deviations from the natural process, as to
render it very often pathological; the function of the practitioner {is] to
bridge with the smallest span the distance between the natural and the
unnatural. 28
The two major ways in which the medicos tried to 'span the bridge'
from more natural labour, were through the use of anaesthetics and
through direct interference in the process of birth.
By the turn of the century the use of analgesics and anaesthesia during
labour was becoming accepted. Reservations were still being expressed
about the side effects, especially of chloroform, but others recommended
extending its use, particularly in the second stage of labour:
Under the fear of meddlesome midwifery, we ... dissuade the mothers
from the use of this drug, but I think it is greatly in our. power to
minimize the terrors of child-bed by advocating its use much more than
we are accustomed to. 29
Not all doctors used chloroform for complete anaesthesia, some preferring
only partial; but routine anaesthetic usage was becoming part of the
response to the idea that 'midwifery is becoming a more pathological
process than formerly'. Although there was as yet little detailed discussion
of pain in labour, it was becoming accepted that severe pain was the
normal pattern of labour and it was the doctor's 'bounden duty' to
lessen it. 'The use of scopolamin and morphia in labour has seemed to
me to be of use in diminishing pain and lessening exhaustion,. and
during the last two years I have used it as a routine practice', said noted
Adelaide doctor Dr T.G. Wilson in 1908. 30 After his paper there was
discussion of many other points, but not much attention to the man-
agement of pain in labour, and only .one doctor objected to the routine
use of morphine. His reasons were "not, however, recorded.
It was not until the pioneering work of Dr Mary de Garis in the late
1920s and 1930s that a serious attempt was made to understand the
nature and causes of pain in labour. Dr de Garis told male colleagues
that women had to be taken seriously, and she explored in considerable
detail the types of pain characteristic of labour's different stages. She
was apparently sneered at and regarded as something of an eccentric31 ,
but i1y the 1930s, foremost gynaecologist-obstetricians were also taking
_women's labour pain seriously, insofar at least as they attempted to
anaesthetize it away. Dr de Garis sou~ded a lone note when she argued
instead that:
The sufferings of labour should certainly be avoided. It is better to prevent
them than to alleviate them. They will never be prevented until their
causes are known and these can be discovered only if sought for. They
will not be sought while the sufferings are taken for granted as at
present. 32
Although the campaign for ante-natal care aimed at prevention of some

labour difficulties, Dr de Garis' work stands out in sharp contrast in
other discussions of labour, both in her taking her patients seriously,
and in her understanding of the labour process itself. Neither in other
medical discourse, nor in material made available for women, was
comparable discussion of the stages of labour shown.
By this period technological developments had made the routine use
of chloroform or morphine much simpler, and inhalers were available
for the woman to administer it herself. In 193 7 Dr T.H. Small from
Sydney read a paper to the Australian Medical Congress on 'Analgesia
and anaesthetics in midwifery', commenting that 'like most general
practitioners he had tried many drugs for the relief of labour pains, but
had not been satisfied with any'. He had experimented with gas-oxygen,
gas-air, chloroform and kelene, and ether through an inhaler, before
developing an ether vaporizer. Dr Small's machine was favourably rec-

ommended by several doctors. Dr Marshall Allan reported on its use at
the Melbourne Women's Hospital, and Dr Fisher from the Queen's
Home, Adelaide, also supported its use. 33
In the discussion of anaesthetics regular comments were made that
women were requesting their use. Dr de Garis, for example, said in
1929 that she 'thought there was a great demand amongst women for
painless labour'. Granted the difficulties that were regularly reported
with obstetrical practice, and the general attitude of anxiety towards
childbirth, this is hardly surprising. As doctors had been treating labour
for many years as a pathological process, requiring similar treatment as
a surgical operation, it was hardly women's fault if they came to believe
it too. Doctors, however, did at times argue that labour was a normal
physiological process, and that women were becoming over-anxious. 34
Foremost specialists in gynaecology j obstetrics agreed that the manage-
ment of labour was increasingly difficult, generally laying the blame on
the 'conditions of modern life'. They saw the doctors' role as purely
reactive, as responding to problems originating in the environment.
Originally it may be assumed that women delivered themselves of their
children, as do wild animals, and with as little danger to themselves.
Gradually occasional difficulties introduced themselves, and in response
to them elementary methods of assistance were devised. Difficulties
increased and methods of assistance became more developed. Greater use
was made of the methods evolved, and, as a result, new difficulties and
dangers appeared. Human life became more complicated, its relations
more crowded and artificial and pre-existing disease became more com-
moo. The mechanical complications of labour became greater and the
need for assistance more frequent. 35
The explanation of the difficulties of modem labour was therefore a
combination of an evolutionary view of interference producing more
problems, and a vague discontent with modern lifestyles.
It was acknowledged that there were great dangers in interference in
the physiological process, yet in a variety of ways such interference
continued. Throughout the period, but intensifying in the late 1920s,
there were outcries against 'meddlesome midwifery'; the over-use of
vaginal examination during labour; undue haste in delivery and use of
forceps; and impatience and mismanagement of expulsion of the placenta.
In particular the use and abuse of forceps continued to arouse the wrath
of those advocating what Dr Wilson of Adelaide called 'watchful ex-
pectancy and masterful inactivity'. In the later years of the nineteenth
and early years of the twentieth century, there was disputation regarding
instrument deliveries; some leading doctors accepted the use of forceps
in one out of six cases, but others only in one in thirty to forty cases. 36
The extension of the use of anaesthesia of course made 'meddlesome
midwifery' more possible by numbing the patient's sensations, and
possibly by interfering with the labour process itself:
When anaesthesia became possible, interference became more frequent,
because it involved no additional suffering; operations were undertaken
in the absence of any real necessity and without a due appreciation of
the inevitable risks thereby incurred, for the convenience of the practitioner
or on the clamorous demands of the patient. With antiseptic precautions
taken, forceps even were now applied for the commonest indication, weak
pains. There was now no need to wait for full dilatation of the cervix or
relaxation of the pelvic floor structure. If they tore slightly, no matter,
the antiseptic made that quite safe
commented Dr Fourness Barrington sarcastically in 1920. 37 However, as
in his colleagues, an ambivalent approach to childbirth underlay this
concern-in one breath he referred to labour as 'a natural process, which
is best left to itself and which, in the great majority of cases, it is
criminal to disturb', and in the next announced that:
As soon as the people understand that labour is essentially a surgical
process, which needs the same environment .and careful technique as a
major operation and which may be seriously complicated at any time,
they will more fully appreciate the importance of good obstetrics.
It is possible that the attempt to tell doctors that birth was a natural
process in order to restrain their enthusiasm for interference, but to tell
the public another story, led to further difficulties. On several occasions
doctors made reference. to the pressure they were now under to 'meddle'
in labour: to use modern technology and scientific interference. Pressures
came from friends and relatives as well as from patients. One doctor
recalled a confinement he had attended: on his arrival not only did the
husband and other members of the household ask him to hasten delivery,
but the whole street seemed to be out demanding instrumental .inter-
ference.38
Although the use of anaesthesia, forceps and other obstetrical tech-
niques and, during the 1930s, induction of labour were the most
outstanding issues in the changing management of childbirth, other
aspects were also significant. Position of the woman, actual guidance and
assistance during labour, and the amount of bed rest considered necessary
after delivery were other practical aspects of the organization of confine-

ment. They were less overtly discussed in medical sources, however,
perhaps because they were less clearly the province of the doctors. Despite
recognition that under the more 'natural' conditions of earlier times
women squatted for childbirth and walked about in the period after-
wards, this was not considered at all relevant to the conditions of modern
womanhood. Dr Jellett commented in 1929 on 'a cave-dweller's labour'
as follows:
The woman . . . walks about and does some of her daily work during
the first stage. . .. {second stage] She squats during the pains in an
attitude of defaecation, thus enlarging the pelvic outlet and gaining the
help of gravitation on the descent of the child and effectively using her
abdominal muscles ... 39
Rarely was the modern assumption of lengthy bed rest queried and even
when attempts were made to change the established pattern, they were
not widely espoused. 40 Not all women of course had ever been able to
afford the luxury of the recommended days of lying down; a Melbourne
doctor commented in 1911 that he believed 'that early rising among
the working classes has been the rule for many years, but quite without
the sanction or knowledge of attending obstetricians' .41 He then quoted
a midwife of his acquaintance who said that she regularly got women
up on the third day while she aired and made the bed. The women
therefore became accustomed to rising and did so more and more,
finding that they felt 'stronger and healthier and are able to resume their
household work without becoming fatigued. I based my conclusion on
the fact that when visiting the houses of the poor I often found women
sitting on the edge of the bed on the third day washing their towels. . . '.
Nonetheless, the belief that women should be abed for ten to fourteen
days continued to be taken for granted. With increased hospitalization
the practice became further institutionalized until well after the Second
World War. Women themselves disliked it,in many ways, but for many
it probably gave a welcome rest from domestic labour.
It is also possible of course that women increasingly needed to stay
in bed to recover from the after-effects of anaesthetics and 'meddlesome
midwifery' itself. In particular, the occurrence of perineal tears and,
eventually, the introduction of episiotomy hampered women's recovery.
There is inadequate evidence on the extent of these problems; it is
notable, however, that in no later sources was anything like Dr Muskett's
advice on oiling the perineum with carbolised vaseline to help it stretch
so much as mentioned. Rarely in fact did any later writer, medical or

lay, give as much specific detail as Muskett on the traditional, not overly
technical, management of normal labour. He also suggested that women
hold on to a rolled towel attached to the bed-end or head of the bed,
and push ·her feet if desired against a box or stool at the foot of the
bed. 'During the height of the pains, great comfort is afforded by the
nurse pressing her hand hard against the lower part of the patient's
back', and as the baby moved down during the second stage, a pillow
under the knees was suggested. In order to allow the perineum time to
stretch, it was recommended that the baby's head be held back for a
time, during which the patient may be encouraged to call out. 'By so
doing she will take the strain off the perineum and still further help to
stretch the parts' .42 Muskett's homely advice can thus be seen to be far
removed from the interest of the specialists in completely transforming
the management of pregnancy and childbirth, placing it under medical
control in their own domain, the hospital. The increased medicalization
of childbirth could be justified on national and economic grounds. A
1937 -MJA editorial declared that 'women should be taught that labour
may be made practically· painless if they will co-operate with the
obstetrician from the early days of their pregnancy onwards'. 43 The
falling birth rate could be helped both by economic assistance and by
doctors making 'labour painless and not to be feared'.
The various developments in the management of pregnancy and
childbirth which have been outlined in this chapter are complex and
often contradictory. It is apparent that in the redefining of reproduction
as a medical problem women were caught up in wider social processes.
On the one hand the increasing ·dominance and prestige of"science and
technology was accompanied by the growing ·prominence of the. medical
profession. On the other, women themselves no doubt encouraged at
times the spread of 'technological' childbirth, not altogether aware of
all its implications, and on occasions welcoming the relief it could offer.
What is significant about the redefinition of reproduction is that the
inevitability of women's suffering came to be less accepted, and eventually
greater understanding of· the .physiology of pregnancy and childbirth
made possible at least, if not actualized, women's own greater control
over reproduction. However, in the period under review, women were
repeatedly told that they needed professional assistance with reproduc-
tion; that it was too important a national task to be undertaken without
guidance. Women helped initiate. some of these developments, and some
of the guidance was undertaken by professional women, but most of the
supervision was in the hands of a dominant group of upper-middle-

class males. As women's 'natural functions' were brought increasingly
under medical surveillance, a glaring contradiction emerged. As we have
seen, concern was expressed repeatedly that 'civilization', the effect of
urban and industrial life, was harmful to women's general and repro-
ductive health. Women continued to be defined primarily in terms of
their inevitable maternity, not only in medical sources but in political
and educational discussions. Despite assumptions about women's child-
bearing as 'natural', it was being redefined as a problem. The solutions
proposed came increasingly from the realm of science and technology.
As in the area of contraception and ante-natal care, the growing profes-
sional interest in maternity potentially undermined its naturalness.
5
Planning the family
Major changes in the organization of the reproduction of the population

occurred in the last few years of the nineteenth and first few decades of
the twentieth century. What has been referred to as the demographic
transition from a high birth rate to both lower birth and mortality rates
resulted in a quite different family structure. These developments were
common to all Western countries and, as elsewhere, were the source of
agonized controversy in Australia. Historians using British and American
sources have pointed to the significance of the growing dominance of
medicine by men; their 'taking-over' of women's traditional areas of
autonomy, the management of pregnancy and childbirth. 1 The increased
specialization of gynaecology and obstetrics in Australia too ·was based
on pervasive assumptions about women's reproductive role. Through
developments relating to contraception and abortion, the provision of
ante-natal supervision and medically supervised birth, women's repro-
duction of the population increasingly became the object of surveillance
by health professionals. This was firmly and widely believed to be in
the interests of both individual woman and child, and of the State. It
was clearly also in the interest of the experts themselves.
The attempts to transform reproduction to bring it not only under
professional control, but within the domain of science and technology,
reveal ambiguities, tensions and contradictions. In particular, examination
of the wider context of attitudes to women's health and reproductive
functioning shows a fundamental contradiction between stressing, on the
one hand, its naturalness, and the need for professional intervention on
the other. The increased specialization and concentration in male hands
of gynaecology and obstetrics clearly laid the basis for extending profes-
sional dominance of reproduction. This was not, however, just a simple
104
Planning the family 105
and clearcut imposition of male or professional power. Not only did the
leading upper-middle-class and professional women of the charity and
women's organization networks play a significant role in encouraging this
development, but ordinary women and men were not passive either. In
their growing unwillingness to support large families or to accept fatal-
istically the health risks of repeated childbirth, they can be seen to be
making realistic responses to changing circumstances. Women, especially,
saw themselves as taking advantage of new possibilities to escape the
limitations of their mothers' lives, and were also involved in negotiating
the new pressures on them to be better housewives and mothers.
Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australian medical dis-
course was marked by a sense of excitement at the advances made in
gynaecology. In presidential addresses to the medical congresses right up
to the 1930s, doctors specializing in areas of medicine related to women's
reproductive functions recalled the leaps in knowledge and ch~nges in
patterns of treatment over the period. In the 1880s and 1890s their
discussions noted advances in general abdominal surgery which had now
made it possible to explore women's reproductive organs in a way not
possible earlier in the century. Said one doctor in 1887: 'The immense
advance in the physiological and pathological knowledge of the functions
of the uterus and its appendages in health and disease which has taken
place in the last few years chiefly as the result of abdominal operations,
is incalculable'. 2 Although terminology and concepts then were still very
much those of the nineteenth century (e.g., catamenia for menstrual
period, oophorectomy for ovariotomy), there was already a sense of
exhilaration that gynaecology was becoming a speciality in its own right,
and one quite distinct from obstetrics. As the period wore on, and
certainly by the 1920s, the increased specialization in gynaecology was
such that the finger was pointed at faulty obstetric practice: 'sloppy
obstetrics' were said to cause many of the subsequent problems with
which the gynaecologist had to deal. 3 By then a marked interest in
maternal health and welfare was apparent, having spread fr9m gynae-
cology to an increasingly technocratic obstetrics.
In their late nineteenth-century gynaecological discussions, Australian
doctors compared various surgical procedures, such as those relating to
hysterectomy and ovariotomy. The controversies surrounding the removal
of a woman's ovaries included not only techni-cal detail but were replete
with assumptions about women's reproductive function. Doctors dis-
cussed what were valid reasons for such a serious step as to make a
woman 'not like other women', or 'unsexed'. Whereas the gravity of
106 The disenchantment nf the home
ovariotomy was generally acknowledged, the consensus- was that if the

ovaries were causing much pain and trauma,_ the woman was clearly
better~ off without them. Their comments in such discussions were often
quite revealing. Australian medical sources do not indicate the extent of
controversy and extremity -of position apparently evident in the American
material, -but like overseas colleagues, Australian medicos were_ very
enthusiastic about new knowledge and techniques. That some doctors
were a trifle over-enthusiastic with the new surgical possibilities is
suggested by comm_ents that a more conservative trend was returning by
the end of the century. In 1889 Dr Batchelor criticized colleagues for
over-zealous removal_ of ovaries, -noting sarcastically that:
Once the abdominal cavity is opened, it requires a considerable amount
of moral courage- to stay -one's hands, and few are the ovaries which .to
the eye of the enthusiastic oophorectomist will not present some flaw to
justify their removal-it is a case of the horse-dealer and the nag without
a blemish. 4
From the mid 1890s onwards a greater interest in normal obstetrics was
apparent at Australian Medical Congresses, culminating by the late 1920s
in discussions of the physiological process of labour itself, a topic not
mentioned significantly in the early years. Much of the doctors' discourse
was, not surprisingly, highly technical and oriented towards specific
medical or_ surgical problems; but several recurrent them~s underlay
discussion of contraception, pregnancy and childbirth. That ch~ldbearing
is the primary purpose of women's existence was clearly and pervasively
entrenched in political and educational as well as medic-al debates, but
it was feared that all was not well with modern reproduction.
The inevitability of the association between women and maternity
informed the political context of women's suffrage and measures directed
specifically at women or children such as family allowances. In the
religious newspapers, thee assumption was fundamental to any discussion
of home, family and domestic life. Where advice literature on health,
childbearing and childrearing referred to the 'sexual function', it meant
the purely reproductive. The onset of pubeny in both boys and girls,
but especially in the latter, was expected to arouse 'tender feelings' in
preparation for parenthood. Should a girl seem to have escaped the
desire for maternity, however, advice was even offered on how to
encourage her. 'Vesta' commented: 'I don't believe there has ever been
a girl born who was not instinctively a little mother', but just in case
they were not sufficiently conscious of it, she recommended that every
girl over one year of age should be given a doll to help her 'follow her
natural instincts'P Revealing fears about the inadequacy of working-class
socialization in particular, 'Vesta' suggested that poor families should
forfeit outings to the pictures to do this. In a wide variety of contexts,
women's 'natural calling' was spoken of in eulogistic terms. The claims
of gynaecologists to a specialty practice were easily bolstered by the
argument that they were offering essential assistance to women's fulfil-
ment of their natural destiny and national contribution: the propagation
of the race.
A further recurrent theme, however, concerned the problems which
had now arisen with regard to women's natural function. In particular,
concern was repeatedly expressed, right through to the 1930s, that
civilization had had a bad effect on women's reproductive capacity. In
the 1880s and 1890s the emerging health literature indicted women's
fashionable dress, especially tight lacing, as leading to displacement of
her internal reproductive organs. 6 Professor Balis-Headley, first lecturer
in obstetrics and diseases of women at Melbourne University, told the
1892 Australasian Medical Congress that 'It appears to me that I cannot
address you on a subject more generally valuable and interesting than
that of the evolution of disease in woman, and the influence exerted by
civilization' .7 The issues which he raised in this paper, and in his 1894
book on the same theme, were also mentioned in passing or at length
in many other medical discussions. Balls-Headley started from the
position that 'The object of woman's development is the propagation of
the race' but that her ability to do so was heavily affected by the
environment. He went on to argue that because civilization seemed to
require a limited birth rate, the evolution of women had produced a
deterioration, 'a breaking down of their machinery'. He went on to
explain in some detail how all the problems faced by modern gynaecology
were not isolated issues but manifestations of this failure of women's
reproductive machinery. 'The intense vitality of the uterus in the prop-
agation of the race cannot be suspended by the conditions of civilization
with impunity.' If the uterus did not occupy itself with the production
of children, it could develop its structures in other directions, producing
a variety of difficulties from a liability to catch cold easily, to problems
of labour and lactation and malignant growths.
It was the effect of civilization on parturition which was of particular
concern to the doctors. Sydney specialist Dr Ralph Worrall discussed
the modern woman's labour difficulties in some detail in 1908 arguing,
like others, that the conditions of modern life had led both to a decrease
108 The disenchanlment. of the home
in uterine muscular strength and also in the 'mother's capacity to endure

suffering in labour'. 8 The conclusions that doctors drew from these
developments augured well for their .profession: 'The indications are that
midwifery is becoming a more pathological process than formerly and
demands higher skill and· sounder training. on the part of the General
Practitioner, with a corresponding increase in his remuneration for this
class of work'. 9 Women themselves possibly shared the doctors' inter-
pretation of the deterioration of modern women's reproductive ability.
Several comments in the oral history interviews suggest this: 'but the
women were .stronger then' was.mentioned when discussing large families
of the past. Whereas the doctors were comparing primitive woman's
condition with that of civilized women, these women had a shorter
historical perspective. It was one which helped justify their restricted
childbearing, however, and quite probably had a firm basis in changing
diet and everyday life. 10
The discussion of civilization's effects on the propagation of the .race
should be seen in the context _of a general uneasiness about modern life
which appears in many sources. Fears expressed in. the late- nineteenth
century for home life and cultured habits in the colonies seem to have
diminished somewhat in the national enthusiasm of the early Federation
period, but by the late 1920s and 1930s the increasing interest in mental
hygiene again aroused apprehension about the conditions of modem life.
For example, after an address by Sy-dney paediatrician Harvey Sutton on
'The child in a changing world' in 1937., Dr John Dale from the Public
Health Department in Melbourne commented that:
He agreed with Professor Sutton's contention that medical practitioners
should now· discover the_ home. Most men and women, given reasonable
conditions of life, were willing and anxious to found a home, but they -
were frustrated by the aimlessness of modem civilization and the stress
of modern life.
He saw the strains of modern life as partly psychological, partly economic,
with too great a feeling of insecurity from which people sought to escape
by spending too much on amusement and luxury. Replying, Dr Scholes
could not 'blame them for that. People could not afford the ideals put
forward by Professor Sutton. They could not afford to have children at
home, to be sick at home_ or even to die~ at home;- for everything they
must resort to the hospitals'. 11 Although Sutton disagreed with such a
'pessimistic outlook on modern life'' emphasizing advances in living
standards and health, the·· concern with modern civilization's effect on
home and family was shared by conservatives and by liberal reformers,

the 'progressives'. It was also increasingly evident in the media, partic-
ularly in advertising which drew on nostalgia for a simple rural life.
The final theme which interlocked with this apprehension about
modern life was that it was women's working conditions that were
largely to blame for their gynaecological and obstetric problems. Al-
though Australian discussions were less marked by diatribes against
women working outside the home than those in England 12 , reservations
were expressed both about factory and modern domestic life. It seems
to have been tacitly accepted in Australia that women working outside
the home, particularly in menial work, were only doing so from necessity
and hence should not be unduly criticized. Attention was directed instead
at their working conditions. Complaints made about the hours of
standing in shops, or conditions in factories were based on the assumption
that domestic work most befited both women's temperament and phy-
stque:
When I see hundreds of little factory girls returning from work I always
think how much better it would be for the health of most of them if
they were doing domestic work in good homes and what better wives
and mothers they would make in later years. 13
Concern with the effects of industrial life on women's reproductive and
general health was particularly evident in the 1890s anti-sweating move-
ment, which resulted in state involvement in the inspection of factories
and shops. It also informed the debates on the education of girls. Fears
ranged from the ill-effects of bending over desks, as producing uterine
and pelvic disorders, to those of mental strain as inimical to motherhood.
Mr William Craig, a school principal, said in 1913: 'The question is a
serious one-a question of national significance. The stamina of the
mothers of the race is at stake'. He even postulated, therefore, the
abolition of examinations for girls in order to reserve their full strength
for motherhood. 14
National and racial concerns therefore underlay attitudes to women
and children; that the State had of necessity a vested interest in the
health of women and children was regularly pointed out. Not all were
as explicit as the overt eugenists: those interested in the 'scientific' study
of reproductive patterns who voiced the necessity of State direct involve-
ment in reproduction. In political debates on the baby bonus, child
endowment and national insurance, however, it was claimed that the
State was making an investment in the child which would be redeemed
at a later date through its contribution as. a worker to the economic

prosperity of the nation. Thus the ideal was put forward that in future:
motherhood and the nationalization of health will be a great national
objective, . . . the child shall be born not alone as related to its father
and mother, but as an asset of the State, related to the State, a child of
the State, a member of the community. 15
In the attempt to legislate towards this reality though, some tensions

emerged. It was feared that if the State implemented its investment too
directly, husbandly and parental authority and responsibility would be
undermined. Prime Minister Joseph Cook argued in 1912 that the issue
was complex, that .while the State had to protect its weaker members,
the 'guardianship of the women of the land' should ordinarily be left
to 'the husband of the woman-the menfolk of the community'. 16 Thus
traditional control within the family had to be carefully preserved rather
than undercut by the growing interest of government in women and
children's welfare. Many others argued similarly with regard to parental
responsibility for children·-and the danger that the State would break
down natural family ties.
The 1903 New South Wales Royal Commission on the Decline of
the Birth Rate provided an important focus for the fear that women
were failing in their national responsibility of reproduction; it shows the
politico-medical concerns of the period with great clarity. Neville Hicks
has described the genesis of the Commission, its composition and the
conservative position it represented. 17 The major concerns of the com-
missioners were with the extent of abortion, the seeming increase in
contraception and the preservation of infant life after birth. The whole
tenor of the Commission's operation, as well as its final report, reflected
the conservative position that all family limitation was a national peril,
and abortion and the use of artificial contraceptives were great moral
evils. As Hicks has also pointed out, the very membership of the
Commission, in particular the dominance of the chairman, Dr Charles
MacKellar, and the heavy bias of its selection of material and questioning
of witnesses make its conservative conclusions unsurprising. However,
from a close reading of the minutes of evidence and by drawing on a
variety of other source material it becomes apparent that the birth control
developments in the early twentieth century permit no simple analysis.
In order to portray the complexity of the transformation of familial life
that the birth rate decline signifies, it is necessary to trace the course of
developments from the late nineteenth century until the 1930s, when
the birth rate reached an all-time low. 18 As the statistical aspect has
been adequately analysed by others, the following analysis will examine
the spread of contraceptive knowledge and practice and the eventual
legitimization of birth control by the medical profession. What is
apparent is the extension of rational planning and calculation to an area
of life formerly deemed largely out of conscious control.
In order to make the nature of the shift in reproductive attitudes and
behaviour quite clear, it is worth exploring what may be termed the
pre-contraceptive consciousness. The sources which are available to the
social historian on this, as on many other aspects of family life, are
scattered and partial. The medical and advice literature shows some
nineteenth-century concepts, such as the conviction that drunkenness at
the time of conception has dire effects on the mental stability of the
child. Fears for the consequences of a woman taking a chill, particularly
during menstruation, were also common. Although the mechanics of
conception were increasingly understood by doctors, it was still in 1889
'a moot point as to whether menstruation is dependent on the presence
of the ovaries or of the fallopian tubes' . 19 Another doctor, in a 1903
paper on ectopic pregnancies, acknowledged the belief that 'the absence
of the orgasm will tend to .prevent conception'. He cited the case of
Miss E.M. who had been having intercourse for a year, her only precau-
tion against pregnancy being 'the restraining the accession of the orgasm.
Under the stimulus of champagne, she neglected to do so, and became
pregnant, I calculate on that date. Numbers of such cases could be
given'. Although in further discussion other doctors pointed to fairly
frequent 'passive conception' it was accepted that their knowledge of
ovulation, menstruation and conception was not yet adequate. 20
The evidence available on women's own experience of the reproductive
process suggests two interlocked features: on the one hand a lack of
knowledge about ·both the physiological and emotional aspects of sex
and reproduction was a reflection of parental reticence on the whole
subject of sexuality. On the other hand, this was for some accompanied
and eased by a fairly fatalistic attitude to both the acquisition of the
appropriate knowledge and to experience. Mrs Penny's mother told her
very little, saying 'you'll find out for yourself soon enough'. From both
the oral evidence and from a sample of clinical records, it is sorely
evident that ignorance was often far from blissful. Despite the repeated
claims of the conservative publicists that contraceptive knowledge was
becoming widespread, those interviewed generally indicated a lack of
information even at the time of marriage. What knowledge was acquired
was haphazard and underhand, parents being most unlikely to have

talked with them about sexual matters at all, let alone contraception.·
Several· women said that 'those things just weren't discussed', and
especially those over 80 were still not able to discuss them now. Those
born after 1900 showed a greater willingness to discuss the ignorance
which had existed, usually saying, however, that it had not greatly
worried them before puberty. Mr Upton remembered the midwife
coming to deliver a baby brother, and the children's assumption that
she probably brought it in her -black bag; even though he used to sit
in ·the gutter 'yarning with his mates', he could not remember them
discussing such things: they were more preoccupied with sport. His wife
also commented that her mother taught her little about caring for babies,
'and as far as where babies came from, you found that out for yourself
too!'. As a young adult she learnt 'the medical side of things' in a St
John's Ambulance course, 'but as· for the personal side of things, I -didn't
have much of a clue when I was married even'. Even when their first
menstrual period arrived girls were given practical directions but ·not, as
Mrs Upton said, told 'the ins and outs of it'. Moreover, they were -not
able to ask questions with any ease and just took what limited infor-
mation they were given. For Mrs Johns, her mother's reserve not only
on explicitly sexual but all reproductive m-atters was so great that the
silence between them lasted even to her own middle life. Her doctor
asked her to question her mother about her menopausal experience to
-see if it shed light on her own problems, but her mother took it as_ an
impertinence. When Mrs Johns had first menstruated she was quite
distressed but knew she could not talk to her mother about it; she relied
instead on the mother of a girl at school. Her only way of communicating
with her mother was to toss her stained bloomers into her mother's
room and disappear on the farm all day. After her mother found them
she gave her information on where to find napkins and pins and just
cautioned her to 'stay away from men'. The ignorance that existed was
therefore particularly problematic for girls, surrounded as they were by
cautions about dealing with the opposite sex. One girl had lived in great
fear not long after starting work in a city store because she feared
pregnancy after the lift operator had stopped the lift between floors and
kissed her. 21 Like many others, she was later horrified at the extent of
her own ignorance. One interviewee said,
I was very ignorant. Mother never spoke to us ... not like I spoke to
my girls ...
Int. What about books?

A. No, I never read any books.
Int. So when you came to be pregnant and having a baby ... ?
A. ] ust life. ] ust had to go on and that was all about it. It had got
there, so it had to come away, that is the way I looked at it.
Thus the ignorance was, to some extent at least, accepted; the pervasive
silenc;e about all sexual matters in many families was accompanied by a
fatalistic attitude to reproduction. In both the oral evidence and the
sampled clinical records, some women reported not breaking this silence
even with their husbands. 'No, no, I didn't-he didn't know anything
anyway'. Mrs Murray didn't talk to her husband about having children.
After she had had five: 'I just said, well, I wouldn't live if I went on
having babies like this and I had to get help you know'. Her husband
had come from a family of fourteen.
In those days you just had children, see his mother had a big fam.ily,
'cause she just went on having them, but she was strong and well but
I'm not. My mother she had the five of us, she had to work hard and
wasn't able to cope with us all. But it was their mothers that had the
big families, my grandmother...
She and her husband did try to discuss the problem in the light of her
poor health, 'but he didn't know what to do you see. He tried to help
me ... but it wasn't easy for a time ... '. For Mrs Murray and for many
others, until ill-health necessitated action, they found the babies 'just
arrived'. As Mrs Patrick put it: 'They just came along, and you accepted
them . . . Oh well, . . . I think . . . my idea was that if God sent them,
I accepted them'. There came a point, however, when she did try not
to have too many once several had 'arrived'; 'but we did try, my husband
did try not to have them you know, sort of ... ', indicating on a card
the practice of withdrawal and use. of home remedies, 'But ~we did try
other things ... but nothing that's there'.
The silence and its accompanying fatalism were nonetheless breaking
down by the interwar period, but the earlier claims of witnesses at the
Birth Rate Commission that women were everywhere talking about these
matters, and most 'unblushingly', is obviously exaggerated. It reveals
more about their fears of women taking matters into their own hands
than anything else. Several pharmacists reported that married ladies now
quite openly asked for pessaries over the counter, not at all embarrassed
about their contraceptive intentions. 'Some women even open the subject',
said one doctor, another commenting:
hardened as one becomes, I· certainly am sometimes a little surprised at
the casual way in which a woman practically a stranger, will talk to me
of the most inner sexual relations with as much sang froid as ifshe were
talking about having lunch. 22
The evidence of the declining birth rate itself, though, does. suggest that
contraceptive knowledge was spreading. Three sources for the extension
of this knowledge were mentioned by witnesses at the Royal Commission:
the illicit trade of 'quacks' and .abortionists, the deliberate reformers· and
the proselytizing by women amongst themselves. All were no doubt
significant forces at work, ·but it is not easy in retrospect to estimate
their relative effects.
Late nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines carried many ad-
vertisements for health remedies and the particular curative technique
of some 'doctor' or 'nurse'. With the rise in status of the medical
profession, qualified doctors went to great pains to dissociate themselves
from the provision of pills and health gadgets by mail, and to denigrate
as 'old wives' tales' many of women's traditional sources of health
knowledge. It was claimed that abortionists often went from house to
house as hawkers of face powder, hair restorers and so on, and that
some fortune~ tellers, being connected with brothels, were therefore 'closely
associated with disreputable people of various kinds'. A less·surreptious
force for the dissemination of birth control concepts and practical knowl-
edge also existed: the works of birth control propagandists. It was a
strong presumption on the part of the Birth Rate Commissioners -that
these works and similar other reforming books were directly responsible
for the greater discussion of family limitation and the moral decline its
practice involved. Although it seems unlikely that the relationship
between particular texts and the birth rate decline was anything like this
simple, in the. latter part of the nineteenth century publications overtly
advocating birth control were starting to appear in Australia, especially
as part of the health reform movement. Not all were as frank and
'modern' in style as Patterson's Physical health of woman, which appeared
in 1890. 23 Patterson left it for individuals to decide on the moral
questions at stake, but gave. simple instructions on some contraceptive
methods, decrying old taboos. Some other advice books, such as Warren's
The wife's guide and friend, were also introducing the notion· that rational
control of marital fertility was not only possible but desirable/4 It is
not possible to trace the precise influence of this literature, but it does
seem likely that in educated, and especially non-religious circles, the
acceptance of responsible family limitation was beginning. 25 The reprint-
ing of pamphlets and the occurrence of public lectures, such as those of
Mrs Brettena Smyth in Melbourne, makes it clear that an audience was
ready to hear the reformers' message particularly with regard to contra-
ception.
There is some indication that women's perspective differed considerably
from that of males in positions of authority, such as the Birth Rate
Commissioners, doctors and clergymen. In particular, women claimed
that birth control was not a moral issue, just a practical and economic
one. Frequently men decried women's lack of recognition of the im-
morality of birth control:
Do you think they recognize the immorality of attempting to prevent
pregnancy?
I do not think they appreciate what it is in a large number of cases. I
was speaking only a few days ago to a lady, the mother of a family; and
she simply said a women would be a fool to have more than two
children ...
It is quite evident that she did not recognize that it was an immoral
practice?
It is. 26
With regard to abortion as well, they reported that women failed to
appreciate either the criminal or moral implications of their actions:
To a medical man they do not scruple to talk about it; they do not see
the moral wickedness of it. They think, in fact, that it is a good trick
to be up to, rather than an immoral and indecent transaction.
Yes; that is the usual view. 27
The opponents of family limitation also pointed to the selfishness of
modern parents, their seeking after pleasure and material gain. It was
the implied lack of social responsibility which most concerned those
drawing attention to limitation of families in the middle class: they were
said to be forgetting that the provision of children was an obligation to
the community and therefore not just a private decision. On the other
hand a 'passion for pleasure', theatre-going and concerts, was seen as
characterizing some working-class families, leading them to restrict family
size too. 28 When we turn to what people themselves have said about
their reasons for turning to contraception, a complex· pattern emerges in

which adjustment to changing ·material and social conditions stands out.
As even in recent years, small families can arouse accusations of
'selfishness', personal freedom was less likely to be mentioned as fre-
quently. as other reasons. From the oral evidence it appears that before
the- Second World War it was expected that couples with young children
should have a very quiet life, social activities centering around family
or church, and with husband and wife going out separately if necessary.
Changing expectations of internal family relationships were important
however. An ·increasing emphasis on marital and parenting relationships
is suggested by some late 1930s-1940s comments. A man aged 42 and
his wife, 41, consulted Dr Victor Wallace in 1943 for advice about
contraception; they had three children and wanted no more to impinge
on their time together. A changing emphasis on the parent-child rela-
tionship is also implied by the man's saying that his own father had
been 53 when he was born:
He wasn't unkind but he never had any time for me. I think parents
should mix with and enjoy their children's company. We want to get
about now without the children and enjoy a bit of life before we get too
old.
Even in 1903 discussions there was some recognition of the development
of new attitudes to children. English families were said still to have too
many children, but in America 'amongst the intelligent at least, the
family is limited; and it is held that every child has the right to
premeditated existence, subsequent happiness and individuality'. 29 Par-
ents' rising expectations for th~ir children were frequently put_ forward
as reasons for not _having many children. A recurrent theme was giving
them a good education and other advantages the parents had -not had:
quality therefore rather than quantity.
Another set of reasons concerned women's motives in particular for
not bearing more children. As an article entitled 'The population prob~
lem: a woman's view' summed it up:
On the question of the declining birth-rate in Australia, the local au-
thorities show a remarkable unanimity in lament. This ... is entirely a
masculine expression. Amusing- if it were not tragic is this condemnatory
attitude taken by the male, by whom neither the agonies of child-bearing,
with its precedent horrors, which are inexpressible nor its resultant
limitations, which are incalculable, are even remotely conceived. 30
The author considers a strong plea for giving each child attention, but
also argues that 'Even paramount over the welfare of the child is that
of the mother. A woman, mother of a large or even medium family
becomes a personified darning needle-an embodied patch'. Letters
written in 1901 in response to Dr James Barrett's fears for the future
of the race expressed similar sentiments. 31 And forty years later it was a
noticeable but not dominant theme in the Wallace clinical sample: 'I
don't want to be a drudge all my life. We are individuals as well as
mothers. Another baby would tire me out and prevent me from taking
an intelligent interest in the boys' activities', wrote one 39-year-old
woman. Combined with rising expectations of what they wanted to
provide for their children was also a recognition of how their own
mothers and grandmothers had toiled with large families and the
pressures they themselves faced:
Sir,
Being the mother of a small family, and also the youngest of a family
of twelve, I venture to express my opinion of my own childhood. I have
a faint recollection of a widowed mother struggling to provide for her
helpless family. Years roll by and I am married and the mother of three
children. How thankful I am that there are only three! I look around
me and what do I see? Mothers with large families-poor mites half-
fed, half-clothed, half-educated. What is their childhood to them? ...
Can we expect them to grow into robust men and women, strong enough
to be mothers and fathers of healthy children? I, as a mother, say 'no' .32
Other women shared these observations. Mr Barden said that his wife
was very aware of the 'work her mother had had with a large family'
and this factor was mentioned by several women in the Wallace clinical
sample as well. Furthermore, changing ideas of what motherhood actually
involved made it still more demanding than for previous generations of
women, and the rising standards of housewifery added to the pressures
on twentieth-century women.
Another reason why women were thought to, and evide.ntly did, turn
to birth control, was their anxiety about the reproductive process itself.
Although the Birth Rate Commissioners and other doctors went to great
pains to confirm their cherished belief that pregnancy and child-birth
were now safer and easier than ever before, they had to face the reality
that women apparently preferred to minimize their experience of them.
The perception of women themselves was that the risks, pain and
discomfort of child-bearing were a heavy burden. That this was so for

many who turned to contraceptive devices by the interwar period is
evident in the Wallace data. A common complaint was that the--women's
health had already suffered through repeated confinements, and that
'enough was enough'. Letters to Dr Wallace in the 1940s when he
inquired about retrospective reasons for using contraception led him to
summarize thus: 'Suffers a great deal during confinement', 'indifferent
health', 'she desires a rest from child -bearing . . . is shockingly nervy'. 33
One woman wrote that she had a -3-year-old -and a baby and was nervy
and irritable:
We don't want to have too many children. I want to space them and
have them when we are ready. I'm not going to have any more children
until things look up. Children take too much out of me. Another reason
is that in the hospital, they will do nothing to relieve the pains of labour.
By this later period even doctors were starting to advise against repeated
pregnancies close together, particularly by the 1920s when professional
interest in maternal health increased. Husbands too were in some in-
stances --also less inclined to inflict the risks associated with repeated
childbearing on their wives. Mrs Troedel reported that her husband had
been very worried about her health after two difficult confinements and,
without specifying their contraceptive practice, said that they together
decided not to have any more. Mrs Clifford, born 1886, said with a
smile that she had 'a very considerate husband'. No final conclusions
can be drawn about the significance of concern with women's health as _
a cause of the declining birth rate, but it seems possible that, as was
claimed by the 1930s, the growing interest in maternal mortality and
morbidity increased women's reluctance to bear many children. 34
A variety of factors was therefore decreasing the popularity of large
families, but the most commonly cited cause of the declining birth rate
was economic. It was argued that contraception was adopted because
the costs of raising a family had become too great; children were of no
great economic value to their parents in_ the urban industrial situation
whereas in rural areas they were still an asset. Although this was a
general point, there were also major class considerations. Fears were quite
openly and regularly express~cl that whereas working-class people may
have some genuine economic difficulties, it was the 'better classes' who
were limiting their families and threatening the national future. Although
the Birth Rate Commission and other evidence is peppered by questions
about the 'class' of women turning to birth control, responses varied.
Some argued that 'all classes' were limiting families; others thought
either middle or working class more; and yet others that middle-class
women were using contraceptives whereas poorer women resorted to
abortion. There was some acknowledgement that the change in family
size was closely related to the structure of urban industrial society. For
many their concern reflected nostalgia for a slow-moving agricultural
past, but also realistic assessment of industrial capitalism's changed
labour needs. The president of the Sydney Labour Council, Edward
Riley, a plasterer, gave the Birth Rate Commission a perceptive analysis
of the industrial situation, recommending rural settlement as a solution:
the whole industrial life of the community is somewhat changed, and
that change has brought along a change of thought in the workers . . .
Now the tendency is to displace labour by machines; and, through that
tendency having full scope, by free competition, there is not the great
demand for labour that previously existed ... consequently that has
changed the whole face of the social condition of workers. 35
When men's wages are low he said: 'You cannot expect them to bring
up a family when they cannot get enough to keep themselves alive',
reiterating that 'my experience of what men say is this; that they are
'full up' to use their vulgar term, of producing a family that's going to
compete against them for a living' .36 Although others kept trying to
direct his attention to issues such as parental selfishness, working-class
fondness for pleasure and the decline of religion, Edward Riley returned
doggedly to the point:
The whole system has completely changed, as far as production is
concerned. If I apprentice the boy to be an engineer tomorrow, I have
not the slightest knowledge but that electricity will supplant his me-
chanical skill, and his labour will be a drug on the market. 37
These comments indicate the gap that existed between his interpre-
tation of the situation of working-class families and that of the religious,
medical and other authoritative figures. Whereas for middle-class and
some working-class parents new norms of childrearing and a rising level
of material expectations may have been significant factors in decisions
about family size, for many working-class families it was a matter of
basic survival, of mouths to feed, a roof over their heads and future
jobs to find. A selection of ninety-one cases from the Wallace clinical
records for 1936-40 showed that economic reasons were given in the
vast majority of cases, often with severe problems mentioned. Few of
this sample of women, who were aged between 18 and 46, had many
previous children but they were already using some form of contraception,
even if only withdrawal or home remedies, to provide some relief from
the difficulties of everyday_life. The wife of a labourer.from-the industrial
suburb of Collingwood, with four children under five, combined ·health
reasons with 'economic ones':
If we have any more babies we wouldn't be able to keep them or at least
give them what we would like to give them. I have long labours. We
only have a little three-roomed house with a smoking chimney.
Others too mentioned inadequate housing; and even the health problems
which childbearing often presented would have entailed extra financial
worry. Evidence from the records of the internal midwifery service, the
MONS, reveals the living conditions that prompted some women to turn
to contraception. An article on the work of the MONS in 1933 recounted
an incident mentioned by one of the nurses:
One sister who had attended several mothers all living in the same street,
for the birth of their babies, tells the story of a little boy e>f six who met
her when she was walking down the street. 'Are you the lady' .he said,
'who leaves babies at people's houses?' She nodded, 'Well', he said, very
earnestly and gravely, 'don't leave a baby at our house'. Sister, who knew
that a baby would soon be there, asked him why. 'Because' he said,
'there are eight of us now, and we haven't enough food as it is, and we
can't feed another. '38
Philanthropic concern for women in situations such as this finally prompted
the MONS to establish, under Dx Victor Wallace's guidance, the_ first
actual birth control clinic in Melbourne in 1934. By then, however, a
considerable shift of medical opinion had .taken place and the doctors
were, in effect, finally legitimating the major -changes in reproductive
behaviour that had already taken place. This process of 'catching up'
must now be examined further.
Despite what is often termed the 'pro~natalist' stance of the conserv-
ative leaders of public opinion, the men of medicine and the church,
the familial ideology they were promoting in the early twentieth century
- was increasingly at odds with many changes taking place in Australian
society. Many of_ these they supported and indeed even initiated,- such
as developments relating to maternal and child health. Already by 1900
the notion of 'rational' parenthood was becomi!lg disseminated through
- advice literature and by the interwar period ·was being accepted -by some
middle-class families in particular~ The wife of a technical teacher, for
example, wrote to Dr Wallace that before their marriage in 1939, she

and her husband had discussed their future plans:
My husband and I decided to regulate our family. Our decision was to
have the first after two years of marriage and one each two years up to
a maximum of four, which we considered the ideal family for our position
and means.
They wanted to safeguard her health, give the children every advantage
they could -and have some time to themselves. Thus the fatalistic
acceptance of children just 'arriving' was being replaced by calculated
decision. In some cases at least, women were rejecting the arguments
that their national duty was to bear many children. In spite of the
bitterness of the birth rate controversy in the early 1900s, it was not
long before the winds of change could be felt even in professional circles.
Doctors fairly soon attempted to assert further control over women's
reproductive behaviour.
Although much medical opinion continued to oppose contraception
and any abortion, shifts were noticeable even by the turn of the century.
Sir James Barrett, for example, admitted in his controversial address to
the Medical Society of Victoria in 190 1 that:
When these methods were introduced some fifteen years ago, many of
us rather welcomed them as affording a means of adopting a reasonable
and medium course. We saw, in practice, that for many woman marriage,
with consequent incessant child-bearing, was a disaster; that their lives
were spent in a round of pregnancies and lactations. 39
He opposed too great a use of contraception as threatening national and

racial disaster, but implied some acceptance of the spacing of births for
health reasons. As public attention shifted to infant, and then by the
interwar period, maternal welfare, the contraception debate waned in
significance. The rhetoric of populating Australia continueq, but now
the emphasis was increasingly on training women to meet their obligation
to the nation. Acceptance of the argument that quality rather than
quantity mattered eventually came to have as its logical corollary the
training of women in domesticity. The emphasis on science and on
rational ordering of family life stressed by the domestic science and new
childcare movements could hardly be totally ignored when it came to
reproduction itself. It was not until the aftermath of the First World
War that public expression of this tendency increased and institutional
structures for birth control were established.
The gradual acceptance of contraception by the medical profession,- if

not by the churches, can only be understood in the context of other
developments, such as outcries against the spread of VD after the War
and the issuing of condoms for its control. Furthermore, by tile 1920s
more reports of overseas reformers and _their clinics, such as that of Marie
Stopes, were becoming available~ The rise of medical interest- in maternal
welfare in the 1920s highlighted too the health problems faced by
women with successive pregnancies. The growing influence of psycholog-
ical theory and Freudian explanations of the sexual drive were ·also
significant: they encouraged the conceptual separation -of sex and pro-
creation which allowed a shift away from the earlier attitude that one
could not enjoy the pleasures of sex without accepting the associated
duties and responsibilities of parenthood. By the early 1930s it was
therefore becoming possible both for medical opinion to be expressed
condoning contraception and even, in certain- circumstances, abortion,
and for their medical supervision to be institutionalized.
Some medical acceptance was only grudging, acknowledging that the
professionals- had been left behind by the public and doctors needed
now to assert some control. -The shift of opinion is evident in presidential
addresses to medical congresses in 1929 and 1934. In Dr Abbott's
address to the obstetrics and gynaecology section in 1929, he gave the
usual overview of relevant developments in the field and then launched
into a conservative tirade against- the declining birth rate reminiscent of
that of Dr Barrett in 1901. He raised fears of Australia being over-run
by a more prolific race or -nation, and reiterated the responsibilities of
Australian mothers to the British Empire. Nonetheless, he acknowledged
the pressures for birth control, saying that:
If persons who advocate birth control so earnestly would .see to it that it
is carried out in instances in which the community would gain-, instead
of encouraging the better educated and desirable citizens ~o limit their
families and instructing unmarried -people to carry out undesirable prac-
tices, then I might have more sympathy with them. 40
In 1934 the general presidential address to the whole congress again
raised the declining birth rate, but gave the first official medical accept-
ance that it was a fait accompli. It was the quality .of the population
which now had to be safeguarded, and doctors' supervision was thereby
made more necessary:
It has been argued that birth control, except in the case of serious
maternal disease, does not concern doctors. But . . . since the public is
determined to practise contraception, it is the duty of the profession to

advise it as to the methods that are least likely to lead to injury to
health. 41
Dr Lines acknowledged medical, eugenic and economic reasons for birth

control, even mentioning the extension of rationality as itself a factor:
'Moreover, many earnest people claim that they should no more leave
to blind fate to decide when they should have children than whether
they should die of appendicitis, and such views are at least worthy of
serious consideration'. He also recognized the demand for abortion,
arguing that this too should at least be in skilled professional hands.
During the 1920s it was starting to become acceptable medical practice
to perform abortions for serious medical, or even social, reasons as long
as more than one doctor made the decision. 42 Medical opinion was of
course not unanimous and in 19 3 7 Professor Marshall Allan pointed to
the medical profession's duty to explain the dangers and risks of abortion
(and by implication also contraception) and thereby assist in 'tightening
up the moral fibre of the community'. 43
Contraception was seen as at least a lesser evil. At another 1934
congress session, favourable comments were made about the work of the
Sydney based Racial Hygiene Association. The RHA was a major leader
in the birth control movement, having opened the first publicly known
birth control agency in Australia in 19 3 1. In 19 3 3 it opened a clinic in
Martin Place, Sydney, giving advice on contraception for both eugenic
and economic reasons, apparently without any major public opposition. 44
The Institute ofFamily Relations, run by Mrs Marion Piddington, offered
similar advice, even giving instructions on making contraceptives. 45 In
Melbourne, however, it appears that overt provision of contraceptive
advice by a special clinic was still not acceptable to everyone. This was
sorely evident when Dr Victor Wallace attempted to open a recognizable
birth control clinic in 19 39.
Contraceptive instruction was already available to some women from
at least the mid-1920s by way of ante-natal supervision, either from
private doctors or ante-natal clinics. Dr Mary Herring, who was involved
in establishing Melbourne's first ante-natal clinic in Prahran, recalled
that she had advised against repeated pregnancies too close together, or
against further children if there were serious problems. It was as a result
of the needs she observed in her experience at the Prahran Centre, that
with Dr George Simpson, the enthusiasm of Dr Wallace and the support
of the MDNS executive committee, Dr Herring helped to found Mel-
bourne's first contraceptive clinic in 1934. Owing ~to the delicacy the
subject was thought to warrant-the doctors cautiously addressed a meeting
of the MONS executive about the needs which existed. The women of
this charitable organization thought it over, reaching a unanimous de-
cision to allow Dr Wallace to- start a clinic solely for MONS cases. 46- The
readiness of the upper~middle-class women of the -MONS executive to
support such a radical st~p can be explained, it would seem, both by
their own· experience of·tlle pljght of-many -of the mothe-rs with whom
the MONS dealt, and by the way the whole affair _ was conducted. -To
avoid controv_ersy, the clinic was carefully named the Women's Welfare
as
Clinic, provision of contraceptive advice beingc seen- the logical exten-
sion of the existing ante-nata1 clinic.
Dr Wallace then atte.tnJ?ted to begin a clinic in a working..;class suburb,
one which would cbe accessible to a wider public and rnore readily
known! In the dispute which this provoked and other si~milar cont~o
versies, several different poin-ts of-view-emerged. For most of the leading
medical reformers the stress on philanthropy, on making 'the journey of
life easier for many a poor- and unhealthy mother', was a ·crucial
ingredient iri ~the attempt to legitimize contraception. But, for some in
panicular, these humanitarian concerns~ springing _as they did from seeing
the conditions under which working-class women reproduced, w~re min-
gled with- definite eugenic concerns for ·the -future of· the population.
'The establishment of a binh control clinic in the slums is a humani~arian
duty. It directly concerns the Eugenic Society because future genenition:s
should not come mainly_ from slum types' .47 Even ~ithin the· Eugenic
Society some were more·- interested in restricting the breeding of the
working class; others such as Wallace wanted to extend rational planning
to society at large. Wallace in -July 1940 therefore convened- another
group of supponers to form· the Social Hygiene Society which, with the
financial help of one member, Mrs Janie Butler, opened a clinic= in
February 1941. 48
Although during and-after the War the spread of contraception h~came
further legitimated as other clinics took over, -some associated with major
women's hospitals, the conservative reaction continued to stress immo-
rality and women's duty to the nation. Labour circles, on the other hand,
objected to the contraceptive _campaigners, emphasis on the poor,- arguing
_ that the solution to wotking:;.cla5s women's problems_ was economic,· not
contraceptive. A Sydney tabor Party branch, for example, passed a
resolution wanting all birth c~ntrol clinics and contraceptive- advertising
prohibited, the maternity allowance raised and finance for housing rriade
available. Referring to 'the alarming decrease in the birth rate' as a

'national calamity' and birth control as an 'evil canker, undermining our
national life', they were supported by others who pointed to contraception
as the work of enemy agents in wartime. 49 Their women colleagues were
not so easily convinced of the pernicious evil in their midst; the House-
wives' Association of the union-controlled town, Broken Hill, in the
same year, 1940, called on the Federal government to establish a clinic
'where such women as wish can get scientific knowledge they need of
birth control methods' .50 The general economic privations and, in par-
ticular, housing shortages gave added weight during the late 1940s to
the growing respectability of what was now becoming known as 'family
planning'.
From this account of the shift in attitude and practice that occurred
as the twentieth century wore on, it is apparent that ordinary families
were disregarding the dire predictions and accusations of the pro-natalists.
It seems, as Elspeth Browne has argued 51 , that popular opinion and
reproductive behaviour went ahead of what was officially accepted. A
vanguard of sexual reformers was also involved in the distribution of
advice and of facilities for the distribution of contraceptive knowledge
and of equipment, and their motives were philanthropic but also eugenic.
Moreover, despite the important role played by some prominent women
in these developments, the male-dominated medical profession insisted
that the supervision of this aspect of life too lay within their province.
Nonetheless, the evidence reveals that for many families resorting to
contraception was an obvious strategy to cope with changing economic
and social conditions. The acceptance of calculation and planning, and
of rational control of procreation implicitly undermined the notions of
women as inevitably and essentially maternal; but frequently this was
camouflaged by ideology, that healthy women's production of sturdy
children was their duty to the nation. Women themselves were influenced
by more pragmatic motives, taking up the opportunities for increased
control of their lives which contraception provided, in spite of the strings
attached: the dominance of mainly male medical professionals.
Part III
Socialization
6
Producing the tnodel modern baby
Contemporaries of the reformers of infancy and childhood in the early

twentieth century were well aware of the importance of the developments
they were witnessing. Regularly at scientific conferences in Australia, as
in other parts of the Western world, the professionals of medicine,
psychology and education proclaimed the dawning of a new era: an age
of children. Women were being confronted by a new group of middle-
class childcare professionals who ·were decrying and undermining their
traditional mothering patterns, arguing that mothering should be taught
along rational, scientific principles. In spite of the problems this presented
the professionals were also thereby undermining the belief that women
were 'naturally' mothers. Moreover, for women whose familial and
community networks were disrupted by migration and urbanization, the
new professionals offering guidance in childcare met existing needs as
they simultaneously created new ones.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the management
of both infants and children became a matter of controversy. The teaching
of mothercraft to girls and women was part of a concerted attempt to
alter existing childcare practices in the interests of impruved child
morbidity and mortality. Associated particularly with the infant welfare
movement in Australia, as in France and England, was a major effort to
teach women to mother babies in a scientifically correct and _morally
approved manner. The male doctors and charitably inclined ladies who
were involved in introducing hygienic principles into infant care saw this
as but one part of home hygiene more generally. After the turn of the
century, interest in the welfare of babies became more and more a matter
of professional concern and paediatrics, a specialist interest. By the 1920s
and 1930s, with the institutionalization of the infant welfare movement,
'mothercraft' had emerged as a new domain of knowledge, now under
128
Producing the model modern baby 129
professional control and ready for popular dissemination through the

women's magazines and feature pages of the newspapers. The major
theme was that of maternal ignorance and the need to educate parents
and mothers in particular, because, as Truby King said, they're 'on duty
unremittingly day and night'. 1 -New principles of childrearing, including
provision of sex education, were based on new precepts of infant care.
It was the infant welfare movement, especially by the 1920s. and 1930s,
which provided the institutional basis for the spread of these ideas and
practices. Over- the period other major changes at the demographic level,
particularly the steadily declining birth and infant mortality rates, both
reflected and provided the incentive for these institutional developments.
Concern with infant mortality had frequently been voiced in the
Australian colonies, but it escalated as ·the downward spiral of the
birthrate became painfully obvious. In particular, as Hicks and Lewis
have both suggested, after the New South Wales Royal Commission
and controversy about the birthrate, interest in infant mortality rapidly
increased. 2 Some of the leading birthrate controversialists turned their
attention to saving the children already born, producing a spate of
legislation to protect children from infanticide. 3 The discussion of infant
mortality was also incidental to other campaigns, such as the reform of
public health. For example, the Australian Health Society, active from
1875 onwards, included discussion of infant mortality as part of its
overall health education project. Thus their seventh tract in 1878, entitled
What kills our babies, was written by Dr Charles Hunter, late Medical
Officer of the Melbourne Children's Hospital. The form and content of
this tract, however, showed little of later concerns with statistics and
with national population problems. Instead Dr Hunter merely com-
mented that 'Ten times more babies die in this colony than grown up
people out of an equal number living at the same time'. He went on
briefly to refer to different infant mortality rates for different suburbs as
showing 'what good houses, better drainage ... and better air will do'. 4
The medical profession's interest in- infant mortality was bouq.d up with
other specific causes, such as the organization of hospitals and provision·
for illegitimate children. The transactions of the Australasian Medical
Congresses reveal little significant interest in infant mortality until after
the turn of the century, with the first two papers on infant mortality
being presented in 1906 in the Public Health section. Dr Harry Allen's
presidential address in 1908 touched on the favourable decline in infant
mortality, moving on to discussion of the importance of the provision
of pure milk.
Whereas English and French infant welfare clinics were established

by the early years of the century, Victorian institutional developments
lagged even behind those in Sydney. There they can be traced to the
home visiting scheme instituted by city health officer Armstrong in
1904; in Adelaide the medical officer of health, Thomas Borthwick, had
also introduced a visiting scheme in 190 7, but it was with the return
of paediatrician Dr Helen Mayo from London that a school for mothers
began in 1909. 6 In Australia.generally, attempts to establish a full infant
welfare movement awaited the incentive to population increase and
quality control provided by the losses of the war. Many future supporters
were already undertaking related activities through several philanthropic
organizations which had grown up since the 1880s, particularly with
the encouragement of the Nonconformist churches to which. many social
reformers belonged. The years before and just after the turn of the
century saw the emergence of an interlocking network of organizations
concerned with child welfare. Both creches and kindergartens were clearly
involved in promulgating ideas about cleanliness and the management
of children. It was therefore no coincidence that when a specifically
infant welfare movement gathered momentum, it continued to share
facilities and generally have a Elose relationship with creches and kin-
dergartens.
By the interwar period, however, infant welfare marked a new depar-
ture from the traditional charitable_ concerns with children of the indus-
trial working class. Like those who emphasized the broad educative
rather than philanthropic role of the kindergarten,_ the later professionals
promoting infant welfare saw their work as health reform and education,
putting all wom~n's traditional mothering role on a sure scientific
foundation. The new experts associated with the baby clinics came to
dominate discussion of infancy and became a source of multitudinous
advice. Before moving on ~o discussion of the content of such advice
and the general transformation- of babyhood that it entailed, it is necessary
to establish the general pattern of developments and the spread of the
movement. A complete account of developments around Australia is -of
course impossible here, but by focusing on Victoria we can see the role
played by middle-class organizers and professionals, the growing State
involvement and the controversies which arose. The extensive institu-
tionalization of the new infant ·care. principles made them of considerable
significance for at least a generation of Australian families.
Despite the establishment of baby clinics in Sydney in and after 1914,
in Melbourne the major initiative came in 1917 when several interested
people started clinics in the main industrial suburbs. 7 During 1917 a

clinic was established in Richmond, and several others at North Mel-
bourne, Carlton, South and Port Melbourne, Fitzroy and Collingwood
were founded within the next twelve months. Several women formed a
small 'Welfare Society', members of which walked the streets, carrying
scales and equipment from one centre to another, inviting· mothers to
JOin .
.The genesis of Victorian developments lay not in comparison or rivalry
with other parts of Australia, but the direct importation of overseas
ideas. In particular the work of Dr Eric Pritchard in London was
influential. The Melbourne doctor, Isabella Younger-Ross, who gathered
a group of voluntary helpers together to start the first clinics, had worked
with Pritchard and done similar work in Chicago. Prominent medical
men and women, and charitably inclined women volunteers adopted
enthusiastically the concept of instruction in infant care and supervision
of babies. The first co-ordinating meeting of what was soon to become
the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association included representatives
from the Talbot Milk Institute, the Medical Women's Association and
the Australian Health Society. The Women's and Children's Hospitals
were soon also involved, promising provision of lists of newborn babies.
The VBHCA was a central organizing body for several different suburban
and city centres, initiated and developed by groups of local enthusiasts.
It also, however, aimed at promoting the infant welfare movement
generally, especially by encouraging the formation of more clinics and
by seeking state and local government funding. 8
Voluntary initiative was strong and composed principally of members
of the same group of middle-class women and of professionals who
dominated other charitable and reforming endeavours. In particular
doctors Constance Ellis and Isabella Younger-Ross were driving forces.
In many ways typical of those sharing the growing interest in maternal
and child welfare, these two women were also clearly representative of
the newly emerging professional middle class. Dr Connie Ellis, for
example, rose to renown through her medical career, being one of a
quite remarkable group of women who entered the medical faculty at
Melbourne in the 1890s and who from 1900 to 1920 established
themselves as a forceful pressure group in the health and welfare field.
Dr Younger-Ross too, coming from a Victorian country town, succeeded
in public and professional life through turning her medical training to
the cause of women's traditional concerns.
With the initiative of such women, the early 1920s saw the mush-
rooming of baby clinics and with them increased professional speciali-

zation. Infant care training courses for nurses were established and the
regular medical inspection of babies became a further task for -doctors.
In 1920 the VBHCA appointed Dr Vera Scantlebury as a paid medical
officer to inspect babies and to lecture to nurses engaged in mothercraft
training. 9 Dr Scantlebury, or Scantlebury Brown, as she later became
known, had become involved in infant welfare somewhat by chance.
Her father was a rather eccentric doctor and her mother had high
ambitions for her daughter, encouraging Vera to study medicine. She
went overseas to work in London in 1917 and her_ first contact with
infant welfare seems to have b_een on the ship coming home in 1919.
She recorded this first encounter somewhat drily in a diary letter: 'Today
the medical staff had a mothers' meeting to hear complaints about the
babies' food. The mothers brought the babies with them. The ~eeting
was a howling success!'. The result of the meeting was that there was
to be a mothers' clinic with one of the doctors on duty in turn to teach
the mothers the 'elements of common sense' in preparing baby food and
to give advice. 10
This redefinition of maternal common sense as something which had
to be taught, and by professionals, was the ongoing theme of the infant
welfare movement. Dr Scantlebury failed to record if there was any
substance to the mothers' complaints about the food itself. The following
day she mentioned that she was caring for a 3-year-old whose mother
was ill: 'I am learning baby feeding from the different mothers I meet
with their children when I take Billie for meals. They do not know I
am a doctQr so I hear lively discussions of our profes-sion-generally to
the doctor's credit'. How far a career in infant welfare was from her
mind was revealed when a little later she commented: 'but talking of
specializing in children I have had enough of them for the rest of my
life! Babies, babies everywhere and not a place to think! Still they are
quite nice'. On her return to Melbourne it was only because jobs were
in short supply that she accepted the position of medical officer with
the VBHCA in 1920, referring to the Baby Clinic as being 'not worth
much except as advertisement', but sensible as preventive medicine. 11 It
was of course also accepted that child and maternal health was a field
suitable for female doctors, and from a purely practical standpoint, it
did have many advantages. As against the long hours of general practice
and of some hospital work, sessional work in infant welfare centres and
later in ante-natal clinics fitted in more easily with the demands of a
home and family.
Several medical women therefore played an important role as both

initiators and workers in the Victorian infant welfare movement, by the
1920s leading government inquiries and publicly promoting the reform
of infant care. This was also true of other States but it was not solely a
female province. Not only were some prominent male doctors linked
with the movement, but men also played a role at the local level by
lobbying for and donating funds. Some particularly enthusiastic sup-
porters, such as Mr Joseph Tweddle, a Melbourne businessman and
philanthropist, made infant welfare the focus of their benevolence. Mr
Tweddle's support gave a rival organization to the VBHCA, the 'Society
for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria, Plunket System'
considerable weight, making possible their training hospital with its
provision of residential care for mothers and babies. 12
The spread of the infant welfare movement in Victoria was rapid and
extensive. In 1917, when the first centres opened, 913 individual babies
attended. This had grown by 1938 to over 50,000. By 1929 there were
120 health centres and by 1937, over two hundred operating in both
urban and rural areas. 13 Similar developments were taking place in other
States, but the Victorian movement was particularly strong in both
voluntary and state support. Not only was a centralized system of
supervision of the centres implemented, but regulation of the advice
given out was ensured after 1927 by state registration of nursing staff.
Associated with this institutional growth was a blossoming of interest
in maternal and child welfare within the medical profession and on the
part of the state. However, the BMA was involved in safeguarding the
private practice of its members against the possible encroachment of the
new infant welfare specialist, the health centre sister. In both New South
Wales and Victoria it was made clear that the baby clinics were only to
be concerned with healthy, 'normal' babies and not involved in the care
of sick children. Indeed the name 'baby clinic' was even avoided in
Victoria, the name baby health centre
it was felt, was more appropriate for the scope of the work being carried
out, with its accent on 'health' and the prevention of sickness, and
indicated that medical treatment was not given at the centres but sick
babies referred to their own doctors or to the hospitals for treatment. 14
One of the bones of contention which emerged between the rival infant
welfare organizations was the extent of medical control over the centres,
the VBHCA always having a supervising ·medical officer whereas the
Plunket system gave greater autonomy to the Plunket-trained nurse.
Major government reports emphasized this 'correct relationship' of the

health centres to the medical profession. 15 However, the emergence of
the centres and the professionals attached to them, the new specialist
nurses, increased the doctors' own interest in infant care. ~n the M]A,
the early 1920s produced a spate of articles on infants, and paediatrics
was becoming more firmly established as a specialty. Apart from a series
of articles on the health of-school children during 1920, the MJA also
included articles on breastfeeding and artificial formulas; an editorial on
paediatrics; and a growing interest in, first, infant, then in maternal,
morbidity and mortality.
The increased interest on the part ·of the medical profession, particu-
larly those in the field of public health, was allied with growing state
involvement in infant welfare. Partly because of the rivalry between the
respective infant welfare organizations, but also as a reflection of increas-
ing. ad hoc funding arrangements at State and local government levels,
several government inquities eventuated. Two women doctors prepared
a comprehensive report in 1926 comparing infant and maternal welfare
in Victoria with that in New Zealand: Dr Henrietta Main, from England,
and Dr Vera Scantlebury recommended increased State involvement by
giving subsidies, building -and maintenance grants, and by paying the
salaries of a medical director and special nurses. 16 Furthermore, it was
specifically recommended that a full;..time medical director of Child
Welfare should be appointed under the Health Department. The position
was shortly after offered to Dr Vera Scantlebury herself,~ although reduced
to a part-time position because she had recently married. 17 The State's
increasing interest in the condition of women and children can be seen
in a variety of other developments, including a 'Ministry for Motherhood'
in New South Wales. At the Federal level, the introduction of Maternity
Allowances in 1912, ongoing discussion and limited implementation of
child endowment, and a Royal Commission on Health in the 1920s
were capped by the report of a leader in maternal and child welfare in
England, Dame Janet Campbell, to the Federal Government in 1929. 18
Such reports in Australia were similar to those in other Western countries
and were~ as the importation .of Dame ] anet suggests, directly influenced
by English moves in particular.
In Victoria, the efforts of Dr Scantlebury Brown, on behalf of the
Public Health. Department, to extend institutional supervision of, and
support for, mothers and babies were complicated by the rivalry between
the two main· voluntary societies in the infant welfare field. By the time
she became. director of the newly established Infant Welfare Section ·of
AuStralia's Greatest Asset-The Baby.
Premature Baby admitted weighing 5¥2 lbs.; discharged 5¥2 months

later. weighing 14 lbs.
A TRIBUTE TO THE PLUNKET SYSTEM.
The model modern baby. From the Society for the Health of Women and
Children of Victoria, Annual Report, 1933-4.
Baby must not be allowed t-o fall
asleep at his work.
MOTHER SHOULD NOT BE
READ/1VG NOR SHOULD
SHE BE T ALKI1VG.
a.n1. p.~.
Feed by the clock. Don't trust to lttck.
'Adopt fully proven methods as taught at the Infant Welfare Centres.

Safety first-don't experiment with your baby.'
the Health Department in 1926, the lines of battle between the VBHCA
and the 'Tweddle' group, 'The Society for the Welfare of Women and
Children', were well established. As Lewis has described, similar rivalry
and factionalism existed in New South Wales, and in neither State did
the heat go out of their conflicts until later in the 1930s. The diaries
of Vera Scantlebury Brown give a detailed ·picture of the opposition and
bitterness she encountered on both sides when attempting to steer a
middle course, proposing common state registration for nurses and
amalgamation of the rival bodies. By 1929-30 some success had been
achieved insofar as several independent training schools for nurses were
established; conferences held to discuss greater co-operation; an accepted
Guide and tables for infant feeding published; and a Notification of
Births Act passed which enabled Baby Health centres to be notified of
all births in the area. 19 The strategies and controversies of the voluntary
groups reveal the intensity of the reforming efforts. Although the con-
troversies were local in one sense, involving particular personalities and
professional and voluntary interests, the bitterness of the arguments
reveals the extent to which infant welfare had become an important
issue and field of professional stakes. Moreover, the substance of the
controversies, which were primarily over the protein content of artificial
feeding and the general management of_ babies, does suggest some
possible class differences in the original impetus of the organizations, if
not of their later development.
The rival organizations specifically stated in- their aims that they were
to co-operate with other organizations working for the welfare of women
and children, but the 1920s in particular were marked by outright
hostility between the two groups in Melbourne and in Sydney. In
Victoria, although the Society for the Welfare of Women and Children
had only seven centres as against sixty generally aligned with the VBHCA,
the prestige of their residential training school and hospital, and the
vehemence of some of their supporters lent them considerable weight.
Moreover, the Society was a more cohesive group than the VBHCA which
was fundamentally a federation of individual baby health centres. The
latter nonetheless had the powerful groups in the medico-charitable
establishment firmly behind them, having on the council of the VBHCA
representatives from all the major hospitals, the Association of Creches,
the Free Kindergarten Union, the Education and Neglected Children's
departments and the Australian Health Society: in short the major
networks of individuals who shared common goals of modernizing and
reforming family life. The VBHCA had been initiated by a combination
of . public health professionals and women from the main charitable

organizations. As in England, working-class infant care bore the brunt
of its early reforming efforts.
The 'Plunket' people, the Society for the Welfare of Women and
Children, were quite aggressively aiming at mothers in general and were
more dogmatic in their.actual advice. The New Zealand-trained Sister
Maud Primrose was one of the new professionals of the infant welfare
movement, and the Melbourne 'Plunket' group, while often on the
defensive, was outspoken when it came to the breadth of its ambitions
to teach mothercraft. Their very first report insisted that the Plunket
system had been shown to be superior to all other systems of infant
care, and
For the information of those not concerned with the Society, it· has to be
stated that the work is not charitable, but chiefly educational, for so
much as mothercraft is concerned, there is just as much need to reform
on the part of those mothers who are 'well-to-do' as on the part of those
whose monetary position in life is not so thoroughly assured. 20
This society with its broad aims, as its Sydney counterpart, was
founded to. keep closely to the principles of the New Zealand system
dominated by Dr (later Sir) Frederick Truby King. The first visit of
Truby King to Australia in 1919 was the beginning .of at ·least a decade
of controversy in the burgeoning movement. Truby King's fame as an
international leader in the new ways of caring for babies stemmed from
the strength of his organization in New Zealand and its .evident success
in decreasing infant mortality. His book, The feeding and care of the
baby, although first published in 1908, by the 1920s was a virtual bible
for many in infant -welfare. His primary interest was in. scientific feeding
patterns, and he became interested in infant care after breeding dairy
calves while engaged in experimental farming on· the South Island of
New Zealand. His principal professional role in the 1890s and 1900s
was in mental health; it was a combination of concern for the ill-effects
of poor maternal care on the 'physical, mental and moral condition' of
the community, and imperialist population concerns triggered off by a
visit to Japan during the Russo:Japanese War which inspired his move
into the infant care field. He initiated a specialist hospital at Karitane
in New Zealand in 1907 which became the base for the spread of the
Truby King Mothercraft Society. During the next .twenty-five· years, he
lectured and wrote on the care of infants, visiting Australia regularly
throughout the 1920s, towards crhe end of which his health deteriorated
and his irritability and intolerance created many problems. 21
The Society for the Welfare of Women and Children was extremely
confident of the 'Plunket' system. Its leaders ostensibly participated in
attempts to get co-operation with the VBHCA, but were clearly biased
towards 'the hope that the Plunket system might be adopted'. Even in
1929 Dr Scantlebury Brown reported that she had received a 'really
scurrilous letter' from their president:
The TK's amuse me. Their own large talk has been uniformity but once
there is any attempt to bring it about they are the first to try and obstruct
it just because it is not their own kind, who are they that we should all
bow down? ... It has been much to their advantage to have a fairminded
Director but they wish to direct and not to be directed. 22
Although this particular fracas soon blew over, Dr Scantlebury Brown
being asked to be Honorary Victorian Adviser to the Society, it was
only one of many such encounters. The disputes were certainly exacer-
bated by Truby King's visits from New Zealand; in August 1929 when
he had caused trouble in Sydney, .she wrote that although they had
escaped lightly: 'he has left the Truby trail behind him'. 23
While there certainly seemed to be what she called a 'Plunket
complex', not all the problems stemmed from that quarter. As director,
she also had difficulty in working with the VBHCA in spite of having
originally worked with them herself. The diary letters make frequent, if
sometimes oblique, reference to some of the committee women as
enemies, but do not indicate what the main problems were, other than
perhaps some personal animosity. This seems to have been the case with
one woman who never forgave Dr Scantlebury Brown's medical judge-
ment on her handicapped child. 24 It is also possible that tension between
professionals and lay people occurred, as in many cases between the
voluntary charity workers on hospital boards of management· and the
medical profession. 25 Much of the acrimony of the VBHCA was evidently
directed at the director's attempt to pursue an independent line, perhaps
they had expected her to favour them more than she was prepared to
do as director. In August 1929 she reported .
A vile meeting with the B.H.C. executive at which I was subjected to
insolent and ignorant speeches . . . I outlined my policy which annoyed
them because I will not tell new centres that they must belong to one
or other organization. 26
Although at the start of that year she had hoped that plans for co-
operation would bear fruit, which they eventually did in the 1930s,
there were times when she despaired: 'It is not exactly a quiet life being
Director of Infant Welfare'. Dr Scantlebury Brown went on sadly to

conclude that too often people were using infant welfare· for the wrong
purposes, 'all through this wonderful movement from top to toe is a
network of petty jealousies and personal ambitions'. 27
In spite of differences of opinion, the rival groups shared many
common features; in particular their methods of propaganda and the
major thrust of their mothercraft teaching show a similarity of message
which then differed in style, presentation and detailed content. Several
major avenues were used for dissemination of new infant welfare precepts.
One of the most prominent was lectures and pamphlets directed at both
girls and women: 'The mother's duty to her baby', 'Milk and the baby',
'Errors of maternity'. The VBHCA appointed a nurse particularly for
publicity work: by 1926 regular articles were appearing in magazines;
and lectures were given not only to schoolgirls but to organizations such
as mothers' clubs, church clubs, and the YWCA. 28 Liaison was established
with the Free Kindergarten Union and with the Domestic Arts schools.
Other main avenues of propaganda work were actual demonstrations,
particularly those given at the Royal Agricultural Show and at the Town
Hall during Health Week. On these occasions, and during the annual
Baby Week which commenced in 1918, clothing and feeding_the baby,
preparing foods, 'simple hygienic garments' and baby equipment were
shown. The Baby Weeks were being held in the various capital cities
by the end of the First World War, generally under the auspices of the
Australian Women's National League and other local women's organi-
zations. Baby Week campaigns included concerts, displays of labour-
saving devices for the home and lectures, as well as baby clinic, creche
and kindergarten displays. Other exhibits in Melbourne included those
of retailers, such as Buckley & Nunn's Model Nursery; displays of
Nestle's Anglo-Swiss milk and those of the Talbot and Willsmere model
dairies; and the Empire Trade Defence Association showed Australian-
made baby garments.
The spread of infant welfare also enlisted the co-operation of the
Victorian Railways- Department. In 1925 the 'Better Farming Train'
added a special home and infant care section which travelled to rural
areas. The train was part of efforts at agricultural rationalization in the
interest of greater productivity, but the inclusion of a women's section
was prompted by the Education Department's cookery and sewing
demonstrators and the VBHCA. The three carriages comprising the wom-
en's section became so popular that they were sent out independent of
the original train; classes of schoolgirls were brought out for demonstra-
tions and many women flocked around for advice and demonstrations. 29
Another propaganda channel was a correspondence service run by both
Victorian infant welfare organizations and continued by the Health
Department's section of Infant and Child Welfare. By the late 1920s
and 1930s, the infant welfare movement also turned to utilizing the
new medium of radio, broadcasting weekly talks to mothers on infant
care which were claimed to be 'having a far-reaching effect'. 30
A network of individuals and organizations was therefore making a
concerted effort to transform women's traditional childcare practices. The
well-meaning motivation sprang from a combination of traditional phil-
anthropic concern for the condition of the children of working-class and
destitute women and a newer and broader social interest in the general
management of mothering. The very naturalness of mothering became
redefined in the light of discussions about the need for mothercraft and
for the application of rational, scientific knowledge to the process of
childrearing. In England· the growth of 'schools for mothers' was quite
directly associated with fears of declining national fitness and, in partic-
ular, with an onslaught on working-class women's 'neglect' and 'igno-
rance' in matters of home and family. In Australia the focus of attention
was less specifically on the working class, and certainly directed less
towards mothers working in industry. Nonetheless, fears were regularly
expressed that 'modern' women were greatly deficient in the necessary
capacities relating to their domestic role, including mothering. Some
argued that civilization had destroyed the mothering instinct so that it
now had to be supplemented with learning; others emphasized reason
and intellect as the highest special faculties which could lift humans
above the purely instinctual. Some advocates of mothercraft managed to
argue that the human mother is intelligent but that intelligence, while
it can learn everything, 'has everything to learn'. Saleeby, a leading
advocate of infant welfare in England, waxed eloquent about the supe-
riority of maternal instincts in animals and the problem of its relative
diminution in women. Sister Primrose, a strong Saleeby and Truby King
follower, -shared such sentiments, arguing that mothercraft was 'not learnt
by instinct' but was 'a science that has been delved from the heart of
nature'. Those who scorned the application of science to such a suppos-
edly natural activity, she said, had to understand that the human mother
lacked the strength of instinct to be found in animals. 31 Making up for
the 'deficiencies of instinct' also entailed, however, dispensing with the
accumulated knowledge of previous generations. Like other infant welfare
professionals, Sister Primrose was at pains to rid the modern mother of
any 'foolish notions' and 'mistaken ideas' she might have acquired from
other sources. The modernization of infant care meant the extension of
'rational scientific principles ... to the feeding and rearing of babies';
with regard to natural as well as artificial feeding, to clothing and to
several aspects of the general handling of infants, the experts hoped to
stamp out old practices and establish new ones.
Between the 1880s and the 1930s even the patterns of breastfeeding
babies became part of a scientific campaign. In the process, an established
traditional practice became increasingly removed from the domain of
traditional female wisdom into that of the professional medical, technical
world-and made much more difficult. In Australia during the nine-
teenth century, particularly during summer, the risks of hand or bottle
feeding were generally so great that babies tended to be breastfed of
necessity, either by their natural mothers or by wet-nurses. The guide
books of the period gave instructions on the choice of a wet-nurse rather
than much attention to the mother's own milk ·supply. When writers
did bother to discuss breastfeeding, it was with the assumption that it
was the normal pattern and advice was only needed for specific problems
such as cracked nipples or overfeeding.
There was already a cautionary note in this literature which became
much stronger with the infant welfare specialists, that too many mothers
give 'the child the breast whenever it cries', but the general consensus
was that babies should be fed every two to three hours when very young.
There was also fairly general agreement that feeds at night should be
lessened, but there was not yet the later insistence on no night feeding
at all. 32 Although a regular routine was advised, it was likely to be
accompanied by comments -such as 'Although regularity in feeding is
good, it need not. in all cases be rigidly adhered to' and 'Never wake a
baby to feed him, if he wants food he will wake quickly enough'. 33 The
other area of discussion in the earlier guide books referring to breast-
feeding is that of weaning, which, without its later psychological over~
tone, is suggested as taking place slowly at about eight or nine months
of age. The recurrent theme right through to the 1920s, however, was
the advice against weaning in the Australian summer months· because
of the risk of diarrhoea. The expression of this theme did vary, though,
becoming more scientific and precise in the later period. Comments in
the late nineteenth century were often like the following: 'Do not wean
between November and April ... Let no-one frighten you that your
milk is bad; it must be bad indeed to be surpassed by such cows' milk
as we get in the city' .3 4
The contrast between the period 1n which doctors such as Hunter

wrote in a chatty, friendly style to women and the later professional
directives of the infant welfare specialists is nowhere more marked than
in the discussion of breast and artificial feeding. The advice on breast-
feeding became much more detailed and specific and was associated with
a campaign to popularize natural feeding which they thought was
declining. Lewis has discussed the Sydney campaign led by Armstrong,
but has not noted the increasingly technical discussions of breastfeeding
which characterized the medical literature of the early 1920s. While
doctors were not writing in popular guide books about these technical-
ities, especially by the 1920s, they spent time campaigning amongst
fellow doctors for greater recognition of the importance of breastfeeding
and of the techniques to maintain and re-establish supplies of breast
milk. 35 This discussion was then passed on to women by way of actual
teaching practice in infant welfare clinics, and via the newer style of
guide books with their very specific scientifically phrased advice. In
particular, the spate of material generated by the development of the
clinics, which included books and pamphlets published by government
health departments, was characterized by a stress on scientific, rational
feeding patterns. 36
Although neither the new little infant welfare books, such as those
by Sisters Peck and Purcell of the Melbourne movement, nor the articles
in women's magazines went into the same detail as the doctors' discus-
sions, their encouragement of even breastfeeding has to be seen in the
context of medical control. Dr Margaret Harper from Sydney made it
quite explicit that mothers should not only accept the care of a doctor
during pregnancy, but went on to say: 'it is no less important that
mothers should recognize the necessity for medical supervision during
the period of lactation' .37 Furthermore, as the infant welfare nurses were
being given intensive training in the establishment and maintenance of
breastfeeding, doctors were also under pressure to keep up their own
knowledge in order to remain 'the natural directors' of the infant welfare
movement. What had, to an earlier generation even of doctors, been a
natural, fairly straightforward process was now one fraught with com-
plexity and requiring their professional supervision.
All aspects of breastfeeding came under scrutiny. As well as concern
with the actual technique of secreting and expressing milk, the advocates
of modern infant welfare were consciously reforming earlier patterns of
irregular and frequent feedings. Stress was increasingly placed on the
rational control of feeding, on calculating more precisely the amount of
milk the baby was receiving, on the necessity of clockwork regularity.

In the 'modern' infant welfare literature on breastfeeding new attention
was also placed on the amount the baby should be fed, an issue which
was still more significant with regard to artificial feeding. Whereas in
the earlier period it had been assumed,· as one doctor still said in
puzzlement in 1927, 'that the baby would not take more than satisfied
him' 38 , increasing precision was applied to how long the baby should
remain at each breast and whether or not both breasts should be given
at each feed. Furthermore, whereas the nineteenth-century advice liter-
ature did not presume to direct the mother as to the specific hours for
feeding her baby, by the 1920s it was common to find the following
routine_ advocated:
The mother should have a time-table for the feeding of the baby. If he
is fed three-hourly, it should be 6 a.m., 9, 12, 3, 6, and 10 p.m. [and
2 a.m. if advised]. If the baby is fed four-hourly-6 a.m., 10, 2, 6, 10
[and 2 a.m. if advised] ... It is advisable once a time-table is arranged
to keep to it absolutely. 39
The onslaught on what was perceived as the dominant tradition of

demand feeding, and the insistence on three- or four-hourly feedings
was mainly justified on the grounds of scientific understanding of a
baby's digestive system. The newly recommended patterns were also said
to be better for the mother's daily routine, allowing her greater leisure.
It was, moreover, for the sake of the child, and of the future citizen,
that regularly spaced feeds were of the utmost significance. Sister Prim-
rose, following Truby King, insisted that baby's 'first lesson' would have
long lasting impact:
Fostering sound regular hygienic habits and self-reliance at the earliest
possible age ... not only established these habits for life, but ... their
influence would be seen on higher planes. Tendencies trained early into
the very tissue and structure of vital organs would assert themselves later
in assisting in the development of those peculiarly human parts of the
organism upon which character control, and conduct, to a larger extent
depend. 40
Regularity took on overtones of considerable moral significance, a theme

occurring in the earlier literature but now more consistently explicit.
From early after birth, babies should be wakened regularly in order to
keep to the feeding schedule and the clock was invoked as the standard
reference of the mother.
It seems too that the infant care specialists were in full accord with
anthropologists and sociologists who stress the significance of childrearing
patterns for society at large. The experts' emphasis on an 'orderly
existence', on diminishing 'frictions, rebellions, discontent and strain of
any kind' through adjusting the child to regular discipline, reflected
broader social developments. ·In the industrial sector, scientific manage-
ment was promoted on the grounds that it would bring industrial· peace
and improve productivity. Stuart Ewen suggests that, at least in the US,
the 1920s saw the growth of an ideology of harmony and national
interest which was at odds .with the real conflicts of the time, but was
increasingly promoted in advertisements. 41 American writers have also
noted the growing emphasis in middle-class circles on socializing for
social adjustment42 , a development which will be taken up again in the
next chapter. It is at least possible, then, that the emphasis on training
the child in the regularity of the clock right from birth was of deeper
significance than even its protagonists claimed, in laying the foundation
in the individual for adjustment to the various demands of modern,
industrial capitalist society.
In spite of the infant welfare specialists' enthusiasm for rationalized
breastfeeding, their attention also had to be applied to artificial feeding.
Much to their consternation, the statistics of the baby health centres
showed a slow but persistent decline in the numbers of women fully
breastfeeding. Whereas in 1927-8, the approximate percentage of Vic-
torian babies completely breastfed, for example, was 55 per cent as
against 28 per cent completely artificially fed, in 1938-9 it was 46.4
per cent as against 3 7.1 per cent. 43 As these estimates were based on
the records of the clinics, which pressured women to breastfeed, the
actual figures were potentially much higher for artificial feeding. The
routines of hospitalized childbirth and the regimented schedule being
recommended to mothers ironically enough were themselves undermining
the experts' advocacy of 'natural' feeding.
Even before many statistics were available, medical attention had
turned to the ·relationship between artificial feeding and infant mortality.
From the 1890s on doctors were taking an increasingly sophisticated
interest in the composition of human milk and hence the provision of
an adequate substitute. Although nineteenth century advice to mothers
was often imprecise, the infant welfare movement eventually refined
quantities and measurements with scientific precision.
In the 1880s-1890s discussion of artificial or, as more commonly
expressed then, 'hand-feeding' usually took the form of general admo-
nitions about seeking quality milk and about cleanliness. Controversies

about whether the milk from one cow was preferable to that from
several, and the amount of water to be added were the dominant issues.
Advice on hygiene was limited to suggestions that the feeding bottles
be washed at least once a day, and while the old-fashioned feeding tube
was increasingly deprecated, no explicit advice was regularly issued
regarding sterilization of equipment. The main concern of doctors in the
late nineteenth century was to discourage feeding infants on foods other
than milk. Some proprietary foods such as Benger's food, Mellin's food
and others were allowed, but the advice literature decried what were
said to be common practices of feeding babies starchy foods such as
arrowroot and maizena and beverages such as tea, coffee and even alcohol.
Forty years later the use of completely unsuitable foods was less of
an issue, but artificial milk mixtures were a much greater preoccupation
and more explicit advice was given concerning their preparation. In this,
as with regard to breastfeeding, a major shift in the style and content
of the advice is apparent in the early decades of the twentieth century.
The imprecise, fairly informal directions to mothers by doctors such as
Hunter and others associated with the early Australian Health Society
contrast markedly with the more systematic, precise instructions of later
infant welfare professionals. The attempts to rationalize the measuring
of milk formulas typify these developments. Because of the greater
variability in calorie content according to techniques of measurement, it
was important to standardize both techniques and measuring imple-
ments. That the latter was not a simple matter was suggested by Dr
Scantlebury Brown who, in her official capacity, noted: 'I have studied
in detail the measures and the measuring of foodstuffs in infant feeding . . .
Household tablespoons and teaspoons vary very much, often showing
100% error'. 44 Her diaries showed the seriousness with which the matter
was taken; even her husband lent assistance: 'Eddie has been testing
spoons for me. He has just found a new balance and some wonderful
spoons at Coles'. 45 However, it was apparently not easy to modernize
women's thinking on the matter of measurement; one doctor announced:
'the persistence with which mothers calculate in tablespoonfuls, is fatal
to accurate measurement. They must be trained to think in· fluid
ounces' .46
One significant dispute between the rival infant welfare organizations
concerned the relative proportions of protein and fat to be included in
artificial formulas. Truby King and his advocates, the 'low protein
school', were insistent that scientific analysis of the composition of human
milk showed it contained 'about 6% to 7% of lactose, 3% to 4% of fat

and from 1.3% to 1.5% of protein'. On one occasion in Melbourne
Truby King became 'violent over the high and low protein and we
arrived with him telling me I compromised and that the Almighty had
shown us that only 'low protein' was right' .47 This dispute seemed to
have lessened after Dr Scantlebury Brown's tables for infant feeding were
accepted by both schools of thought, providing as they did a system of
altering the caloric value according to the child's age and weight. It was
therefore particularly in the intricacies of artificial feeding that the
application of scientific knowledge to infant care held sway. Some doctors
continued to mix scientific and pre-scientific comments; others showed
signs of resistance, of older attitudes continuing. One doctor, for example,
said somewhat caustically, 'the caloric system of feeding was a danger
in unskilled hands, as it tended to concentrate attention on figures
instead of on the baby. He would prefer to feed a baby instead of to a
baby'. 48 Another upset some readers of the MJA when he suggested that,
regardless of what the infant welfare people were saying, an infant could
be reared quite satisfactorily on artificial foods. He was quite against the
regular feeding fashion: 'Babies were simply young animals and should
be fed like them, when they wanted it ... 'Fill them up and keep them
full should be their motto'. 49
The overall transformation of medical opinion which made infant
feeding a highly complex issue was reaching its zenith by the late 1920s.
During that decade it also began to be more widely disseminated to the
lay public both through the actual practices taught at the baby health
centres and through the written material aimed at mothers. In Melbourne
two of the prominent infant welfare sisters published small books based
on articles they had previously published in newspapers or magazines.
These were then joined by Dr Scantlebury Brown's Guide to infant
feeding, a still more technical manual. In New South Wales, Dr Margaret
Harper, a leading infant welfare doctor, published a similar one and the
government several pamphlets. Clearly evident in these various books,
and in the articles in the women's magazines over the period, is the new
emphasis on regular 3-4 hourly feeding, on the technicalities of formulas,
on medical supervision and on the necessity of weighing and measuring
the baby. The considerable preoccupation with graphs, charts, and stand-
ardized measurements belied the repeated claims that each baby still
had to be treated as an individual. The notion of the average or normal
baby increasing!y took on statistical as well as moral or idealistic
overtones as agejweight graphs became common. The promotion of an
ideal baby was further reinforced by the growth in popularity of baby

competitions, frequently under the auspices of companies marketing
babycare products. The reformers often attacked the 'old-fashioned' ideal
of a plump baby (which was nonetheless still ponrayed in many adver-
tisements) replacing it with their new norms. 50
The effects of prescriptions for a model baby cannot be easily ascer-
tained. Although the experts insisted that they were only providing
general guidelines and averages, some anxiety was experienced by moth-
ers. Even one of the professionals, Dr Scantlebury Brown herself, wrote
of her baby son when he weighed lOlb 11Y4oz, aged six and a half
weeks: 'I wish he could make up that pound lost at the beginning'. 51
Moreover she was not above rivalry; in 1931 she wrote to her sister:
'Dottie darling, I am thrilled to bits about Daryl's weight-it is splendid.
He has beaten Catherine hollow and she seems huge and well and fit.
She is 18lbs now' .52 If the professionals themselves were putting into
practice the emphasis on measurement of the baby, it is not so surprising
that other women were likewise influenced. Certainly a generation of
mothers were advised to include the technicalities of· measurement and
calculation in their childrearing.
The infant welfare experts gave advice not only on feeding and charting
the healthy progress of the baby, but on a variety of other aspects of
handling the child. The area of infant clothing was one such example,
with the nineteenth century's long clothes for the early months and the
custom of 'shortening' giving way to an emphasis on short, hygienic
clothes right from birth. The earlier advice literature had deprecated
habits of not covering the arms and backs of babies adequately, but
otherwise gave few details of clothing. By the 1920s, the advice in
women's magazines and the ·guide· books was increasingly detailed and
specific. Sister Purcell's and Sister Peck's books gave _instructions for the
types of material to be used; the appropriate stitches (a flannel binder's
edges 'should not be hemmed but may be left raw, or just blanket
stitched'); and the size needles to be used in knitting various garments.
To some extent this was probably a reinforcement of common sense but
in other cases reflected external economic and technological develop-
ments. 53 The extent to which fashions and customers were changing for
other reasons, quite apart from the new specialist advice,. is impossible
to say. Infant clothing styles certainly did change markedly over the
period; a Melbourne department store's catalogues, for example, show
the shift away both from long clothes and from many frills and flounces.c54
Producing the model modern hahy 147
One aspect of popular practice which was anathema to the reformers

was the use of dummies or comforters. Although the writers of the
earlier period usually advised against them, it was not in the strong
tones of later writers. Hygienic opinion became more and more adamant
that dummies were not only a danger to health, but the source of bad
habits and a sign of poor mothering:
Germs attach themselves to the rubber and may cause disease. A lack of
self control is also developed. Patient waiting is never practised. It has
been said with a certain measure of truth that you are not a good mother
if you cannot keep your baby happy and contented without a dummy. 55
This is one area in which mothers seem to have continued ever since to
resist experts' advice. As one woman in -the oral history sample com-
mented: 'The only thing I did against the Health Sister was to give
them dummies'. When she went to the baby health centre, she hid the
dummy under the pillow. The discouragement of dummies reflected the
same concern with disciplining the baby as did regular feeding. Both
aspects of infant management were related to stringent guidelines on
cuddling or physical contact with the baby. The nineteenth-century advice
literature rarely bothered to discuss this issue except to decry too much
fuss and handling of the child by a large number of visitors. A common
attitude was expressed however by Dr Hunter:
See then that baby is nursed and handled enough. Better to let it crawl
about on the floor and dirty its clothes than keep it spotlessly clean, if
cleanliness means also to lie in bed or sit in a perambulator most of the
day.56
By the 1920s mothers were advised quite differently. Not all baby
experts went as far as the really strong Truby King advocates, who
encouraged only cuddling the child during a 'mothering hour' in the
late afternoon, but fears of 'spoiling' the child became common. Dr
Dunlop from Sydney, for example, wrote: 'It is not good to nurse babies
more than can be helped. When breastfed babies are being fed they get
their fair share of nursing and cuddling'. 57 The discouragement of much
handling of the baby was reflected also in the experts' vigorous rejection
of the practices of rocking a child to sleep, patting its back or leaving
night lights on. Along with recommending that babies sleep in separate
beds, these habits were to be replaced by firm regular management
rather than 'molly-coddling'.
Associated with these.prescriptions towards encouraging discipline and

independence in the baby, was- a fear of excessive stimulation. Dr
Margaret Harper, like several other writers, warned that:
Mothers generally do not realize the extreme delicacy of the nervous
syste-m of a baby... The things that are particularly to be avoided are
undue playing, tossing or jumping him up or down, sudden or loud
noises to awaken him or to attract his attention, tickling him to. make
him laugh, shaking or of any other form of boisterous playing.' 8
Here the influence of psychology was apparent: 'A great ·deal of nerv-
ousness which is apparent later in life has its foundation laid in infancy'.
This was taken seriously by Vera Scantlebury Brown, who watched her
young- son's activity sometimes with apprehension; at four months he
'has discovered his hands' and 'spends hours looking at them, twisting
them and alas putting them in his mouth! He will have to be cured of
the latter. habit!r :'59 The following day she noted that baby was 'extraor-
dinary·{sic) active-too much so as regards his brain. He talks to himself
for hours'. As the grounds for her apprehension were not specified, she
apparently assumed her mother unders~ood the dangers of a baby's
activiry. It was both to curb infant activity as well as to keep babies
clean and under control that baby playpens or playgrounds were rec-
c
ommended: 'Baby must never crawl about floors, as he may. pick up

germs from dirty boots, etc.' 60 Cenainly such specialized infant equip.:.
ment did become available just after the First World War and catalogues
show an increasing range of playpens and other infant furniture ·during
the 1920s.
It is evident, therefore, that in many ways a baby's life was being
subjected to a variety of controls, both of herjhis physical behaviour
and emotional contacts, and that this entailed new pressures on mothers.
No doubt many women and other family members did continue to give
'lots of love and cuddles', to rock babies to sleep, to jostle and 'over-
stimulate' them, but by the 1920s and 1930s much of their -behaviour
was clearly against the advice of the professional infant -care experts. For
those women with the continqed support of mother, sisters and ·friends,
the new patterns of advice were probably taken with a grain of salt.
Mrs Poster, for example, went with a friend to a health _centre only
once, and when one baby was said to be too fat, th-e other too thin: 'we
never went back!', their attitude being, 'who are they to tell us!'. The
many women who shared this view, or who never went to a health
centre, could avoid direct professional interference in their handling of
their babies. On the other hand, women whose traditional source of

advice had broken down, or who really accepted the 'modern, scientific'
justification of infant welfare were exposed to the types of advice
described in this chapter. For some women, the emergence of the
professional childcare experts was doubtless a welcome development,
replacing earlier forms of support. One elderly doctor who had been
both in general practice and very involved in infant welfare said that
the health centre sisters were certainly welcomed by young and inexpe-
rienced mothers:
Oh they were a tremendous comfort . . . all young mothers need help,
the nuclear family of course exacerbates that . . . with the extended
family-! know when I was a child nearly all my friends had a grand-
mother live with them or a maiden aunt ... they had that kind of help.
But you see when all that went out the mothers, they were left high and
dry... Oh I think they needed help. 61
She went on to recount how in the 1930s, when visiting a mother when
the baby was a month old, the mother would often ask how the infant
welfare sister had known to visit. Despite the Registration of Births Act,
mothers regarded it as 'just white magic!'. 'How did she know, that
first visit was most appreciated.'
Important questions remain as to actual patterns of response to the
infant welfare movement. Although in the early years of the movement
centres were started in working-class areas, they very quickly spread to
a wide range of middle-class suburbs as well. Whereas in England and
in the first decade of the Sydney movement the aim was quite clearly
to re-educate working-class mothers away from traditional styles of infant
care, during the later period in Australia, it was definitely more broadly
directed. Some evidence does suggest that middle-class women were
more likely to respond favourably to the new styles of infant care, partly
because they had much in common in terms of attitudes and values
with the scientific, professionally oriented experts. At least as significant
was their shared material circumstances; it was far more likely that most
of the new precepts of infant care, like those of housewifery, could be
carried out in a secure and comfortable home environment. In spite of
the decline of domestic service, many of the prescriptions for appropriate
mothering, for example, those about the mother's rest and relaxation,
presumed her being able to offload some domestic chores and care of
older children. ·
The diaries of Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown, expert and new mother
in the late 1920s, indicate· that_ her experience was quite ·different from
that of many other women. She, like many other contemporary. profes-
sionals, had considerable domestic- help not enjoyed- by most -ef the
mothers advised by the health centres. She not only had a nurse after
the. confinement, but then a live~in mothercraft nurse who also shared
some of the domestic chores, -and a housekeeper. Dr Scantlebury Brown
was, however, to some extent a v-ictim of -her own mothering advice;
she was not altogether happy -about sharing the baby with. others, a
phenomenon middle-class women of the nineteenth century took for
granted. She -wrote: 'I do so ~ant to look after the babe my~lf.- .. l am
wondering if it could be done. I ~did so much enjoy that time at Xmas
in spite of .fatigue-! simply -hate seeing and hearing him handled by
others'. 62 She continued to~ accept it as unavoidable, but the extent to
which the care of her baby was unlike that of most twentieth-century
mothers is suggested by the fact that when he was four weeks old- she
wrote: 'We were both {with husb~ndl invited to watch hi~ Lordship's
ablutions. He is a funny. little thing-_-it _is the first time I have seen
him ''in tOto''. I shall be glad whe11 he is very. much fatter, though he
is vigorous enough'. 63 She also had a . great deal of assistance and~ co-
operation from her husband, Professor Brown, -whose flexible academic
l~festyle was also cond~cive to his panicipa_tion in the domes~ic _sphere.
They were of course under -extra pressure to produce a -perfect infant,
and -Dr Scantlebury Brown did worry at times that he did- not always
fit the model. On some occasions she was aware of breaking the new
infant care rules: 'he was rather. overtired and .beside himself so I fear I
broke the rules and gave a little nurse and held his hand -and he went
off to sleep at once-·.·-dear wee pet' .64 On the· whole, however, Dr
Scantlebury Brown had plenty of opportunity to put the new methods
into practice and evidently .made. an attempt to do so. -
It is obvious that Dr .Scantlebury Brown and other women of her ·
class had_ more resources available · than many of those instructed .at
infant welfare 'linics. Many of the principles and practices belo.ved of
c
infant welfare advocates wer~- far less p_ossible for working-class women
to put into practice. The preoccupations wfth babies sleeping in .separate
cots, with the provision of_plenty of fresh .air and with discouraging too
much handling by other members of the family all asstJmed .micldle-
class mothering styles a!}d resources._Babies were to be bathed.creg~larly~
using special equipment kept only for the baby, and by the_ 1920s
increasingly detailed instructions were being_ given about cots and other
infant furniture. Other recommendations of infant welfare experts which
Result of test meal.
Infant Welfare Centre

1\;f others are HappfJ
J.\1 others. Accuratt mtasure-
ment is essential.
'Baby needs "mothering", but the maternal instinct requires to be

wisely directed.' Fron1 the Victorian Department of Health, Maternal and
Child Welfare Manual, c. 1940.
Children like
us are 11.ot
reared by Chance
We grew up straight and strong quite
easily, because mother had SISTI!:R
MURIEL PECK'S BOOK Jt,OR MOTHERS.
This hook tneets all n10thers' difficultiesJ
and the leading baby doctors in Victoria
say it is splendid. So simply written, and
such good advice. Starts with the day you
are bornJ and goes up to two years; and in
the back are some very fine Nursery
Recipes.
FREE WITH
EVERY COPY
A New Weight
Chart which
enables you to
check up your
baby's pro·
gress week by
week.
'Mothercraft not learnt by instinct'. From Woman's World, 1 June 1931.

would have been easier to practise in a larger. house were those of letting
the baby cry until feed time if there was nothing else the matter; and
of finding a quiet place, removed from _other family members, for
feeding. Some of the rules for preparing artificial feeds, especially the
'Plunket' method of 'humanizing' milk, were also unrealistic for women
without adequate kitchen facilities.
Although women's response to the pressures of the infant welfare
experts obviously varied according to their circumstances, there is little
doubt that by the 1930s most were under the sway of these new
authority figures. They developed techniques of resistance and negotiation
in dealing with doctors and clinic sisters, but generally seem to have
accepted that their specialized training, with its scientific basis, justified
the often difficult to follow routines. Mrs Best for example went along
with allowing her children to cry until the four-hourly feed time because
the sister said,
You should just let them wait. They were very strict at the Health Centre
... she reckoned it was their digestive organs, that it takes them that
long to digest ... I believed that ... because she was educated for that
so she must have known what she was talking about.
In several distinct aspects of infant care, therefore, not only feeding but
in the general management of the baby, we can see a definite strategy
under way. In the early years working-class women were its primary
object, but as the infant welfare movement developed, a broader cam-
paign of 'modernizing mothering' became institutionalized. This project
represented the combined efforts of various groups, in particular upper-
middle-class women who worked as volunteers for the new movement;
members of the medical profession, including an active group of female
doctors; and a still more recent group to emerge, the infant welfare
specialists: the baby health centre sisters. In staking out their new field
of expertise based on hygiene and science, the infant care professionals
were engaged on a project of managing motherhood: directing women's
traditional activities along new lines. They used economic and nation-
alistic justifications for their onslaught on 'inadequate' maternal instinct,
stressing the productive value of each child to the State and the nation.
The content of their reforming message, like that of the domestic
scientists, drew on notions of industrial efficiency, order, regularity and
discipline. In this area in particular the experts operated on a firm
institutional basis provided by the expanding state bureaucracy of health
departments, and women too took advantage of the new job opportunities
152 The disenchantment of tbe home
offered by the infant welfare movement. Although their aim was the
preservation ·of infant life and health and .they saw themselves as simply
responding to existing needs brought about by modern urban conditions,
their practice in effect went against one of their own central tenets, the
'naturalness' of maternity. The redefinition of motherhood as mothercraft
therefore implied more in the long. term than just. 'modernizing' another
aspect of traditional family life: it threatened one of its foundations.
7
The retnaking of childhood
The forces tending .towards a transformation of infancy also affected the

later years of childhood. In particular, developments within the medical
profession, in educational thinking and in con~epts of childrearing re-
flected a concern with a more scientific approach to childhood, a more
intense interest in children_ themselves. Before exploring these develop-
ments, this chapter will discuss what childhood was like in Australia in
the period before the First World War; in particular, childhood in
suburban Melbourne. From the oral history interviews, from manuscript
and literary evidence, a dominant picture emerges of childhood during
this period as a fairly relaxed but ordered existence in an apparently safe
and stable world. The parent-child relationship was -not always free of
conflict and tension, but tended to be one Qf some distance. From either
side, expectations were of adequate role-performance rather than inter-
personal intimacy; parents were concerned . more with the physical and
moral wellbeing of their children than with their individual personal
development. In the period under study, however, many forces were at
work to change the patterning of family experience. Children, and
parent-child relationships, became a focus of attention for educationists,
doctors and psychologists who were involved in a series of connected
strategies directed towards a more complete control of the production
of the individual. Mothering in particular became the focus of new
guidelines; not only the physical care of children, but responsibility for
their psychological and emotional development was -increasingly laid at
mother's door.
These developments have to be understood in the. context of others,
including the moves to keep children out of the industrial workforce
153
and to deal with 'neglected' children. Neither issue- can be dealt with
in any detail here, but in most Australian States the turn of the century
saw a spate of legislative action to 'protect' children. The State became
increasingly interventionist in supervising the boarding-out of destitute
or 'problem' children and children's courts were set up in Victoria as
well as in South and Western Australia and New South Wales. These
developments were influenced by a similar movement in America which,
as Lasch points out, reflected the application of a medical model to
judicial processes and the deliberate attempts to reform offending ado-
lescents. The initiative for the establishment of separate juvenile courts
came in Australia, as in the US, from social reformers who shared an
increasing focus on preventing social problems through 'child saving' . 1
Although one of the aims of the reformers in the early twentieth century
was to protect children from -employers' exploitation, it is clear that
their amb-ition was also -to -promote- a particular notion of childhood.
The goal of dependency for women and children pervaded the various
attempts to 'protect' them: -the legislation relating to controlled working
conditions for example, but also the campaign for women police and
the aaion of vigilante groups. Undoubtedly there was cause for genuine
alarm, especially with regard to working conditions, but the- 'reform'
attempts were based upon a model of family life to which working-class
families. in particular were to be 're-formed'. Father- in the -workforce,
mother and babies at home and children at school was the aim to ·be
achieved. The implications of the professionals' attempts to reach this
goal can only be grasped- with reference to -some significant· features of
existing patterns. Considerable -freedom of children from ·adult surveil-
lance but an orderly daily life and, in particular, dearly ordered par-
ent-child relationships was the setting ·against which newer notions of
childhood and parenting· were introduced.
Not only those in rural families, but suburban children generally had
a set pattern of domestic chores and when economic circumstances
warranted it, they also played a direct economic role. Oral evidence
shows that they were expected to contribute to the maintenance of the
family in a variety of small ways. Their work tasks varied from simple
jobs -a.round the house to_ quite major efforts, such as helping in a shop
run by the mother. Tasks were largely segregated according to· sex, with
boys doing household chores such as . chopping wood and watering
gardens. Girls, of course, helped with household chores, often only
dusting and drying dishes, but sometimes taking on major tasks such
as cooking, especially if mothers were ill or busy with other responsi-
The remaking of childhood 155
bilities. Mrs Johns for example had to cook not only for her father but
for farmhands during her mother's confinement, and with only occasional
help from aunts; even the large family wash fell to her, including all
the linen from the delivery. She was never taught these skills specifically,
just expected to learn by observation. She was not allowed to be idle,
one of her mother's favourite sayings being: 'the devil makes work for
idle hands'. Very few of these girls' mothers had domestic help and in
no case was it residential. In cases where- interviewees' parents ran
commercial enterprises, extra assistance was necessary on the part of
children. Mrs Wilson's mother, who ran a delicatessen and sweet-shop
after her husband's death, relied heavily on her daughter's assistance
both with domestic chores and in the shop~ When her mother had a
'nervous breakdown' she had to take over completely:
the doctor said that he would have to put her in hospital and give her
some treatment . . . she said 'You will have to manage . . . you look after
the shop ... ' . . . I thought-how am I going to cope with all this ...
but I had to and I did it. I don't think I was much more than 15 at
the time.
Children also of course did 'messages', but these sometimes included

delivering home produce in those cases where families had more than
enough for their own needs. One of Mr Troedel's major tasks for example
was delivering milk from their cow and Mrs Morris and her brother
and sister had to try and sell vegetables. This was to supplement her
father's meagre income as a labourer in a brick factory, especially when
he had an accident. Her father, however, also drank a great deal and
she had heard that her mother, who died when she was very young,
had sometimes had to go from one hotel to the next after him, trying
to get her housekeeping money. Children's work experience therefore
was not always part of a pleasant, 'happy-family' scenario, but was
usually a significant ingredient of the overall upkeep of the family. It
was certainly part of the general 'nature of things'.
Despite these commitments, children also enjoyed a fairly unstructured
outdoor leisure-time, playing in motor-less streets and on any available
open ground. The interview sample recalled playing with siblings and
with neighbourhood children, games requiring little or no equipment
such as hide and seek, chasey, hopscotch and skipping. Apart from as
adolescents joining more organized activities such as cricket for boys,
gymnastic or drama clubs for some of the girls, children ran their own
games fairly free from parental restriction or supervision. This was
panicularly so for boys, as some of the escapades recounted by Mr

Upton and ·Mr Troedel suggest. Mischief-making, including tripping-up
returning churchgoers with a string across the street; knocking on front
doors and then running away; and turning down gas lamps from behind
the scenes in churches and halls. Church socials and Sunday .School
picnics were major highlights -of the year, and are vividly described in
literary sources such as lewis' Sunday at Kooyong Road. From children's
literature too, especially the works of Ethel Turner, Louise Mack and
Mary Grant Bruce2 , it would seem that- both middle- and working-class
Australian children were allowed considerable freedom in their leisure-
time, and that the climate induced thein to spend much of that outdoors.
No doubt this increased freedom lay behind the comments of some
commentators that Australian children, especially girls, were too inde-
pendent, -were 'forward' .3
When children came indoors, their freedom was then much more
cunailed; playmates other than siblings tended not to be welcome there;
and orderliness was the norm. Even the games played there were more
likely to be card games or charades, sometimes with their parents or
with relatives during the regular Sunday evening visit. As Miss Troedel
pointed out, these games required concentration and were not always
conducive to conversation. Recreation, and everyday life in the home
generally were pan of an overall pattern of which ·routine and order
were keynotes. This orderliness of daily existence is a recurrent theme
in many sources. For many families the patterns continued throughout
the interwar period, although oral history responses show some sense of
changes in the air as motor-cars and movies arrived. What did the
orderliness involve? The _recollections of some authors express clearly
what is also present in the oral evidence; what it meant to be 'properly
brought up':
The rituals by which my own life was regulated it never occurred to me
to doubt. They were so utterly reasonable. When I came in from school
I changed out of my good things into a sweater and shorts ... , I didn't
shout- indoors, I never said 'she' (she was the eat's mother); and I never
swore ... I ate my vegetables, even horrible silverbeet, without complaint;
always washed my hands ·after the lavatory and never called a shilling a
'bob'. All these rules and regulations, I was convinced, not only trained
you in the best behaviour, they also taught you discipline, and discipline
was character-building. 4
Shonly before this passage, Malouf had noted that the orderly plan of
existence enacted by his family in Brisbane in the late 1930s was his
mother's attempt to reproduce 'her own orderly childhood in prewar

[that is, pre-1914} London-even though it was no different from the
life that was lived_ in other houses where we went to play in the long
evenings after school'. Hal Porter too points to a similar heritage of a
central plan of living, 'one of well-tested attitudes inherited -by my
parents from the late nineteenth century, and faithfully adhered to' .5
Despite the.greater freedom of Australian children outdoors therefore,
a certain accepted pattern of everyday ritual existed. It was, no doubt,
most typical of the middle-class homes described by Malouf, Porter,
Lewis and others, but oral evidence suggests that certainly some working-
class families shared it. For children this meant doing their chores and
following parental guidelines against swearing, untidiness, dirtiness and
'forwardness'. The general absence of live-in domestic servants in Aus-
tralia meant that children came quite directly into contact with parents
in the implementation of the rules of family life, and it is to the nature
of this relationship that we shall now turn.
The interpretation of parent-child relationships whiEh emerged in
interviews accords with the literary evidence: parents were often somewhat
distant figures, respected unless unusually harsh, sometimes revered but
only occasionally warmly loved. One or other parent was usually .more
distant than the other, but mothers were not surprisingly the more salient
figure. Fathers were not always the stern, authoritarian figures represented
in the classic, Seven little Australians, and in cases where they w-ere, this
was strongly resented. 'What my father said was law, we couldn't open
our mouth at the dinner table-he used to fly at us, y'know . . . the
horse whip was laying there ... ', said Mr Upton. His father was a rather
eccentric man, a loner, who worked at his shoemaking trade and making
other things 'from cameras to organs' in a backyard shed, talking politics
to male visitors such as the local policeman. For Mr Upton, his mother
was 'definitely -the centre of the family'. Mothers were, however, not
known closely as individuals, very few of those interviewed seemed to
know much of their mothers' hopes and fears, past experiences and
desires for the future other than ambitions for particular children. In
memoirs and autobiographies, too, parents are portrayed without a great
deal of understanding. While this would not be surprising from a child's
perspective, these are after all written by adults. Even Henry Handel
Richardson in the famous Fortunes of Richard Mahoney seems to have
less of a sure sense of Mary's innermost heart tJhan that of her husband
Richard. Although her letters show Richardson, in real life Ethel Rob-
ertson, to have been close to her mother insofar as discussion of daily
occurrences was concerned, their emotional life ·was probably less open
to each other. 6
On the other hand, parent-child relationships were perhaps more
easily expressed in written form in the early than late twentieth century.
Letters from politician Alfred Deakin to his young daughter, for example,
reveal enormous warmth and tenderness towards his children. He sentc
her kisses, asked her to give a kiss to her older sister, and said he was
sad to be away from her, wishing he could take her on his knees. In
another very expressive letter he told her how often he ·looked at ·her
portrait, kissed it, and that of her mama too. He concluded, 'no-one
loves you more than your ever loving Papa'. 7 Thus while Deakin and
certainly other fathers too could be affectionate towards their children in
writing as well as in person, it was probably still more common for a
certain reserve and formality to characterize parent-child relationships~
What is apparent both from oral and written reminiscences is that this
relationship was taken for granted and often therefore not reflected upon.
In interviews when elderly people were asked about family relationships
generally, and about those with parents in particular, they did not find
answers easy-the quality of family relationships was not an issue about
which they had thought much. Only in cases where there had been clear
instances of family fighting, or 'not getting on', were -they readily able
to ·discuss. family relationships.
This was possible true for their parents as well; some available evidence
suggests that nineteenth-century parents were more likely to ·fear for the
health, safety and prosperity of their offspring than be overly concerned
about the trauma of relationships. The letters of Georgiana McCrae and
Eliza Chomley, for example, give a detailed picture of their domestic
experiences· and the health and economic problems of their families, but
show little evidence of psychological concerns. Instead Georgiana McCrae
was concerned with the overt behaviour of her 4-year~old grandson, 'a
very mischievous, uncontrollable child, I hope to inspire him with my
power to punish'. 8 Furthermore, physical- safety was of considerable
moment; for example, a series of letters written from England to her
adult son in the colonies by interviewee Mrs Cork's great-grandmother
show how fragile relationships could be, the fear of death a repeated
theme. With high infant mortality rates and children's diseases still
often proving fatal, it is perhaps not surprising that the parent~child
relationship particularly was not overly intimate. To some extent the
romanticization of €hildren's death which is evident from many sources
in the nineteenth century was a cover for the harsh reality. That parents
too might 'goeth away' was also a regular possibility and one which led
Alfred Deakin in 1890 to prepare a 'testament for the guidance of his
daughters' in the event of his death. 9
In this very moving expression of his id~als for them, Deakin was
concerned primarily with their moral conduct and then with their living
of a healthy and sensible life. His intellectualjpolitical stature meant
that his expression of his aspiration for his children was far beyond the
ordinary, but other evidence suggests that many others shared his basic
emphases. A moral uprighteousness founded in a liberal, undogmatic
an-d rational Christianity was to issue forth in unselfish conduct and a
well-ordered life. He wanted the best education and professional training
for them and healthy bodies, 'neither blue stockings nor athletes', and
a quiet home-centred life:
What I am anticipating is no marked eminence, no public renown, but
lives of secluded study, domestic study, quiet cheerfulness, intellectual in
cast and unselfish in end, such as shall ·ensure happiness to you and to
all connected with you if undertaken with religious zeal, humility and
constancy.
Despite the intellectual stamp of his aspirations, Deakin's ideals for his
daughters were like those of his contemporaries in their interest in
external behaviour and in motives understood as morally rather than
psychologically based. A letter written from overseas to daughter Ivy
aged 5 also sums it up simply and clearly. Writing of baby Stella too,
he wanted
to know if she is a good girl and is beginning to eat plenty of porridge
and Nestle's food and if Mama has yet found a nice nurse for her. He
would like to know if Ivy goes to school and is a good girl doing what
aunt Katie tells .her and taking pains that when Papa comes back he _will
find her a clever little lady and a strong one too with a straight back
and strong chest and arms and straight legs and a good appetite. 10
In neither the 'testamene nor Deakin's letters, nor in other similar

late nineteenth-century manuscript sources is there a concern with the
quality of relationships or any agonizing over intricacies of the child's
psyche. A moral and a healthy li-fe was therefore the ideal of parents
for their children and was attainable by following the guidelines of
religion and -of what popular health writer, Dr Philip Muskett, called
the five laws of health, cleanliness, fresh air, diet, clothing and exercise. 11
This can also be seen from the evidence concerning discipline. Children
were punished for disobedience, for 'back-chat' and particularly for
dishonesty, for violating the code of acceptable social behaviour. Some

parents were no doubt as irrationally violent as writer George Johnston's
father, who beat him regularly even for unknown misdoings, but .on the
whole the sources point to a firm code of acceptable behaviour with a
series of graded punishments only csome of which were physical. Late
nineteenth-early twentieth-century Australian children's classics such as
Coles' Funny Picture Book, give some indication of behaviour deemed
unacceptable. In 'Girl land' the- faults included nail-biting, not brushing
hair, lack of cleanliness and neatness and not eating what was given as
well as disobedience. 12 On the other hand, physical chastisement was a
more common theme in 'Boy land', with stealing of fruit and other
foodstuffs, lying, teasing, throwing stones and being dirty or cruel
mentioned as faults. Some other misdeeds were less gender specific; sloth,
greed, lying, stealing, cruelty, temper and pride were thought deserving
of 'lands' all their own in which verse told of the evils that followed.
Children were quite clearly held responsible for their own misdoings.
Miles Franklin's account of her first experience- with such an expectation
was engrained on her memory. As a fairly young child she had refused
to eat her egg, wanting the meat reserved for her elders and throwing
a temper tantrum when not indulged. Her mother took severe and
immediate action: ' ''Hoity-toity! She must be whipped-yes whipped!'' .. .
''She must be taught self-control! ... She must be corrected for her own
good and the safety of society''.'. So the child was chastised with a light
switch, -punishment as much for temper and defiance as for not eating
the egg. 13
In oral history accounts too punishment was swift for unacceptable
behaviour such as disobedience. However, the picture which emerges is
less one of heavy-handed enforcement of rules than, as in the literary
sources, a general acceptance of an ordered way of life. Indeed their
quiet, home-centred life ltd several interviewees to think they were
useless as historical sources. What they provide, though, is a general
picture of stability and overall contentment despite economic ups ·and
downs, and high expectations of neither material success nor personal
fulfilment. Their recurrent theme is that the pace of life was slower then;
that there is more stress and strain in contemporary affiuent society and
bringing up children is vastly more_ difficult than it was for their parents
or even for them. Mrs Watts, born in 1885, commented when asked
about what was importantin bringing up children:
Well, respectful of their parents, and er, I just can't explain it ... You
know in my day, the children never dreamt of doing the things they do-
today, they wouldn't dream of it, you'd have no cause to worry about
them. You know, destroying things ... I don't know, born in them, I
s'pose ... , {but] it was all quieter then, more peaceful, until the wars
came, I think the two wars made a big difference, you know, the First
World War, and then specially the Second War, women got caught up
in it you see, it was different altogether... and then all these gadgets
came in.
She thought the rot had really set in because then the women went out
to work to buy them. For Mrs Watts, and for others interviewed, mother
had been the centre of this life and motherhood a simple, uncomplicated
affair.
Allowing for a possible romanticization of the. past and bearing in
mind children like Susan Morris's experience of a motherless home with
a cruel, drunken father, one theme remains fairly clear. Parenting in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century was seen as less a matter of
relationships between individuals than a matter of economic provision
and moral guidance. This is the assumption also of the childrearing
advice literature of the period. In the early twentieth century changes
can be perceived in the assumptions about parenting and about moth-
ering in particular. The child became constituted as a new object of
concerned attention, and motherhood a nationally controlled, learned
activity. These developments were evident in the advice being given to
mothers, but were rooted in professional and organizational interests in
the control of the child which themselves were responses to broader
social changes. It was now recognized, said Sydney paediatrician Harvey
Sutton in 1923, that 'true humanity requires control of the human being
in the making ... ', concluding therefore, 'Above all it is to the child
that we look as the saviour of society, the creator of health, for it is far
easier to form than to reform ... '. 14 The increased interest in childrearing,
particularly on the part of the State, reflected the removal of children
from the labour- market yet the recognition of the importance of their
socialization to their future role as workers and citizens.
Between the 1880s and the First World War, when the new ideas
were only just taking hold, the childrearing advice being offered to
parents was still characterized by nineteenth-century emphasis first on
diet and health, and second on appropriate moral behaviour, which was
seen as closely related to these. The books, pamphlets and articles of
this period moved readily from the first to the second. One of the
hallmarks of the literature appearing in the twentieth century was a
change in style: material was now more carefully organized into separate
162 The dise'flchantment ·of the -home
topics and more systematic. There .was not of course a complete trans-
formation of style and some books such as Maybanke Anderson's Mother
lore continued the older style while -conveying quite new ideas. 1 ~
However, the earlier literature was more like the little book written
by a nurse, Sister Aitken, The Amtralian mother's own book, which quite
haphazardly, and despite an attempt at alphabetical arrangement, moved
from discussion of dislocation of the hip, to education, to medicine,
with several small comments of homely wisdom and moral advice
inserted throughout. 16 The theme of health -and diet was particularly
strong and advice was generally_praaical in orientation" suggesting fresh
air_ and adequate exercise tor- girls as well as for boys. Dr Philip Muskett's
series of _popular l?ooks on the health and care of infants and_ children,
and his_ general medical guide were fairly typical, p-roviqing. a great deal
of information . for home treatment of minor illnesses, and general
education in health matters. Noticeably absent was any real interest in
the psychological development of th~ -child.. Muskett, for instance" stressed
adequatecdiet and exercise .to . provide for the development of the. brain
and nervous system, but this was conceived of in the physiological rather
than. a psychological sense. ~en Muskett discussed 'night terrors' of a
child, his first explanation was a deficit in the diet, and only after
discussion of digestive disorders did he allow for the possibility of
'nervous' problems,_ the nature of which was somewhat vague. In either
case, he reco~mended correcting diet first, less~ning starch, treating
constipation and so on. 17
The other major concern of the advice_ to parents of this earlier period
was,. as Deakin's testament S\lggests, with the moral conduct and overt
behaviour of children. The .regular themes. of respect for parents, obe-
dience and quiet demeanour on .the part of children were ~ccompanied
by exhonations to parents to discipline gently~ to lead by example_ but
to exercise a firiil authority. Thus a sermon 'On the cduty of parents'
stressed the need for skill, patience and self-control in the moulding of
the young character. 18 The tone of the literature, while often admonishing
parents for the ~forwardness' of colonial children, was moral guic4nce
rather. than professional decree. Mrs Marian Weigall made. explicit .. the
underlying assumption of-writers of the period, that parents had to. do
their best but could net be held solely responsible for each child's final
character. Although a _well-ordered home and family life should produ~e
good children, it was difficult to say 'how far we have the_ power to
affect· the· future of our children. as. regards their moral character and
proclivities' . 19 No training was foolproof and none of us could be perfect

parents anyway.
Increasingly in the twentieth century such parental reassurance dwin-
dled, -being replaced by a conviction that parents, especially mothers,
were indeed responsible. The influence of psychological theory was the
key factor in this transformation of ideas about the parent-child rela-
tionship and the significance of mothering. By 1929 Dr Bostock was
stating the modern accepted opinion of the professionals:
Every psychiatrist learns that the mental symptoms of today are usually
the result of faulty adaptation in the past, not yesterday, but years
previously . . . the seeds are sown in childhood . . . at the age of greatest
receptivity, harsh or too indulgent or ignorant or selfish parents mould
the little mind into faulty grooves.
Bostock then went on to draw the logical conclusion:
There is no doubt that an enormous amount of psychic ill-health could
be avoided by better management in the home. The scope for mental
hygiene in childhood is so wide as to embrace the needs of every child. . .
Education of parents becomes a necessity... 20
Dr Bostock's remarks are worth quoting at length, summing-up as they
do the major shift of childrearing opinion from the late nineteenth
century to the 1930s.
The new ideas about children and childrearing had a clear institutional
basis in education and several separate strands can be traced. The first
two, manual and technical training and the kindergarten are most closely
linked, both in content and chronological development in Victoria and
New South Wales. Other strands or developments were those of physical
education and the increasing inspection and measurement of schoolchil-
dren. These stemmed from several roots including a seeking-out of the
mentally retarded (the 'feeble-minded') in the schools. Through all of
them the influence of psychology can be traced, and they contributed to
increased pressures on parents to 'perform' in childrearing within the
family. Although the reforming experts generally started with those
children defined as problems, their supervisory interest eventually spread
to the socialization of all children.
In the late nineteenth century, several aspects of the elementary school
curriculum were the subject of discussion with a view to 'practical'
education. What was called 'hand and eye' training included modelling,
drawing and working with paper, cardboard and wood. This was accom-
164 The disenfhantment of the home
panied by ·extra emphasis on nature study: on the use of natural objects

for discussion in class in the 'object lesson'. A concern with ·national
efficiency and technological· progress lay behind an· increasing emphasis-
on training in manual skills. Fears of German superiority in technological
development were already .being expressed, and the Fink. Royal Com-
mission on Technical Education in Victoria, for example, was. -quite
explicit in its emphasis on the need to train a .better workforce through
systematic technical education. 21 In conjunction with the interest in
manual ~raining, State education departments from the 1890s on looked
with increasing favour on kindergarten educational techniques because
of their perceived craft-training value.
A_ major point of controversy in the kindergarten .movement itself
revolved around the primary aim of kindergartens. In Victoria in 1908
the Free Kindergarten Union, only recently established, was bitterly
divided over whether or notkindergartens were to reform working-class
children, to teach them hygiene and manners, or whether the newer
ideas of developing each child's ·potential were paramount. 22 ·As in
Sydney, the earliest kindergartens, as distinct from kindergarten methods
used in the infant school, were ·established by the· upper-middle;..class
women whose other charitable_ activities have been noted in several other
chapters. Mrs A. a'Beckett, Mrs Pattie Deakin, Mrs Stella Allan ('Vesta')
and others formed the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria in the wave
of activity associated with· the women's work exhibition .of 1907. The
division of opinion between some of them and the professional educa-
tionists- continued for many years, eventuating in rivalry in training
programmes and general orientation. Although both groups were con-
cerned with reforming the child, the charitable voluntary -workers were
interestedin working-class,children in panicular; the educationists, whose
influence was greatest in the long run, with all children. The early
kindergartens clearly aimed at re-so<;ializing. working-class children and
at infilt(a.ting new ideas of hygiene and child-raising into their ,homes.
One. account proudly described. how children were
coaxed. into the kindergartens and they experience what are for many of
them absolutely new sensations. They step from dust, squalor and vice
into an atmosphere of cleanliness, and refinement, of bright lights_ and
soft voices ... They begin to dislike naving· dirty faces and hands. And
then, . . . they go back to their·· homes and begin to ·exert- an influence
upon their family surroundings. 23
The original Froebelian thrust of developing each child's speciaLabilities

was, however, by the 1920s strengthened and increasingly joined by

American influences. Professionally trained kindergarteners, such as Mary
Gutteridge, principal of the Kindergarten Teachers' College in Victoria
by the early 1930s, had brought back from the US a greater emphasis
on the role of the kindergarten in fostering both personal and social
development in each child. In the late 1930s and after the Second
World War, the working-class orientation of the early kindergartens was
replaced by the concept that the kindergarten or pre-school was an
educative and social environment. This was particularly evident in the
development of nursery schools and the research oriented pre-schools,
the Lady Gowrie Centres. Here the focus was on professional guidance
of child development and the accumulation of information in order to
allow it to be as effective as possible. 24 Children generally therefore
should be firmly under the direction of trained specialists whose ideas
were also to inform parental practice.
The major thrust of the kindergarten educational principle of devel-
oping individual potential also characterized a broader movement known
as the 'new education'. This term came to embrace a variety of curricular
and teaching method innovations, beginning in England in the late
nineteenth century and becoming influential in Australia early in the
twentieth. As well as a heavy emphasis on the moral value of education,
the 'new education' linked kindergarten and manual training ideas,
emphasizing the preparation of the child for real life. Behind both
kindergartens and general curricular reform movements lay the influence
of the new science of experimental psychology. The interest in its
application to educational testing was apparent in Victoria in the early
1900s, when a kinderganen branch of the Psychological Society was
formed in 190 1 with leading kindergarten specialist Miss Eva Hooper
as its president. At the same time, the Child Study Association of New
South Wales under Dr Alan Carroll's influence was founded to 'create
a greater interest in the young'. 25 Psychological theories of children and
child-raising were thus being introduced in professional circles, with
kindergarten expens first leading the way but others soon following. For
example, Dr John Smyth and his associates at the Melbourne Teachers'
College and at Melbourne University became fascinated with the tech-
niques and principles of mental measurement. 26 Leaders of the educa-
tional innovation were attempting in classroom practice to implement
the new stress on individual development, on categorizing and measuring
each child, which derived from psychology. In particular these emphases
can later be seen in the work of Dr K.S. Cunningham, the founding
direCtor of the Australian~ Council of Educational -Research,- an organi-

zation set up .with a· grant· fromc the American Carnegie- Foundation in
1929. 27
It was not- long, however, before the medical profession too -was
becoming interestedin the -scientific •study of the child, psychological as
well as physical. By 1908-11 interest in children's health became more
apparent in papers at the Australasian Medical Congress and-in.medical
journals. By 1911 the paediatrics section of the Congress cwas- firmly
established and there were _hopes fQr an Australian Paediatric~ Society,
following the establishment of an informal group in~ Melbourne based
on the sta1f of the -Children's Hospital. 28 In the same period., the links
between the educationists and the medical profession were becoming
str-engthened as the interest in .the physical health of small children
spread--to schoolchildren-as well. School medical- services developed- on
similar lines to those in England, in- both- citses prompted by~ England's
inquiry -into the poor state- .of national fitness evident· iri the recruiting
for the Boer War. Regular medical inspection of children every three
years brought them increasingly under professional surveillanc-e.. In cases
where some medical ctrea.tment was -deemed neces-sa~, but~ was not
undertaken ~-by _parents, ·the surveillance_ extended to the home with a
visit ,from a .nurse. A significant dimension .of-this development was the
emphasis, later also evident in infant welfare, on measurement: -on
scientihc precision in _surveyiag this part of the population. An article
in the ~Education Gazette anti Tea-clnrs' Aid in 1~14 described the process
the children-had to go _through, lining up in stockinged feet for weight
and height- to be takeh. 29 .The 'bat-Ches~ _of children ·who responded to
the command, 'Tallest to the right, shonest to _the left',. were experiencing
at first hand the impact of_ the new scientific approach to-children.- Not
surprisingly, anthropometries;=_ as it -came to be called, was also linked
to another early twentieth-century innovation in the schools~ physical
e-ducation or 'physical culture'. Gyffinastic-displays and exercises or 'drill'
had already existed, but outdQOr exercise -in- a systematic fashion for
both girls and boys reflected the.t:oncern in~the 1900s with the physical
deterioration of the British race. N.ot only the physi<:al health and fitness
of cchildren came under increased surveillance by doctors and- teachers,
their mental 'fitness' was also being subjected to close scrutiny. Amongst
the educationists the -concern· with- mental retar-dation was -closely linked
with the surveillance of the ~normal population. of . school-childreny_espe~
cially ·through the School Medical· Senice, and attempts to make insti·
tutional provision for those found not -suitable for ordinary :elasses. The
A Melbourne kindergarten in the 1930s.
Encouraging social skills. 'Boat-building' at an Elwood kinder.

The child at 'educational' play. From May Gutteridge, The Child Growing
Up, 1937.
Meeting children's needs: fresh air and their own furniture.

interest in IQ and other educational testing instruments was part of a

broader concern with developing a standardized picture of the school
population's mental as well as physical capacities and this in turn was
part of the still broader influence of psychology which was becoming
evident in medical and educational circles in the early twentieth century.
In scientific sources the growing interest in the child was clearly evident
by 1908 and then a more general interest in 'mental hygiene' developed
by the 1920s. As doctors as well as teachers and researchers developed
a special interest in the area, a modern consciousness emerged which
stressed the significance of unconscious factors and the importance of
environment in the rearing of children.
By the 1920s and 1930s explicit theories of child development and
parent education were being imported from America. These were first
disseminated amongst professionals and then conveyed to the public
through such avenues as demonstrations of IQ testing alongside the
infant welfare and kindergarten displays on occasions such as Health
Week. The growing interest in child development, which is evident
from the developments described so far, reveals three major preoccupa-
tions: first with ordering and classifying types of children; second with
the management of 'problem' children; and third, with the implications
for the upbringing of 'normal' children. Although the latter was of the
greatest significance, the wider developments provided the context in
which the new advice to parents was disseminated.
By the interwar period, the mental testing of children was producing
interest in general personality types and patterns of 'normal' psychological
development and a change in attitudes to children's moral responsibility.
Anita Muhl, a psychologist, explained in 1939 that different types of
children must be managed differently in order to avoid 'mental disease'. 30
The 'types' she discussed still verged on moral categories, the 'shut-in',
'grouch', 'open' and 'spoiled' child types, but there was now a psychol-
ogizing of aspects of childhood defined as problems only in terms of
overt behaviour by the previous generation:
Some of the easily observed traits of (the shut-in type) are inefficient
psychomotor activity, often called laziness ... too great willingness to
withdraw into day-dreaming and phantasy; refusing to face reality by
creating a more satisfying and pleasing artificial environment.
As suggested by the analysis of Lasch and Donzelot as well as by

Australian evidence, the rise ·of notions of 'delinquency' reveals an
enormous shift in conceptions of children's responsibility. Late nine-
teenth-century attitudes towards the formation of character and the child

taking responsibility for whether its behaviour was or was not acceptable
contrasted with the views of the modern child guidance professionals of
a few decades later. In 1930 the officer in charge of the Victorian
Children's Courts expressed very clearly the new official attitude towards
'problem' children:
many of them are to be regarded as patients needing skilful diagnosis
and soulful remedies, rather than as little people who are wilfully vicious
and who are deserving of punishment.
Inherent weakness, degrading environment, retarded development,
mental deficiency, physical disability, and other factors-such as unfit
parents-the absence of religious influence, and lack of moral training
and sex instruction each play their parts in creating the problem. 31
The child as victim, as 'patient', thus replaced ideas of children as
responsible moral agents and professionally run 'child guidance' clinics
were invoked as remedies.
It was in the implications _of child psychology for the management
of normal or average children, however, that the greatest significance of
these developments lay. 'Just as physical hygiene is for everybody, so
too is mental hygiene for everybody. No matter how well adjusted and
healthy one seems from the mental standpoint, there is always room for
improvement', concluded Anita Muhl. 32 Medical officer] ane Greig went
to pains to argue that the School Medical Service was not only interested
in 'sick' children, but demanded that they all be 'well' rather than just
'not sick'. 33 Although the complexities of child development were pri-
marily discussed amongst the professionals, their ideas were also dissem-
inated -more widely. Not only did they simply inform the actual
childrearing advice given out to parents in the 1920s and 1930s, but
child psychology was explicitly presented- as a great new scientific break-
through. Public lectures were held and the professional leaders in the
field spoke at women's groups. In Victoria, the Council of Mental
Hygiene, formed in 1930, included leading children's doctors and ed-
ucationists; one of its first tasks was to sponsor a series of public lectures
on the subject of The young child. 34 The lectures were well reported in
the press, and were regarded as a local introduction to. the field of child
guidance. The details of these ·lectures provide clear evidence of the new
professional experts on children and their interests:
'Why -children are naughty' by K.S. Cunningham, M.A., Dip.Ed.,
Ph.D. (dire-ctor of ACER, eugenist, e-ducational psychologist).
'The Mischief of Fear', John Williams, MD, MRCP, DPM (psychol-

ogist).
'Should Children Obey', May Gutteridge, B.Sc., NFU (principal of
FKU's Kindergarten Training College, recently returned from US).
'The Child in a Temper', Guy Springthorpe, M.B., MRCP, (medico
son of Dr Springthorpe of infant welfare fame-now becoming in-
terested in psychiatry).
'The Growth of Personality', Professor Alexander Gunn, M.A., B.Sc.,
Ph.D. (academic psychologist).
The recurrent theme of the lectures was parental responsibility for many
of children's problems, and the need to understand children's normal
development in order to manage them satisfactorily.
In discussions amongst the experts themselves, and eventually even
in dissemination of their ideas, the range of detailed instruction regarding
childrearing provides an extraordinary contrast to nineteenth century
sources. Parents, especially mothers, were confronted by a burst of new
knowledge with specific implications for childrearing practices. Each
child was to be seen as a distinct personality (albeit of a particular
'type') with a special pattern of development; the importance of play
was stressed; and children's sociability and social 'adjustment' was to be
carefully fostered. Each of these in turn had implications for parenthood
especially motherhood, making it a complex relationship, the particular
skills for which had to be achieved. In particular, they had to be
acquired from child guidance professionals. Good mothering, if we were
to take the professionals very seriously, was to be an extraordinarily
difficult task.
The growing stress on the child's individuality evident in the theories
of pre-schooling and in the 'new education' movement spread to general
management advice. A pamphlet, for example, which set out to give
parents the results of all the modern child guidance studies, claimed tht
'there is no child . . . who cannot be made happy and find a useful
place, if only his own special needs are understood' .35 The following
paragraph headings emphasized 'every child is an individual', 'each child
has an individual environment' and 'each child of a family requires
different treatment'. Several specific manifestations of this emphasis on
individual personality emerged, including the need to study the child
in great detail, to provide special play opportunities and to encourage
the use of the child's own special equipment.
It is in the notions- of children's play that we see several interesting,

and somewhat contradictory, forces at work. On the one hand, play was
more definitely encouraged and freedom of expression through play
expected. But on the other hand, it was now more clearly -tied to a
general scheme of expectations about child development and to encour-
aging particular skills, including those necessary in the industrial and
commercial workforce. Like kindergartens, the management of-children's
play had some clear. roots in the management and reform of working-
class children, especially the playgrounds movement, but then became
broader in intent and impact. 36 With strong links to town planning, the
playgrounds movement, in Australia as in the US, aimed at providing
supervised healthy play opportunities for children in inner industrial
areas. Organized play was seen as one way to decrease juvenile delin-
quency and to extend the -reformative work of kindergartens and schools
into leisure-time.
With regard to children generally, play was increasingly redefined as
quite a serious business. Concern was being expressed that 'children in
busy cities' no longer knew how to play with freedom and naturalness,
but organized games were referred to as training for 'the game of life'
in which challenge and competition were seen as important. Parents as
well as teachers were now to be particularly aware of the significance of
stages ofchild development for play experience. 37 Play with others, and
organized activities were to be based on suitable free play experience of
the younger child. Moreover, parents were now exhorted to provide the
right equipment, and toys took on a new significance in preparing the
child for later- life.
Whereas Miles Franklin could comment, regarding her childhood in
an earlier- period, 'Toyshops are a phantasmagoria of artificiality, untidy
and inflammable' 38 , they were now to become the essential resource of
the concerned modern parent. _Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
children had to content themselves with fairly simple toys: dolls, whip-
ping tops, toy soldiers and the like. By the late 1920s and 1930s,
despite the problems of the Depression, parents were expected by .the
child development experts to pay attention to the utility of toys and of
play. In some cases fairly difficult expectations were set forth: 'The
backyard should provide excursion and adventure, and contact with
animals, plants and people . . . The child needs to find adventure in his
backyard' .39 The influence of child psychology's promotion of toys and
the concept of creative play can be seen in some comments of Dr Vera
Scantlebury Brown. She reported that May Gutteridge, the leading

kindergartener, had recommended that her young son was ready for
quite big bricks and cubes-the. latter nine inches square and the bricks
14 in. by 41;2 by 9-or thereabouts. We must get them soon- We
went over this morning and saw the toy samples she had brought back
from her travels. They are all of an educative nature and hygienic and
so on and some are most cleverly and simply made. 40
Special children's equipment was also recommended; May Gutteridge

told an Anglican Mother's Group that young children had to learn to
do things for themselves: 'For instance, abandon the high chair and
substitute light little kindergarten furniture with which the child feels
at home, and which it can move for itself .41 A room of the child's own
and a special play area were also promoted as desirable for the child's
development.
The extent to which this emphasis on· 'the business of play' was
listened to, let alone heeded by parents, is not of course accessible from
the prescriptive literature. For many families the material resources of
an 'adventurous' backyard and special toys and equipment were totally
out of reach. Examination of some department store catalogues does ·
suggest that more children's equipment was becoming available and
therefore, at least potentially, bought. Christmas catalogues from the
pre-War period showed teasers and dolls, guns and musical equipment;
listing also rubber balls, skipping-ropes, wooden engines, boats and
whips. By 1910-13 some mechanical toys were mentioned, but by the
1930s not only was a greater variety of toys on the market, but
advertising was more detailed and explicit. In particular, the 1930s
catalogues clearly reflected changes in the economic sphere, toy motorcars,
aeroplanes and mecchano sets were promoted and the development of
synthetic materials such as celluloid increased the range of 'gimmicky'
toys. Furthermore, the 1935 Foy's Christmas catalogue showed more
'housewifery' toys for girls than even in the 1920s. Not only were teasers
and brooms suggested as suitable toys for little girls, but small stoves,
dressers, baking-sets, carpet-sweepers, brooms and mops were suggested
as appropriate equipment for 'busy little housewives'! Such propaganda
suggests the influence of the increased emphasis on housework that was
central to the domestic science movement, and that broader developments
filtered through to the socialization of children.
The final theme in the changed childrearing advice concerned chil-
dren's sociability. A major thrust of the kindergarten movement was to

develop the social-skills of ·the child, but other sources too showed an
emphasis on the peer group and sociability as essential training for
'getting on with others' in urban industrial life. In contrast with Deakin's
wish for his daughters to remain independent of others' opinions, the
advice to parents now was that they should encourage children in 'habits
that help the child to understand, digest and _adjust himself where
necessary to his society' .42 The theme of social development was the
other side of the coin to that of individual development, the child was
to develop as an individual in 'happy social adjustmenf with others.
This emphasis on developing social skills had several implications for
parents as well as children. Parents, but .most likely mothers, were to
be supervising the child closely· in order to ascertain that appropriate
social interaction was occurring, ready to intervene should tiredness or
stress make it desirable to send a child's companions home: one expert
advised, 'If he plays with children in his own garden, the mother can
keep- a wise, unobtrusive, kindly supervision and see that difficulties do
not arise'. 43
In many other ways, too, mother was to supervise all aspects of the
child's existence--hisjher physical, moral and social and intellectual
development-continually watching for any 'adjustments' that might
need to be made to the environment. The home itself was to be the
well-adjusted setting and the parents' marital relationship and the par-
ent-child relationship were now under particular scrutiny. New notions
of parental responsibility were put forward:
No child is wilfully troublesome; it is his reaction to some strain, some
wrong adjustment in his environment. Difficulties can be avoided if parents
will realize that an understanding of their child makes demands not only
upon their· love but upon their intelligence, their whole personality and
character. 44
Any tension in home life was therefore of great, possibly tragic, impor-
tance as 'wrong adjustments' could produce problems of 'mental hygiene'.
In the interests of social development, therefore, the mother was also to
become more of a comrade and playmate to the child, although exercising
parental surveillance. An English writer, Mrs Chesser, expressed it most
clearly, saying that mother was to be a 'chum' 4 5, but the Everylady's
Journal also popularized this redefinition of the mothering role. In the
early 1920s, articles advised women not to let themselves become dull
or untidy after marriage; they must be young to keep up with children.
Mothers of previous generations of course had more children and still

more domestic toil, but now the ideal of mother as guide also included
participation in and supervision of play activities.
To what extent was this advice taken seriously? The oral history
interviews and literary sources suggest that some changes in actual
parental behaviour were taking place. Some interviewees with children,
for example, did think that they had probably spent more time with
and given more attention to their children than had been given to them,
or they implied as much by their descriptions. This was most clearly
expressed, along with a nice example of expectations regarding toys, by
the interview with the Troedels. Mr Troedel said that he had gone
around with his son to sporting events much more than his father had
with him, and Mrs Troedel said:
Well, we were all interested in them [their children}, reading their stories,
and you know, bedtime stories and trying to help with their puzzles and
things they were trying to do and all that kind of thing.
Int.: Did that happen to you?
Mrs T.: No, no ... it was a different life when we were younger. We
didn't even have the things to play with that they had. You see,
I think my parents had a pretty hard struggle, I don't think
they had much in my younger days to come and go on.
You see one Christmas I asked for a doll's pram having seen
those cane doll's prams, they weren't very dear in those days. I
got just a little thing, a little toy one, with a note to say, 'no
prams this year, perhaps one next year'. Well, you see, they
didn't have any money, even to buy a doll's pram.
Well, we were never that, we never bought anything on time
payment in our lives, but, eh, we weren't that flash with cash,
but we did manage to get them pretty well what they wanted
didn't we?
For many families however the necessary material resources of special
toys and equipment, let alone an 'adventurous backyard', were simply
not available.
Furthermore, not all parents were equally exposed to the new child-
rearing ideas; those who did not read advice literature or have much
interest in intellectual discussions of psychology could avoid it to some
extent. Even the women's magazines varied in the amount of new
homemaking and childrearing ideas they conveyed. Although not all
carried the message of modernity as clearly as the Everylady'J journal

with its 1930s series of articles by a psychologist, by then it certainly
infiltrated most discussions of. children and family in -daily newspapers
and elsewhere. Advertisements also began to play on parental anxieties,
on the theme of the health and nutrition of children, on maternal
responsibility and on the increasing stress of family relationships. ·For
example, many advertisements for tonics and laxatives suggested that
they were exactly what was needed to make a listless or feverish child
'a well, playful child again'. One for Ovaltine showed a picture of a
rural scene with people in old-style clothes: 'In the good old days when
life was simpler there was none- of the strain and stress of modern
business life'; and Clements tonic was also recommended to remedy the
family depression and stress which were the result of industrial life. 46
Once again, it is not possible to estimate the overall effect of. these
or of the other messages being conveyed to parents. What can be claimed
with some confidence, however, is that a massive transformation related
to childhood occurred in the media, one which had a strong basis in
institutional developments. Economic considerations of national and
industrial development underpinned the discourse on the importance of
children. The emerging professionals not -only in infant welfare, but
kindergartens, education and- psychological guidance were- becoming
established as 'experts' on childrearing; and it was to children in general,
not .only 'problem' children, that much of their message was directed.
The implications were significant not only for children, of course, but
for parents too, particularly mothers, at whom much of the advice on
childrearing was directed. It is quite clear that these reforming strategies
were not only directed at working-class families. Although some began
that way in the hands of philanthropists, once they were ·in the hands
of the professional _experts, they became part of a broader series of
interconnected· programmes -aimed at family- life in general. The inter-
weaving of traditional charitable endeavours with the newer 'moderniz-
ing' strategies can be seen clearly in the attempts to change patterns of
childrearing, especially in the activities of the kindergarteners and play-
grounds advocates. In the growing dominance of the trained p~ofessionals,
e~pecially the child psychologists, we ·can see a development akin to
domestic science: that women's traditional tasks were exalted as of new
importance, yet increasingly to be carried out according to the 'rational
and scientific' prescriptions of e~perts. Parenting, and especially moth-
ering, was subjected to new pressures which implicitly made it a more
difficult, anxiety-prone and psychologically oriented enterprise than in
the late nineteenth century. In spite of the general goal shared by the
earlier philanthropists and new professionals alike-that of a well-ordered
secure domestic haven-their efforts had the ironic unanticipated con-
sequence of making it a good deal more vulnerable.
Part IV
Sexuality
8
The sexual enlightenment of the young
One of the most marked transformations of personal and family life

taking place in Western societies by the early twentieth century related
to sexual matters. Increasing freedom to talk about sex has been noted,
and interpreted both by contemporaries and more recently as a positive
movement away from Victorian prudery. It was claimed by sexual
reformers that a new age of enlightenment was dawning, in which sexual
matters would be considered rationally and sexual activity brought under
rational control. In Australia the growing discourse on sex and the
tentative introduction of sex education were influenced by particular
factors. The concern with racial types and the need to control the
population through rational means, for example, was greatly stimulated
by the consciousness of Australia as a white outpost on the edge of Asia.
Around the time of Federation in 190 1 fears about the future of the
white race in the tropics were accompanied by considerations of national
consciousness. This was further heightened by the First World War,
when the conviction that populating Australia in the most desirable-
that is white, preferably Anglo-Saxon-way had became a key element
of national policy. While the developments to be described in this
section reveal some peculiarly Australian concerns, similar ones were
taking place in the United States and in Western Europe. The local
reformers of sexual attitudes, morals and behaviour were acutely conscious
of these overseas developments. They regularly referred to movements
elsewhere and communicated with like-minded reformers.
In the period from the 1880s to the 1930s, discussion of sexual
matters certainly became more overt, although we have little evidence
available regarding actual sexual activity. Advice about sex, although
remaining strongly moralistic, also became more explicit, more technical
178
The sexual enlightenment of the young 179
in its detail and eventually more 'scientific'. As in the general childrearing

advice literature, the impact of psychology became evident by the 1920s
and 1930s, fuelling a greater attention to, and concern with, individual
development and personal relationships, including sexual. During the
period, the controversies about the provision and nature of sex education
need to be seen in the context of several other concerns: those with
health generally, with regulating the production of the future population
and of campaigns against VD and prostitution.
In the late nineteenth century two related yet distinct campaigns were
developing, both stimulated by comparable movements overseas. On the
one hand, health reformers produced books and pamphlets giving rem-
edies of one sort or another for a variety of ailments, including those
thought to have sexual origins. They were also deliberately providing
increased sexual information, including tpat on birth control, as part of
their general commitment to enlightenment through scientific knowledge.
On the other hand, stemming from more conservative religious groups,
was a 'social purity' campaign to reform public and private morals. The
latter movement had many links with the temperance campaign but
concentrated on inveighing against the deteriorating state of the country's
morals, particularly those of its youth, and of the working class generally.
These two campaigns both tended to increase the discussion of sexual
matters, to inveigh against an earlier silence. The tension between their
motivation was not always very obvious; in fact people with quite
different long-term goals often co-operated, seeking sex education in
schools, VD clinics and the dissemination and application of the prin-
ciples of eugenics. However, the fundamental contradiction between them
was never actually resolved and the tension continues to underlie present-
day sex education controversies.
Late nineteenth century childrearing advice literature rarely mentioned
sexuality at all. Any occasional references tended to be oblique, such as
making the child's clothing loose to avoid 'irritations', or references to
the dangers of 'bad habits in later life'. The general health education
literature was much more likely to refer to personal hygiene, and hence
to sexual matters. Even in this genre, sometimes the silence was con-
spicuous. One of the few attempts to provide children with physiological
information described the body in considerable detail but stopped short
of mentioning the internal reproductive organs and genitals. 1 One of the
most notable exceptions was Dr James Beaney's The generative system2 ,
reprinted twice during the 1880s. This was clearly a new departure,
marking the transition to a more modern, secular and increasingly
180 The disendJan-tmmt oftht.home
scientific approach. It was popular _and widely read, but also denounced
as pornography. 3 Its· signiliamce-in.PQinting· to- future developments, as
well as_-what it reveals of contemporary concerns,- makes it worthy -of
attention.
Dr Beaney was some-thing 1}fel-local -notoriety who was involved in- a
court case in -1880 with his ~publisher. 4 His standing-in. the medical
prefessionc was-apparently not~very higll- but he published a ·series. of
popular treatises on sexual matters. The 'introductioR' ~to -The _g8-ne1'ative
system· revealed .a theme which:: became a -re,urrent one .in~ sexual ~reform
literature. Beaney, -like other. =Sexual reformers, -claimed that 'false mod-
esty' had prevent-ed-doctors from 'Writing-on this subject-in-the past~ but
that now~ people 'are becoming ~ware of the physiological- influences~ on
the-generative functions, -and -of the necessity for their intelligent comrol'.
Beaney's discussion of children~ sexuality is of partieular-interest. -It- was
pre-Freitdian .in its -insistence oacehik4-en's absence of-~ponta~sexual
feeling, and _·yet revealed ~considerable concern Weith their pos$iDI_e ~--cor.::
mption~ by either 'vicious- servants'·- or 'depraved' sffi.oolfellows. He
discussed the 'unfortunate precocity' of~ somec children, in- wh(){Il irrita..:
tions 01' hereditary- ptedispesition produce -'u~chi!dl.fke and cufls~rn~y
habits', arguing that parentS' must be- alert fgr signs of gen-ital irritation
and take care to keep the -genitals clean. Beaney then- wetlt- on to accuse
colonial servants and schools:- of lowering moral standards:- 'a few viciously
trained childrep,- who have learned ·their -first depraved lessons from the
herd -of- immoral serv-ants WOO-infest the -houses· of the ocoldniStS----will
contaminate the. children· of a whole-neighbourhood,.. 5 · The major-focus
of the disCl.lsSio_n of chi-ldren:s sexual be~viour was, of eourse,- maStur-
bation. Beaney-was considetablyc,-ahead of his time in-his· use-·of the
term, referred to by everybody_ else, even in medical d1srussions, ~ 'the
secret vice', 'self-abuse' or 'self~pollution'. Beaney, too, - was ahead- of
others in -that the nature af his diseussion was quite-~ecn~ar. ~Mrnoagh
a concem with morals wa.s ass\tmed, must of his diatribe- against- mas- -
turbation was ~ireaed at its -injurious effeas on- heakh and vit-ality;:- like
American and English -writ-erS be stressed the importance fot tbe- Whole
body of 'the vital -seed'~ -
-Whereas -~Heaney -represented- the health -and -science orientation - to
sexual ma-rters which =was larer- -to spread- in conjunction wifh ot~er
hygienic reforms, -other writeB ~denounced masturbation fro~_ a more
inten-selyo religious and moral point of view. A minister,- Henry Varley,
for example, produced an AUStralian version of leaflets =directed at boys,
youths and men. These were far more vehement than anything Beaney
had written. Varley implored young men to realize:
You may sin away the freshness and bloom of boyhood, and gradually
sink into the effeminacy of an unclear and licentious wreck; you may
degrade yourself by this sin until memory, moral force and manhood are
spent, and the human body, 'fearfully and wonderfully made' as it is,
becomes a diseased and broken ruin. 6
Varley went on to warn of .what this diseased body could look like.
Australian doctors in the nineteenth century also seem to have judged
patients rather harshly in this respect, the pallor of skin and so on, being
deemed incontrovertible evidence of secret vice. Varley and similar writers
stressed that 'self-pollution and its kindred wickednesses are moral and
physical evils of a fearful character. . . They are a crime against manhood,
and a terrible sin against God'. 7
It was because of a concern with all forms of 'sexual evil' that 'social
purity' campaigns were mounted. In England the campaign against the
Contagious Diseases Act had led to the formation of several organizations
to fight prostitution and VD. 8 It was largely as a reaction to the English
furore over the 'white slave trade' that a variety of organizations were
also started in Australia in the 1880s to fight the onslaught of 'the
fleshly school'. In a major address to the Victorian Church of England
assembly in October 1884, Bishop Moorhouse told his enthusiastic
listeners that 'The world is full of signs that the struggle for purity is
to be the great struggle of our age'. A White Cross Union had therefore
been formed to work along similar lines as the English body, encouraging
every young man to 'treat all women with respect, . . . frown down all
obscene conversation, . . . never defile his eyes with foul pictures or
literature ... and defend the weak and ignorant' .9 Other organizations
which sprang up from church sources included the Social Purity Society,
and they were supported by several women's organizations, especially
the wcru and Church of England Mothers' Union. From the 1880s
through the 1900s such groups worked together to promote legislation
for the 'protection of girls and women'. They fought any attempts to
introduce recognition of prostitution through Contagious Diseases leg-
islation with its implied double standards of morality. They also achieved
the raising of the age of consent for girls from 12 to 16, and campaigned
until 1915 to achieve women police, 'police matrons'.
It was within this context, then, that a debate was growing within
182 The disenchantment -ofthe home
the c-hurches,- as well as- -in -secular society, about- the propriety- -of
c
discussing what had been~~ -tabpo s~bject. The White Cross Union,- for
example, was said to have been opposed by some clergy who 'have held
back in this work, diiefly, _it- ~would se€m, _because ~of its- delicacy- and
difficultyi . 10 Even those -de_fli~ated- to speaking- out only did so -l:>e~~use -
of th~ir sense of -grave 111orar danger to the na_tion. It .was also ~ the
particularly susceptible nature of colonial_ society, _-the (r~~dQm from
restraints of propriety, t~at spurred the religiously motivated to-discussion
on sexual issues. The fears for -the preservation of the rac-e ~and the
emphasis on the role ·of hu111an reason and will were cencerns that· were
shar~d by secular -reformets--as ~well as the church-based sOGial .:purity
campaigners~ Both Dr James B-eaney and BishoJ> Moorhouse alike decr-ied
the-danger and threat to society of sexual vice.- Only in later -y~ars _was
it to become~apparent that the _sexual_re(orm- school, secular and -mod-
ernizing, was quite antithetical to the moralists' _emphasis -.-on sexual
control and personal-guilt.
~Between the 1880s and 1230s, however, they jointl-y~ fostere~ greater
public discussion of -sex._ -They- m-operated in a vaiietyc- of ventures,
including moves towards ~pi<lvis.ion of sex educatiorr- for the ·young.
ContrO:versy on the role_ of the- -•State with_-regard- to- education--csoon
became lively and has not yet -~oncluded~ The ..arguments -Ofcthe early
years .are .clearly. revealed. in a series -of corr~spondeace ·.held -by --the
Victorian Education Dep~rtment. The-Rev. William~ Bligh, of the White
Cross League, had started- gi¥ing_ short talks to schoolchildren on the
necessi~ of sexual purity. A_ parent, h6wever, objected to -his son -·having
been addressed in thjs fashi()ll and-_ having brought home a pamphlet of
whiGh he severely disappr~ved. ThiS:c father e~pressed in-190.3 _the parental
object-ion-.. that has dogged the -efforts - of sexual reformers,··- ~especially
seCular ones, ever since: that of interference 'with the duty of parents in
regard to their chilcd_ren' .t ~--CAlthou:gh h1s-- particular cause -for :<Gmpl~t
was also the fact that Bligh. was an outsider and -not even a teacher, sex~
- -
education has continued to ~be an area in which some patents~ -have

resisted expens- replacing- . them, c-laiming a special right · -to control
knowledge -in such personal·- ·mat~ers.
The conflict- between the~ Rev. Willia.tll Bligh and- ~the Education -
Department .oV'er the advisability _of warning -children ~of- the dang.ers of
sex. continued fof several year-s~ -The Department iss~ed direttives. for-
bidding him entry to_schools, against-which he contin\red to light. The
prime motivation of religioo_s groups- -like the White Cross League was
_to provide children with information about physiology and the processes
Right: From Marion
Piddington, 'Tell
Them', the second stage
of mothercraft, 1925.
Below: As the taboos

fell away: children at
an FKU holiday
camp in the late
1930s. "There are father and mother flowers, and trees and plants."
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Sexual Vice and Venereal Disease in the Community, 1941.
of reproduction in order that they might studiously avoid sexual activity.

Their campaign also showed strong assumptions about the need to
control working class sexual activity in particular. A doctor from the
industrial port-side suburb of South Melbourne wrote in support of Mr
Bligh:
The conditions of morals in . . . South Melbourne is nothing less than
deplorable ... in the young of both sexes, say up to 20 years of age,
impurity is the sin of sins that overcomes so many, and intemperance is
not to be compared in the same breath with it .... Children are warned
against stealing, lying, drinking, etc., but in the majority of cases, never
a word of warning against what will be the most severe and permanent
temptation in life. 12
A teacher also argued that 'these working young fellows in South

Melbourne at night school really need ·Rev. Bligh's lectures' . 13 When
the newspapers of the Protestant denominations were first announcing
the social purity movement in the mid-1890s, it was only the Melbourne
Roman Catholic paper which took a line at all supportive of the working
class. The Advocate argued that issues were complex, saying that it was
not difficult to understand how a 'hard-working poorly-clad young
woman might envy the well dressed ladies of the streets'. 14 More
commonly, discussion of the 'social evil' and sex education was replete
with concern to reform the unseemly behaviour of working-class lads
and lasses.
In the years before the First World War, the pressure for sex education
in schools increased, led by women's groups such as the WCTU, the
National Council of Women and women's teacher organizations. The
Victorian Education Department was under pressure from other sources,
too: from deputations of doctors, teachers and others, and from private
individuals offering their services in teaching sexual hygiene. The De-
partment's only concession was to allow some limited teaching in the
teachers' colleges and more physiology .and hygiene in the schools,
pushing any other responsibility onto the new school medical service.
The mind of the Department's leaders was expressed in an undated
note, possibly 1911, regarding discussion between a committee of med-
ical officers and the Minister. They seem to have concurred that
The feeling of the Committee is that this teaching should take place in
a well co-ordinated system of hygiene and nature study but it is against
dealing with it as an entirely separate and distinct subject, as has been
the practice of the White Cross League. 15
The Minister was particularly apprehensive ·about trespassing on the

parental role, -hut the advocates of secular, hygiene-based, professionally
directed sex instruction wanted it as an overall part of school instruction.
They were still unsure though about methods, to what extent mixed
classes should be encouraged, or how much should be mentioned in
primary schools. The religious campaigners, by contrast, although ·pre~
_pared to support efforts in_ this direction, were concerned primarilr with
warning of the dangers of -sexual vice rather than giving knowledge of
physiological functions per_ se. _They promoted Mr Bligh from the White
Cross League as an appropriate guest lecturer, one who stressed the
dangers of 'impurity' and gave information only in this context.
The Victorian Education Department continued to avoid taking on
any explicit teaching, even passing off to the Health Department the
provision of suitable literature for parents. 16 Public opinion -was probably
on their side, more conservative than either secular or religious reformers.
An Argus_ editorial- commented that it was 'a cheap fashion to sneer at
present at the sentiment which- guided an older generatio-n in their-
aversion from the discussion of delicate subjects with boys and girls',17
and parents were still the most important people to- teach- these matters
to their children.
The war years added a special urgency to the pleas for sex education.
Discussion of the incidence of VD and of the need to build up Australia's
post-war population allowed tfie continued co-operation of the ~fferently
oriented sexual reformers. As well as an increased mention of sex and
sex education in childrearing literature, more specialist groups emerged
promoting increased sexual information for the young. Campaigns against
VD provided the main focus of the sex education controversy during
the 1920s, and women's organizations continued their disc9ssion of the
issues. It was those prominent in the Women's Medical Association, the
wcru, women teachers' groups and the YWCA who formed a pressure
group for ·the teaching of what they saw ·fundamentally as 'social and
moral', that is, sexual, 'hygiene'. The work of the small Victorian- Sex
Education Society through the late 1920s and 1930s shows the prevalent
goals of sex education. They offered training courses for mothe-rs, teachers
and club leaders, the lectures covering 'biological, moral and spiritual
issues'. 18 The lectures were on topics such as 'child questions and- their
answers', 'adolescence', 'mature expressions of the sex impulse'. A film,
'The gift of life' was shown and books and pamphlets. were distributed
with such titles as 'Boys' venereal peril', 'Healthy, happy womanhood',
and 'Sex in life'.
In the work directed towards spreading 'enlightened', 'modern' ideas

about children and sex, those most prominent in the movement came
from the same upper-middle-class charity and professional network
discussed in other chapters. Notable in Melbourne in the Sex Education
Society, for example, were Mrs Ada a'Beckett, also a leader in creche
and kindergarten activities, and Mrs Smyth, wife of Dr Smyth, the
educationist, who also pressed for sex instruction. Kindergarten teachers
Emmeline Pye and May Gutteridge, scientist Dr Georgina Sweet and
Dr Constance Ellis, a leader in infant welfare, were also involved in the
movement for sex education. The general lines of their programmes were
not especially radical; they believed in starting by educating parents
rather than children and emphasizing the normal development of the
individual. Nonetheless, an interest ·in the 'abnormal' still lurked in the
sex education discussions, reflecting the fear of the consequences of sexual
activity on the part of the 'mentally deficient'. In an address to the
Society for Sex Education in 1926, the Rev. A.R. Osborn argued that
'the time has come for accurate scientific investigation into the sex life
of children', advocating a bureau of research and guidance, and pointing
but that emotional instability and sexual problems were closely linked. 19
By the 1920s a major shift from the nineteenth-century attitude that
children were asexual had taken place, accompanied by a redefining of
sexuality in terms of mental stability or 'hygiene' rather than only
morals. This process of redefinition, but continued overlap between
moral, psychological and health concepts, can be seen from some of the
material produced by the anti-VD campaigners. Attached to The silent
foe and my campaign against it, produced by the Association for Fighting
VD, was a 'supplementary' entitled Youth and sex, written by psychologist
G.R. Pittaway. 20 Like other sex education advocates, Pittaway described
the past conspiracy of silence which had prevented openness about sexual
matters and particularly about the dangers of vice. He pointed out that
using fear as the main deterrent was inadequate; instead rational argu-
ments against the abuse of the normal sexual instinct must be provided
for adolescents. He stressed that the rational management of 'the sex
impulse, the most vital and fundamental in human make-up', entailed
'proper mental understanding' of the problems caused by 'sexual mis-
steps'. Rather than the nineteenth-century emphasis on the physical
manifestations of decline consequent upon sexual abuse, Pittaway pointed
to 'scars left in his mental world'. Masturbation was not indicted as a
moral evil, but was now_ 'sexual mismanagement', again a 'deviation
from the normal', the psychological problems of which should be stressed
rather than physical or moral problems. 21 Young people, he said, should

be taught to see masturbation not as
an unpardonable sin, but as the result of an entirely false approach to
sex -management. For masturbation in itself is always the indirect expres-
sion of a person living introversively in his own fantastically-construcfed
mental world. The habit is the admission of a timid, untrue approach
to the realities of adult life. 22
This passage sums up much of the changing prescriptions towards
sexuality; its theme of the 'rational management of sex' was the dominant
motif of the attempts to reform adult as well as children's sexual
behaviour.
The sexual advice literature of the period after the First World War
was moving away from both the message and the style of the niQ._eteenth
century. The sec~lar bookS_ and pamphlets in particular were becoming
more clearly scientific--_in their emphasis on psychology_ and more frank
and detailed. The instructions to parents regarding even young (hildren
became_ more specific in_ the area of sex just as in _other matters._ Whereas
earlier texts had tended to _ignore sexual matters, there \Vas now explicit
advice to put _children to b~d with hands above the covers and not to
let them be awake too long in bed. Mrs Marion Piddington went soc far
as to advise- against pockets in _little -boys' pants because of their
encouragement to masturbation, seeing this as 'a necessary part of
preventive mothercraft'. Although a strongly moralizing tone continued,
the emphasis was now that parents should both supervise their children
closely and tell them the basic facts of life. This increased supervision
was to be unobtrusive, but ~effective. Mrs Piddington wrote_ in 1925 that
Whilst I do not agree with =-Professor Freud on the be-all-and-end--~11 of
the sex instinct, the world -is indebted to him for showing how soon in
the baby life_, sex-feeling exists and may be discovered by the child, -and_-
how necessary is the daily watchful eye of the mother, to prevent early
sexual habits from forming.2 3
Even in a fairly secular .•book like that ··of Mrs Piddington, moral
exhortations remained but ·were now overlaid with a consciousness of
psychology which had been absent in earlier writings. In some ways the
'scientific' approach of biology and psychology merely rationalized advice
that was- similar to that given in the nineteenth century, such as against
the- use of-dummies as leading to weak sexual control. Although the
idea· continued that sex education was aimed primarily at keeping the
child safe from moral danger, the old emphasis on teaching self-control
now became much more subtle as 'mental factors' were taken more into
account. Mrs Piddington wrote: 'In the sex-training of the child it is
unwise to over-emphasize self-control . . . it is cruel to put into the
mind of the growing girl or boy that he. or she has a perennial battle
to fight in this respect'. 24 Instead the child was still to learn the control,
but slowly, both from general teaching about restraint with food, luxuries
and so on, and the gradual infiltration of sexual knowledge.
It was in the light of acknowledgement of children's curiosity about
sex that some of the sex education literature suggested preparing them
for 'the secrets of life' right from the time they were small. Before the
First World War, the emphasis had been primarily on puberty; on
imparting some basic physiological knowledge and moral sermons on
purity to those about to leave school. Later literature showed more
complex messages at work. Seen very much in the context of preventive
medicine, sexual instruction was thought necessary because the old silence
about sexual matters was breaking down. Sex education was therefore
to 'equip' children for this greater openness about sex; at the same time,
of course, itself being part of the movement to draw back the veil of
silence. On the other hand, post-Freudian hints of the strength of the
sex instinct, even in children, led to the acceptance of providing some
information in limited doses throughout childhood. This produced para-
doxical results: Dr Georgina Sweet, a leader in the Melbourne Sex
Education Society, said that children's curiosity should be satisfied, but
not stimulated, 'neither avoid, nor ignore [the] sex subject nor drag it
. , 25
ln.
Examination of some of the early attempts to provide guidance to
parents, mainly mothers of course, on how to go about this new and,
it was acknowledged, most difficult 'second stage of mothercraft' is
instructive. A strong theme of family privacy was maintained and
emphasis was placed on education as a bond· in family life. Speaking at
the Racial Hygiene Congress in 1929, Mrs Carpenter gave an account
of how she 'enlightened' her own children so that they could not be
polluted by dirty stories from school mates. She had referred to flowers
and animals and to 'God's good and beautiful plans', pointing out that
home was a private place and these matters were 'just between our-
selves'.26 Some quite inventive stories about the 'Animal Land' were
developed in order to help parents broach the difficult subject of where
human babies came from. The kangaroo, for example, was used to
illustrate different types of reproduction in a simple little tale, The story
of ovum and sperm; and how they grew into the baby kangaroo. 27 The
range of topics to be tackled, according to Mrs Piddington, in an 'Animal

Land'- sequence of stories was considerable, including not· only birth but
prostitution and eugenics. She did also, unlike some other authors,
confront the thorny question of 'the father's part in procreation'. Marty
a mother, she said, had problems here,
because she has always thought of_ the physical process of procreation as
unnameable. Here is her great chance to link up, in the mind of her
boy, his pan with that of his father in the long chain of torchbear~rs,
who _through countless ages, have passed on the light of life. Suggestion
here· from mother implants an early sense of racial responsibility. 28
That even Mrs Piddington had some difficulty in naming_ 'the. unname-
able' is suggested by the fact- that she had a 'medical man' write the
crucial passage about the 'life organ, which is very wonderful'!
Despite the reformers' advocacy of complete_ honesty, what was ex-
cluded from the sex education discourse was sex as. pleasure; procreation
was becoming 'nameable', but in a limited context. The mother, armed
with new scientific knowledge to augment her assumed_instinctual skills,
should impan information in a calm, matter-of-fact way; 'in_ just the
same voice and manner as she would tell her girl or boy of the care of
~eeth, or hair or digestion'. 29 Sex instruction was . nonetheless _seen as
requiring considerable subtlety.: Mrs Piddington, in pa~icular, was influ-
enced by psycho-analysis, but the guidelines of others, too, refl-ected the
growing emphasis on children's_ stages of development, and psychological
readiness as an imponant factor in the timing of instruction. 30 The new
areas of childrearing advice were thus closely intertwined. In spite of
these 'modern' ideas, running through the advice were older assumptions,
th~t sex was sacred, directed towarqs procreation, and to be thought of
only within the framework of marriage. and family.
This chapter has explored .the -major shift . of thinking about children
and sex, or rather- the major shift t:o talking about, and_ to, children on .
sexual matters. This was reflected in some institutional developments:
the growth of organizations .s~cifically directed towards sex ·education;
and the inclusion of m()re physiplogy in teachers' college and, to a lesser
extent, school curricula. Pamphlets, books and lectures to p~~ents ap-
peared, decrying the traditional veil of ignorance and admonishing them
to 'manage' their children's sexual proclivities in order to produce happy,
healthy, psychologically adjusted citizens. Despite such developments,
oral as well as literary evidence tends to suggest that children continued
to receive most of their sexual knowledge from their peers, and in
circumstances of which their elders would not have approved. Moreover,

much ignorance continued with or without the happy childhood inno-
cence fondly dreamt of in the late nineteenth century. The full significance
of what Foucault calls the 'sexualization' of childhood must be sought
in developments after the Second World War, but the earlier develop-
ments raise many questions. Which parents were most likely to respond
to the calls to 'rationally manage' their children's sexuality? Did working-
class parents, for example, reject such notions? What was the effect on
parents of the onslaught on their competence in the area of sexual
instruction? How was the longstanding contradiction between discussing
sex to warn of its dangers and, often at the same time, to mention its
pleasures, resolved? Did the psychologizing of sex which was apparent
in the discourse on children profoundly undermine .the stress on the
social, that is, on the individual's national and racial responsibility? The
material in the following chapter on the management of adult sexuality
will bear directly on this issue.
9
The crationallllanagement of sex
In the early years of the twentieth century -discussion of sexual cmatters

increasingly- moved from the moral sphere to -that of the scientific. -The
outsfa04ing~ theme was· the _need. to extend -the principles of;;rational,
orderly conduct to- sexual behaviour, particularly inc the interests of
production of a ·healthy, effi_cient race. This chapter will explore this
development by examining its basis in some late nineteenth century
attitudes and then in the growth of organizations aimed at transforming
the sexual attitudes and behaviour of adults as well as instruction of the
young.--As- with related developments, those leading the- discourse in this
area-came primarily from the professional middle class, but their concerns
overlapped with these of the conservative temperance and 'social purity'
movements. In particular, campa.igns against venereal disease and pros-
titution were part of .broader shared concerns with eliminating the
propagation of the 'unfit' and, the converse, encouraging healthy, 'effi-
cient' reproduction. However _at the same time, an emphasis on sex as
a matter of private pleasure was emerging too, threatening to undermine
the stress on the responsibility to society of rationally managed sexual
activity.
The first difficulty to be confronted in the discussion_ of Australian
nineteenth-century_ sexual morals and manners is the very silence that
usually surrounds them in- ~he available sources. Although .there- ~-are
some guide books directed at young men and women about to- be
married, they- are far fewer- than similar publications in America for
example, and tracing which of the- overseas· literature was widely. -read
here is also difficult. In the medical sources information on sexual matters
is very scanty, doctors only expressing much interest when VD discussion
became more prominent with the_ First World War. Furthermore, oral
190
The rational management of sex 191
and written reminiscences generally keep a restrained silence on sexual

matters with only snippets of information here and there. Since in this
area we are confronted, more than ever, with scanty evidence, it becomes
necessary to use the available sources quite exhaustively and to draw on
evidence from the later period which refers back to the earlier.
In the nineteenth century, and still into the twentieth, discussion of
adult sexuality fell into two categories, licit and illicit sex; the former
taking place in marriage, the latter encompassing anything else. As
sexual activity was seen as intrinsically tied to reproduction, most dis-
cussion of legitimate sex took place in the context of the propagation
of the species. The popular health literature tended to focus on the
necessity of healthy sex for healthy parenthood, and on the social
dimension of both. As Dr Beaney wrote:
It is essential to the well being of the state, as well as of the individual,
that sexual union, under specific state regulations, should exist, and it is
equally necessary that it should be accompanied by health and vigour. 1
The theme that it was one'~ public duty to provide the State with
healthy children was to become increasingly strong in the twentieth
century, a theme given particular point in Australia .by the size of the
continent and the hopes for the future of the new nation. The emphasis
on the health of parents formed part of the general interest in health
education from the 1870s and 1880s on, in some instances leading to
explicit sexual advice. Fears of wasting vital energies produced cautions
not only against masturbation, but against sexual over-indulgence on the
part of married couples. Even when discussing sexual problems, later to
be viewed in much more personal and individual terms, the demands
of society were to the forefront. A persistent theme which other medical
writers shared with Beaney was the public dimension even of the sexual
function in marriage. Beaney went so far as to argue that were procreation
under rational control in marriage, men would be able to satisfy their
sexual wants there rather than by turning to prostitution with its
associated risk of VD. Not only would 'the social evil' be diminished
by a better order of rational sex in marriage, but other evils would be
lessened, especially 'the reckless procreation of beggars, larrikins and
felons'. Greater knowledge of sexual matters within marriage was in-
creasingly justified on the grounds of preventing broader social problems.
Although pamphlets and lectures warning of the dangers of VD and
offering a variety of treatments were available in the late nineteenth
century, it was not until after the turn of the century that the mainstream
192 The disenchantment of the- home
medical -profession had ·really turned its attention to -the -~problem.

Division -of opinion· emerged -regarding the extent of the disease .and
suitable ways of confronting it. At the final meetiJ?;g _of the 1908
Australasian -Medical Congress -there-.was considerable._discussion of-sy-
philis. Several GPs _a-rgued tha~ the specialists, such- as pu~lic health
authority, Sir Harry Allen,~were_-biased in their estimates of the.incidence
of- VD because of the nature of_ their sample. The operation of- the
Contagious. Diseases Act and prostitution rates _in various cities _were
discussed, with alarm =-expressed- that even '-respectable' families were
being. infected with VD because prostitutes 'attacked' good _ordinary_
family men while they- were drunk! It was- not until the Au~tralasian
Medical ·Congress of 1914. -that the- first really- explicit· discussion of
sexual matters took place. At this meeting, a -New- Zealand-Committee
on VD presented a serie~ of resolutions, supported by Dr ] am~s Barrett,
the leading medical spokes~an. on VD from Victoria .and by--Dr _Ralph
1
Worrall, _ his counterpart from Sydney. -

_ In -the discussion which_ follo-wed at this and then at later congresses,
as well. as in the MJA in tl!e 1920s, several controversial iss~es em~rged.
-The actual extent of the problem continued to be -debated,_c but -~here
were also professional disputes concerning its treatment; ·and·•particularly,
there was ·disagreement over- the education of the public and over the
use of prophylactics. Intertwined~ with the latter rwo:·disputeswere further
divisions of -opinion regar-ding· the role of tlie profession ana -the- relative
weighting -of rrioral as ·against sGientific arguments. Doctors expressed
concern at -the implication~ of delayed marriages and at the social cc
conditions producing theni:·-
Under our-present conditions of protection and high wages, to be a single

wage-earner is to have a fine ~time. and plenty of money to .spend in cheap
amusement af:1d_ personal. caprice, while to be a married _man _and father
of a family is to bear an ql}_~uly heavy burden of public debt and priv~te _
· harassment. 2
In spite of their mQralizing comments, some- doctors did not believe

that the medical profess-i6n's-~responsibility went so far as to include sex
education; rat~er doctors should be confined to dealing 'with sickness as
it arises'. Even those who did move towards support for~ ~ex education
for adolescents and ad\.llts, saw it very- much in the context of VD and
·prostitUtion:- 'education on the subject of sexual dangers' as one doctor
called it. 3
The dispute within the profession included· not only the advisability
of medical involvement in sex education, but whether such instruction
could be of value in combating VD and its relative efficacy vis-a-vis
legislative measures. The Royal Commission inquiring into VD in the
UK in 1916 stimulated further discussion both by private groups such
as the Association for Fighting VD and by Australian governments. As
a result of increasing agitation and public awareness between 1916 and
1920, compulsory notification legislation was enacted in all States save
South Australia, after the Commonwealth Government prompted State
interest in the VD problem and made finance available for its treatment.
The major contributors to the VD discussion were, once again, a mixture
of leading public health doctors such as Dr ] ames Barrett, other profes-
sionals such as teachers, and women prominent in the upper-middle-
class charity network. In Melbourne, for example, the Committee of the
Australian Association for Fighting VD, an organization active during
the 1920s, included representatives of the Medical Women's Society,
the MDNS, the Health Inspectors' Association and several churches. Mrs
Alfred Deakin, Mrs W. Laidlaw, Dr Constance Ellis, Dr Edith Barrett
(sister of Dr James Barrett) and other women doctors were included. 4
Many of those directly involved in the campaign against VD became
caught up in the more general controversy over the provision of sex
education. Throughout the interwar period VD and sex education were
closely related concerns; members of the Association to Fight VD also
led the way in the broader field, partly by actively engaging in provision
of instructional material and also by their contribution to public discus-
sion. The wcTu's activities included contact with 'social purity' societies
in England and the US, which were by the 1920s adopting the epithet
'moral and social hygiene'. Australian branches imported and dissemi-
nated their literature, including sex education pamphlets. In Victoria,
the war years entailed more activity on the part of local temperance
unions, 'by whom thousands of leaflets {were} distributed in camps and
placed in socks and parcels', lectures given and movie theatre proprietors
lobbied regarding provision of wholesome films. 5 Disputes continued
about the strategies for 'moral and social hygiene', or 'purity' and
education, particularly concerning whose responsibility it should be_ and
what format it should take.
Examination of the moral assumptions still evident in the twentieth
century reveals several interrelated concerns which had their roots in the
late nineteenth: those with the morals and homemaking ability of
working-class girls; the 'mothering' capacities of women in general; and

the eugenic concern with the future of the raee. For the perceived
problems in these areas, all of which were seen as matters of public
significance, a model of 'healthy', 'efficient' and, above all, 'rational'
sexuality was advocated as a solution.
The remarks of Dr Macarthur ~Brown of Sydney in 1937 echoed those
of physicians and social reformerS- of forty years or so -earlier.
The factory girl of fifteen-- or sixteen whose home life was perhaps
unwholesome, whose wages were poor and whose moral sense was some-
what astray, was apt- to be attracted by the comparative ease and luxury
associated with life on the streets. 6 -
In their explicitly sexual, as well_ as in their general ·familial roles and

behaviour, working-class w~men were an object _of considerable profes-
sional and 'charitable' interest. Nonetheless, it would be simplistic to
see this interest only in class terms as straightforward social control.
Rather, as Foucault particularly has argued, the actual 'construction'
rather than 'repression' of sexuality can be seen in these concerns. Wh_ile
cenain fears were held for the morals of -'factory girls', in the early
twentieth century this was part of a broader attention being given to
the national imponance of women's mothering capacities. The assump-
- tion that _women's primary role was reproductive dominated discussions
of other aspects of their existence, so that until very late in the interwar
period, women's sexuality was not discussed as such. Attention was
focused either on women's need for 'protection'' or on their physical
readiness for reproduction. It was towards the interests of the race in
panicular that woman's development, sexual but also intellectual, was
to -be directed and indeed 'constructed'. In the atmosphere of Social
Darwinism which characterized much intellectual and professional dis-
course in the late nineteenth century, women's capacity for propagating
the race became an obiect of intense interest. The growth of eugenics,
the study of the breeding patterns of human populations, was triggered
by developments in the specialized field _of genetics but drew on much
broader concerns with _the quantity and quality of population. Interest
in eugenics strongly influenced the infant and maternal welfare move-
ments, especially in Britain, as well as the concern with children's general
physical and mental fitness. It provided the major f9rum, other than ~he
_VD debates, for the pressures to change sexual mores, to increase knowl-
edge on sexual matters and spread a scientific, 'hygienic' attitude.
At its strongest, the eugenic movement was never large in terms of

numbers, but during the years of the early twentieth century, and right
through until the excesses of Nazism generally discredited the movement
in the 1940s, eugenic ideas had wide currency in Europe, North America
and Australia. The British Eugenics Society held regular meetings, gave
public lectures and published a major forum for hereditarian ideas, the
Eugenic Review; but the general climate of debate concerning the relative
influence of nature and nurture, heredity and environment spread much
more widely, particularly in professional middle-class circles. 7 What
emerged was an often confused amalgam of ideas: social reform .to
improve the environment, as well as the concern with 'germ-plasm', the
heredity stock. Ardent Antipodean eugenist, Truby King, for example,
in 1914 argued that the environment had to be improved to allow full
development of potential, but went so far as to say that even before
birth 'The individual is alive-is surrounded by an environment-and
the fitness of that environment, the condition of the ''aquarium'' depends
upon the habits and health of the mother'. 8 On the whole, however,
Australian social reformers of the period directed their energies to
improving the housing and health conditions of women and children as
their contribution to environment conducive to regeneration of the race.
Those stressing heredity and those who concentrated on environmental
influence. turned alike to examining women's role in the breeding of 'fit'
children, efficient future citizens, and to the marriage in which this was
to take place.
The recurrent theme, therefore, in discussion both of 'negative' and
of 'positive' eugenics was the obligation of the individual to promote
the future of the race through sexual restraint outside marriage, and by
rational planning of fertility with a well-chosen mate within it. For most
people the restraint and rational planning were to be voluntary, but
there were also hints ~hat compulsion might be necessary in the case of
those deemed 'unfit' for breeding. Hence, 'negative' eugenics referred to
restraint upon propagation of the species by individuals who are afflicted
by serious physical or mental infirmities. The recognition by persons so
affiicted of the necessity for restraint is, we need hardly say, the highest
form of patriotism. 9
The issue of sterilization of the 'unfit' and how to determine exactly
who they were aroused controversial discussion. Considerable strength of
feeling and certainly some fear were inspired by the projected association
of mental deficiency, crime and delinquency, sexual promiscuity- and

VD, all of which were often attributed_ by the professionals to the
working class in particular. -This general climate of opinion amongst
many professionals provided .the basis for the racial hygiene, or to use
its more academic term, the -eugenics, movement in Australia. Concerns
with infant mortality, the decline of the birth rate, VD, general hygiene
and nutrition, all came together with an admixture of class interests and
were manifest in the eugenics m()vement. Assumptions about the need
_for- a _larger population in Australia and the welfare of the wider British
Empire were the basis both of discussion. about working--elass sexual
behaviqur. and of t~e need for conscious, rational control of the sexual
instinct amongst 'the better .classes'.
Although in Australia, as in Britain, eugenics drew great support from
the professional middle class, reflecting their- particular interest in science
and rational management, as an ideology it drew too on traditional
bourgeois concerns with reforming the family life of the working-class.
In both respects, however,_ a contradiction emerged. Th~ emphasis on
the public rather· than the private dimension of sexual .activity, noted
for the nineteenth century, reached its apotheosis between the wars in
'racial hygiene' or eugenics. However, at the same time, the influence
of psychology and. changing media images of -sexual_ desirability were
tending towards individualizing and privatizing sex, potentially, at least,
affecting all social strata._
In the late 1920s and the 1930s the ideas of the eugenists had a
wider currency than the fairly small numbers actively engaged in- the
organizations. In Melbourne, public lectures were held on the aim and
scope of eugenics, the principles of heredity and environment, 'Social
Efficiency and Levels of Intelligence', and other topics relating ___ to the
future of the Australian- population~ 10 While numbers atte-nding lectures
fluctuated-, and sometimes disappointed the enthusiasts, the concerns- of
those active in the Eugenics~Society, as in the Racial Hygiene Movement
more generally, reveal their strong emphasis on the public dimension of
sexual- behaviour, on the- r-esponsibility of individuals to govern their
sexual behaviour in accordance with the needs of -the nation .. This- was
particularly apparent in 'negative eugenics', the discussion of the 'mul-
tiplication of the unfit', but also in broader goals of rationalizing sexual
activity right across the population.--
On the whole, eugenists were outspoken pro-natalists, but argued that-
although- Australia did need -a- much higher population, it was the
quality of this which counted. The concern with the 'multiplication of
those wretched stocks, these people who were of low-grade mentality',

as one woman from the Victorian Eugenics Society referred to them 11 ,
led to calls for asylums for the 'mentally deficient', and even for their
sterilization. The interest in what were frequently referred to as 'mental
defectives' was complex; it arose partly out of experimental psychology
and was related to the measurement of schoolchildren. The newly
established professions-doctors, teachers, psychologists-led the public
discussion of the perceived problems, but the frequency of remarks and
their location in a variety of contexts suggests a wide audience for
discussion of 'mental deficiency'. Fears of criminality and of sexual
promiscuity lent urgency to the demands for segregation of those thought
likely to 'contaminate' the population. Members of the Melbourne
Paediatric Society, for example, agreed with Professor Richard Berry that
it was unfair for normal children to be brought up alongside 'mental
deficients' who could pose a social menace. 12 It was claimed that as they
often lacked control over their sexual appetite or tended to delinquency
on various scores, they needed to be segregated according to age and
sex. Sterilization, the other solution recommended for the 'mentally
deficient' or 'defective', went still further than segregation. Although
opposed by some on civil libertarian grounds, sterilization was taken
seriously as a possible eugenic measure. The Victorian Eugenics Society
only went so far as to advocate voluntary sterilization, but this seems to
have been on the pragmatic grounds of not alienating public opinion.
Mrs Angela Booth's 1938 lecture, Voluntary sterilization for human
betterment, cited British and American evidence for the problems caused
by 'bad stocks' in society. 13 She also drew on local material to argue
that the proportion of 'mental deficients' in the population was growing.
She "dvocated sterilization not as a 'punitive, but as a racially protective
and therapeutic measure', citing patients at a California hospital who,
'However poor and feeble, . . . are made to feel that they have a part
in preventing misery to mankind' . 14
The theme of prevention was in keeping with an emphasis on
preventive rather than curative medicine. It was regularly pointed out
that the nation had to spend vast sums on social welfare and penal
measures to care for the mentally ill or criminal population. By contrast,
'properly established working colonies' and, according to others, sterili-
zation would be· of great economic as well as moral value. It is not
possible to estimate how widely the interest in sterilization for eugenic
purposes was accepted in the community. Certainly not many people
came forward for such a measure, even to Dr Victor Wallace, who was
undertaking such operations in the late 1930s. Nor did many offer
'eugenic' considerations as their motivation for contraception. Yet in
professional· circles the discussion was lively and some reference to
controlling the procreation of those thought 'unfit', whether on grounds
of intellectual or moral capacity, appeared iri many contexts.
The concerns of eugenists were wider, however; like colleagues else-
where, Ausrralian racial hygienists were particularly concerned about the
possibility of the poorer classes breeding faster than· the 'better classes',
but this was expressed ·more warily in public than in private. In 1939
Professor Agar, a leader in the Victorian Society, argued in Eugenics and
the future of the Australian population that 'There is overwhelming
evidence that family limitation is practised to a much greater extent by
persons of higher grade· mental capacities than by those of lower grade
capacities'. ~ Moreover, he suggested that this did have a class basis
because, _despite problems of inequality of opportunity in the existing
social system, the demands -made by higher grades of occupation on
natural intelligence and the social mobility that occurred, meant that
there was a higher concentration of ability in high status classes. 15
Although Agar claimed that it -was the unequal fertilities of the different
classes ·that was the problem, other eugenist comments reveal a clearer
focus on the working class. Mrs Booth, for example, maintained during
a discussion ofVD by the Eugenics Society that 'we should take scientific
information to the places where it is most urgently needed, to the
factories in the luncheon hour, men and girls could be addressed there,
and those who need the knowledge will be benefited'·. 16 A .paper. at the
1929 Racial Hygiene Conference in Sydney was exceedingly blunt:
What is the right type to breed in the community? ... The world cannot
go on producing as it is doing. The increasing population of the world
is composed largely of inferior stock at the expense of the superior stock.
By inferior we are entitled to refer to the labouring classes, not in the
sense of social distinction, but in regard to unskilled and inefficient
workers. The lower class are the labouring class, the higher strata are
there because they merit being there} 7
Despite some controversy. over this speaker's other remarks on immi-

grants, there seems to have been general acceptance of his main argument.
Although the wish to ascertain and control the breeding. of those
deemed 'mentally deficient' assumed their existence in greater- numbers
in the working class, 'positive' eugenics was aimed more broadly.. It ·is
therefore of even greater interest in its attempt to impose consciously

rational controls on sexual behaviour in the interests of the nation and
the race. The emphasis on the importance of mind and will in controlling
the sex drive had strong roots in earlier thinking, including that of
religious moralists who saw the sexual instinct as part of the animalistic
side of human nature. However, the extension of rationality to controlling
the results of sexual intercourse within marriage was quite a different
matter. While many remarks of eugenists in the 1930s were strongly
reminiscent of the pro-natalist Birth Rate Commissioners of the 1900s,
their strategy was now quite different. Sharing the same concern with
working-class reproductive patterns, they turned increasingly to promot-
ing rationally controlled procreative behaviour for everybody. As G.R.
Searle. points out with regard to the ideology of national efficiency in
Britain, it was even towards the efficiency of the ruling class itself that
much of the concern was directed. 18 This reflected not just a fear of
being outbred by the 'lower classes', although this was strong, but also
a desire to improve the 'quality of the good stock' to ensure and
maintain bourgeois hegemony in societies threatened by economic depres-
sion and unrest. As with several related reform movements, a particular
social group led the campaign. The eugenists or racial hygienists, two
only slightly different faces of the same movement, came predominantly
from the professional middle class: doctors, especially those in public
health; psychologists; lawyers; miscellaneous .educationalists; government
officials; women of philanthropic inclination; and liberal clergymen. The
Victorian Eugenics Society, for example, included on its executive leading
university figures in science and education, a judge, a unitarian minister,
doctors and the important benefactress of birth control in Melbourne,
Mrs Janie Butler. 19 The 1938 membership list suggests that this pattern
also characterized the organization as a whole which was, it must be
stressed, only small. Nonetheless, their public positions were not insig-
nificant and the general climate of discussion with regard to hygiene-
physical, social and 'moral'-included frequent reference to eugenic ideas.
These notions of sexuality and procreative behaviour were gradually
disseminated in professional and lay advice literature in the twentieth.
century. By comparison with earlier texts, the post-1914 sex education
and- medical· literature advocated the control of sexual instincts less
obviously for moral reasons than for those of science and health. Even
some religious writers were formulating their discussion along more
modern lines by the 1930s, suggesting that the interests of the couple
and of society lay in careful procreation:
200 The disen.chantment of the home
Men and women are given by God the dignity of being partners- with
him in creating the family life. Such a partnership should be conscious
and deliberate. The acts that expect to culminate in parenthood should
be initiated in and after prayer, -and never left ·to chance happening. 20
It-was not only in the area of controlling conception, however, that
the subjection- of the sexual instinct to- rational direction was to take
place. The eugenists promoted greater attention to choice of marriage
partner in the first place. Concern about late marriage- was expressed
even in the late nineteenth century, when it was feared that this con-
tributed both to problems of women's- reproductive system and men's
resort to masturbation and prostitution. The interest in eu-genics increased
the public significance of the decision to marry, stressing the couple's
responsibility to society to make an early, healthy marriage. Ardent
eugenists went so far as to propose the medical surveillance of marriage
through inspection of those about to marry and certification of their
fitness for such union. Although it was never seized upon with great
enthusiasm by the population at large, the notion of a certificate of
fitness for marriage was seriously put forward in various situations from
around the First World War on. 21 The Racial Hygiene Association of
New South Wales and another similar body, the Institute of Family
Relations,- run by Mrs· Marion Piddington, were to the forefront of
promoting pre-marital medical examinations for eugenic purposes. In
describing the work of the RHA's Marriage Advice Centre, Mrs Goodisson
wrote that
The exchange of pre-marital certificates will, we hope, do much to prevent
young people rushing into married life without any knowledge of the
possible difficulties they are going to meet ...
. ·.. 'They know not what they do' -who rush into marriage without
any idea of the -constitution, upbringing, or still more important, what
has been the health, mentally and physically, of their forefathers. 22
The marriage certificate issued by the society in the 1930s- was entitled
'Marriage certificate for health and fitness'. It testified- that the person
had been examined for hereditary and contagious disease and was 'fit
for marriage', 'not fit for marriage', 'fit for' or 'not fit for -parenting'.
The Institute of Family Relations also included pre-marriage advice
and its prospectus revealed the full range of the new concerns. 23 Clearly
in _evidence was the influence of psychology, both on- the 'probl~ms' ·of
children and their parents; information and advice was available on V-D,
sex training and contraception, and also on 'Problein children, marital
problems, mental testing, psychological guidance for parents and "perv-

ersions" '. A note about their 'objective method of sex training' said it
would not only 'enable parents to safeguard their children against sex
habits, promiscuity and venereal disease' but also give 'psychological
help to prevent nervous conditions which may gravely impair their
children's happy development, and even result in serious mental dis-
turbances'. ] ust as the influence of psychology was apparent in the shift
in childrearing advice by the 1920s and 1930s, so in the area of sexuality,
therefore, a post-Freudian era was dawning. The nineteenth-century
discussion of sexuality was not only clearly moralistic in its emphasis,
but its focus on controlling sexual behaviour was centred on external
threats of sexual arousal. A pre-Freudian 'innocence' stressed the absence
of sexuality in children, drawing attention to external dangers rather
than internal threats to self control. After about 1914 the sex education
and related literature reflected the psychological emphasis on mental
functioning and on the great strength of an innate sexual instinct; it was
therefore less sanguine about the individual's ability to allay the sexual
urge, even with cold baths, sport and so on. 24
This changed outlook was apparent in medical sources from just
before the War but escalated considerably by the late 1920s and 1930s
with the growth of the Mental Hygiene movement. On the one hand
it sounded a new note of acceptance of sexual pleasure, but on the other
it portrayed sexual control in terms not only of overt behaviour but of
inward disposition and personality. Hints of the newer approach were
evident in 1914 in the comments of Dr Harvey Sutton, Sydney paedia-
trician and former Victorian School Medical Officer. He said we should
avoid all 'suggestive' material, but
Sexuality has been implanted in our nature by the Creator for the wisest
purposes, and it is closely related to the highest attributes of our nature-
the love of wife, of child, and of home.
His comments showed the ambivalence about sexuality which continued
to plague the reformers of 'sexual hygiene'. They, often at one and the
same time, bitterly inveighed against the traditional veil of prudery and
against out-dated morality, but continued to insist that sex was a spiritual
and moral matter. They argued for a new, rational, scientific approach
to resolve the dilemma of not viewing sex as dirty and shameful, but
of still putting strong constraints on indulgence in sexual activity.
A process of redefinition of traditional concepts was taking place:
prudery was to become prudence; repression was to become controlled
expression; and immortality and spirituality-were to be achieved through

exalting the role of mind and will. Although the discussion of the
eugenists was frequently filled with religious and moral asides, the newer
notions of openness and rationality rested uneasily beside them. Speeches
given -at the 1929 Racial Hygiene Conference illustrate the problem
clearly, showing the extent to which the racial hygienists puzzled over
them. In the course gf four days'_ worth of lectures on VD, mental
deficiency _and like eugenic concerns, a clergyman spoke on 'Sex sanity
or the significance of sex'; a woman from the Salvation Army outlined
her approach to sex education, using her own- family as illustration; and
the Commonwealth Film ~Censor gave a paper entitled 'Sex and soul'.
In the -last-mentioned, Mr Cresswell O'Reilly emphasized the relationsh-ip
between the sexual and ·spiritual. aspects of sexual relationships, finishing
with a lyrical plea for lifting 'the- great sex passion from the darkness
and the dust' and enshrining it in the soul. 26 A very similar message
was evident in other speeches: _ rejection of past prudery jockeying with
romanticism about the wonders .and beauties of sex,- carefully ~efined of
course as rational, marital and, above all, 'healthy' sex.
In the efforts of the -social hygienists to break with. old silences, and
to introduce a new model of responsible, rational sexual behaviour, clear
evidence can be seen of what Foucault refers to as the development of
the modern 'discourse' of sex, no longer seen only as a matter of overt
behaviour or of social regulation but as central to the meaning of- the -
individual. In this process of re-evaluation and redefinition of .sexuality,
as in that of childrearing, _the role of psychology was outstanding.
Psychology was invoked both to understand the patterns_ of 'normal
development' and to suggest appropriate remedies for those with sex
problems. The influence ofpsychological_theories also led to the emphasis
on professional guidance to cope with problems of abnormal development
and, in particular, the difficulties created by the reticence and fear of sex
which was thought to be characteristic of the preceding generation. At
the same time the growth in awareness of internal psychological devel.;.
opments produced a tendency which contradicted the professionals' ·stress
on the public responsibilicy of rationally managed sexuality. -Although
the aims of .pre-marital .advice and other forms of counselling were
frequently eugenic, the focus ··of the counselling became individualized.
A particularly clear example of these contradictory developments is
evident in the records of =Victoria's leading eugenist, Victor Wallace.
Just as Wallace's reading in the area of eugenics, combined with his
practical experience of women's need for contraception, led him to
establish a birth control clinic, so his interest in sexual matters also

increased. His papers therefore reveal on the one hand, a firm commit-
ment to eugenic principles, especially the responsibility of the individual
to the race and the nation, but his clinical records reveal the privatized
and individualized nature of the sexual counselling which was thus
inspired.
Selective sampling of the cases of sexual counselling reveals not only
the intensely private and personal nature of problems, but several
significant common issues. Most of these themes are consistent with
recent investigations of sexual experience, especially that of women, which
have pointed to problems of communication between the men and
women regarding sexual fulfilment; pressures on men to 'perform'; and
to the complex nature of women's sexuality, particularly in patriarchal
culture. Out of a total of 106 selected cases, forty-two consultations were
for male problems of sexual performance, thirty sought help with
women's lack of sexual response, nineteen showed evidence that women
were expecting, but not receiving, adequate sexual pleasure, and thirteen
cases cited problems of sexual ignorance.
The sexual problems of males included impotence, premature ejacu-
lation and vague 'absence of sexual desire'. There were far fewer cases
of sexual ignorance leading to trauma mentioned amongst men than
women. However, one young man of 22, a football enthusiast, was so
frightened when aroused by his girlfriend's attempt at passionate tongue-
kissing that he had a trembling fit and ran for the nearest tram! Another
27-year-old man reported that he had been given 'no sex education
whatever by parents' and that consequently, between the ages of 14 and
19, 'sex was a nightmare'. He had been afraid to undress at school, a
problem clearly stemming from his childhood, as Wallace's notes show:
When four years of age he got a terrible fright when his mother pulled
back the bedclothes and said 'If you play with that you'll get it cut off!'
When aged three years he was playing on the floor when he asked 'who
made us?', 'God' answered his grandmother and laughed. At school he
would never play sport because it meant changing his clothes.
Although it was more common that male dissatisfaction with women's

lack of sexual response was reported than vice versa, in a few cases the
men's fears for their own performance were increased by their wives'
expectations of sexual intercourse. One 31-year-old man's wife left him
twelve ·days before the consultation because they had not had intercourse
for three months. Wallace noted: 'His sexual desires have fallen' and
204 The disenchantment of the· home
'-His wife is strongly sexed. Wife co-operates to some extent. She is

anxious to have a baby'.
In many other cases, however, the repeated theme -was the dissatis-
faction of either wife or husband, or both, with her lack of sexual
responsiveness and, particularly, failure to reach org~m. Although in
some instances fears of pregnancy or clear-cut medical problems existed,
some poignant cases of the .· traumatic results of sexual ignorance are
recorded. One couple, for example, .finally separated in the 1940s after
eighteen years of marriage. The ·wife came to see Wallace and ·reported
that she.
had not read any books on sex until two years ago. It has wrecked our
lives. I had never carried on with men before our marriage. I believe he
was as ignorant as I was. He had read no books on sex, as far as I know.
We never discussed sex before marriage ...
I had my period when 1· was married, so we didn't have intercourse
on our wedding night . . . when I suggested having intercourse when I
was no longer unwell, he didn't seem interested. -
They had apparently only ever achieved partial intercourse all through
their married life because of ignorance about their anatomy. The woman
now told Wallace that her .husband 'hasn't touched me for eight years',
although he had turned to other women. Her complaint was one that
Wallace heard frequently and which fired eugenists' campaigns for greater
sexual honesty: 'Mother never taught me anything about sex, except to
tell us not to bring disgrace on the family'. Other cases of trauma
recorded in this clinical material told the same story. One woman had
bled so much and was in a state of 'psychic shock' on her wedding
night that a doctor had been summoned to the hotel. Another told
Wallace that she was so ignorant of sexual matters that 'I got quite a
shock when I saw it' (her husband's penis) after their marriage. The
nineteenth-century legacy of sex as diny and nasty had, therefore, left a
mark on several patients; one man consulted Dr Wallace seeking medical
evidence concerning the non-consummation of his seventeen-year mar-
riage. He confided that his wife thought of sex as a 'dirty habit': 'She
said sexual· intercourse had nothing to do with love, and that it wasn't
necessary'. She had made him feel as though he was raping his own
sister.
Dr Wallace's response to these distressingly pathetic accounts was to
offer medical assistance and sexual information. He gave instruction in
sexual technique, where possible encouraging women to try positions
which they preferred and prescribing stimulants to arouse them or, in

cases of acute physical discomfort, medication for pain relief. The cases
already quoted indicate something of the extent of personal tragedy and
unhappiness which came to light as the taboos fell away from sexual
discussion and professional guidance became available. Even though the
particular sample drawn on above is biased towards sexual problems,
the records of straight medical and contraceptive cases and oral and
literary evidence provide ample other support for the problems of sexual
taboos.
As the barriers of silence broke down, and professionals developed
therapeutic techniques for sexual problems, some pent-up difficulties
poured out. In the 1930s, Dr Wallace was no doubt unusual in his
innovation of specific sexual counselling, and the data used here is a
poor guide to the sexual lives of the population as a whole. Nonetheless,
the intensely personal nature of individuals' concerns stands out. There
is in this data very little suggestion (only two or three cases) of the
concern with the public aspect of sex-eugenic concerns-and this
despite Wallace's reputation as a prominent eugenist. His own interests
were not only therapeutic but related to broad issues of social hygiene.
He regularly questioned patients regarding their sexual knowledge and
its sources, noting which books they had read, if any. But, possibly to
his dismay, of those who reported that they had read books, most had
been seeking information either on sexual technique for the sake of their
own pleasure and marital harmony, or on contraception, again for their
own reasons. Wallace's eugenist colleague, ·Professor Agar, was also
conscious of this disjunction: 'the motives for the limitation of the size
of families have been personal or family interests, not the interests of
the race'. 27 In spite of this difference in the interests of professionals and
patients, they met on common therapeutic ground. For many of Wallace's
patients at least, sex was a troublesome activity, loaded with taboos
from the past, but promising personal fulfillment if they could only
solve their individual problems.
The personal nature of the counselling situation itself perhaps points
more strongly than is warranted to an individualizing of sexuality by
the 1930s, but other evidence of quite a different nature suggests the
same conclusion. Advice given in the Press and women's magazines was
not altogether in accord with the eugenic pronouncements of health and
psychology professionals. Rather than the rational model of sexual activity
directed towards a combination of pleasure and 'efficient' procreation,
these sources reveal a quite different tendency: towards what has been
described as the commercialization or indeed 'commodification' of sex

and~ the body. Starting in the late 1920s, a considerable cultural shift
developed with the emergence of new cultural models taken -from
American movies, and -an emphasis on individual, personal sexu~l- at-
tractioQ_. For example, during the late 1920s and 1930s, women's
magazines showed a shift of focus, one which could have stimulated a
more individualized approach to sexuality but which also suggests
another form of manipulative control.
New Idea/The Everylady's journal was the Melbourne women's mag-
azine most clearly directing advice to women to bring their appearance
and behaviour into accord with modern thinking. Marked -changes took
place in the images _of beauty and in advice- about the body -in the
1900-1930s period. Whereas_ before the First World CWar the major
stress of homilies and advice columns was on moral worth---with-personal
attractiveness springing from_ inner goodness-by the .1930s the encou.r-
agement of virtue had been replaced by a multitude of specific instru€-
tions on modifying the person, both physically and psychologically. Local
models of womanly virtue ·had---been replaced by American _-packaged
imag~ of feminine -beauty; th~ Hollywood image was brought closer to
Australian women not only- by- a variety of articles- but- by- photographic
- and advertising techniques. CChanges in fashion models Teflected changes
in the- system of production and consumption of clothing, and home-
made health and beauty remedies· were increasingly_ replaced by ac!ver-
tisements for commercial products. Moreover, by _the 1930s- the beauty
hints showed a much greater preoccupation with _the body, and the
pictures and- advertising revealed much more_ of women's bodies as·
fashions became more daring.- Increasingly, women were encouraged to
view their bodies as problems: 'Are you·.proud of your arms?' asked one
column, recommending treatment so that after a week 'You won't-know
your own arms! They'll be so soft and white!'. 28 Although nineteenth-
century sources also gave advice on-beauty,_setting up norms and issuing
remedies, the tone of the .advice became more overtly patronizing and
based on the provision of mass-produced beauty commodities._. As ··the
growing use of photography provided more and more images of overseas
beauties, the body was bared -and given increased attention. The- norms
of beauty became ·more constrained:
Have you crouched over a .fire during winter and have you sat over your
desk until your shoulders were rounded, a lump of ugly fat gathering on
the back- of your neck and is the skin a muddy colour with- some of -last
summer's tan fast disappearing ... You will never look as Rochelle
Hudson looks in her swimsuit if you are all hunched up, so start right
away to get into trim for summer. 29
A tone· of scornful disapproval of the body that would not reach the
approved standards became evident. The tone and language of articles
altered and advertisements for beauty care products increased. Women
were now addressed-hailed as subjects-in a derogatory tone, in words
and sentences that lacked the richness, complexity and gentle irony of
advice before the First World War. This was particularly noticeable in
comments on ageing. By 1927 articles such as that entitled 'New faces
for old', on surgical 'uplifts', appeared, informing women that they
should no longer tolerate ageing with equanimity. A 1937 article went
so far as to suggest aids such as make-up to delay and then camouflage
growing old. 'Growing old gracefully means growing old disgracefully' 30 ,
readers were told in a new tone of disgust. Beauty was becoming a
moral obligation in itself, and furthermore a 'science' of beauty was
emerging. In the Argus a series of articles in 1933 included 'The structure
of the skin' and discussion of the harsh effects of the Australian climate. 31
In the 1930s the first mention of dieting for beauty appeared, although
the emphasis was primarily on health: after the Second World War,
however, diets and reliance on 'foundation garments' were to be essential
for the modern woman to achieve an acceptably youthful figure.
The considerable cultural changes evident in sources in the late 1920s
and 1930s requires further detailed study. But the effects of increased
anxiety about the body are hinted at by a revealing letter found in the
Wallace clinical material. A woman doctor referred on to Wallace a
letter she had received from a girl who was worried about being flat-
chested:
It would not have occurred to me to consult anyone about this but I
read an article in the magazine Woman by Dr Wykeham Terris on this.
He said it was due to a hormone deficiency, and mentioned injections.
If you could do anything for me or give me any advice, could I come
and see you in my lunch hour one day? 32
'Wykeham Terris' was the pseudonym for a leading sexual reformer,

Norman Haire, who like some other doctors was by then providing
regular counselling, both personal and generalized, through the women's
magazines. An increasing professionalization of health and beauty care
advice was apparent in the Everylady's journal, both in the area of child-
208 The disenchantment of the- home
care advice and other aspects of health. Through these columns and
through the portrayal of body imagery, the 'modern' approach- to sex-
uality began to be conveyed. Certainly it was not without resistance;
both religious groups and racial hygienists loudly decried the-introduction
of false sentimentality in the- portrayal of marriage and sexual relation-
ships, and the 'immodesty' of dress which was becoming fashionable.
Women's organizations and the .churches pressed for film censorship,
and the eugenists for 'racial responsibility'. The forces of cultural change,
however, were greater than even they realized.
In concluding this analysis, therefore, we can see that a complex series
of developments interlocked at some_ points and cut across each other at
others. On the one hand, groups with radically different aims and
premises co-operated in the field of sex education: the onslaught on
what was seen as -traditional prudery was the common goal which drew
together secular reformers of 'sexual hygiene' and profoundly conservative
Christian evangelists.~ On the other hand, some more liberal· church
people were supporting the extension _of a model of rationally controlled
sexual activity in marriage, even beginning to accept contraception as
the logical culmination of human evolution, mind and will triumphing
over 'animalism'. The particular groups of middle-class professionals
who espoused, -and promoted, eugenic principles saw themselves as
ushering in a new enlightened era. Much to their dismay, of course,
other developments were undermining their ideals. In the _media, for
example, models of sexual relationships and activities were presented
which were far more explicit in portrayal of sexual pleasure than anything
they thought appropriate, granted their emphasis on sexual- restraint.
Furthermore, their own activities contributed to a r~definition of sex as
not only a matter of social activity but a sphere of personal, psychological
fulfillment. There were significant contradictions not only between the
mysticaljspiritual and psychologicaljpleasurable emphases, but between
both these interpretations of the meaning of sex and the rational,
scientizing, calculative mode of the eugenists with their 'marriage cer-
tificates' and the like.
What these contradictory developments actually meant for people at
large it is still difficult to say._ Oral and_ clinical evidence tends to suggest
relief at the breakdown of nineteenth-century sexual taboos, and a
readiness to- turn to contraception, but the social process of constructing
male and f~male sexuality in the interwar period and the _1940s certainly
requires further study. What is clear is that considerable changes were
taking place in this period which were the culmination of those set in
motion in the late nineteenth century. The national and racial concerns
of the eugenists, while they dominated ideological discourse on sex
amongst the professionals, were undermined both by a psychologizing
tendency and by cultural changes rooted in the sphere of capitalist
production. It is likely that the responses to such developments were
class specific, but as yet we do not know in what ways. Moreover, despite
their interest in working-class breeding patterns, even the eugenists in
Australia were aiming at a broad transformation of attitudes to sex and
reproduction, and the growing openness about sexual pleasure charac-
terized both popular media and professional sources. In this aspect of
their re-forming strategies, the experts spearheaded, but could not con-
trol, an invasion of familial relationships of far-reaching significance.
10
The experts and the dilemma of disenchanttnent
The series of strategies directed at the home which I have discussed in

this book were sometimes subtle and always complex. Although Aus-
tralian attempts to reform· domestic life reflected similar movements in
North America, Northern Europe and Britain, there were differences of
audience, timing and direction. I have argued that a coherent thread
runs through the several, seemingly disparate efforts to make the house-
hold more efficient and scientific and family life itself more 'rationally'
ordered. This thread l have analysed as an ideology of technical ration-
ality, the attempt to represent the family as governed by the same
principles of means-end relationship, calculation and rational control
which are essential features of ·commercial and industrial activity. The
technocratic consciousness, as Habermas terms it, was particularly char-
acteristic of an increasingly significant section of the middle class, those
with professional or technical training. These 'experts' worked closely
with bourgeois reformers, but their interests were not identical. I do not
claim that the differences between them were always .readily apparent or
that a fundamental clash of class interests existed in their co-operative
efforts to transform the family and the household. By looking carefully
at their respective goals and strategies, however, I have pointed to an
underlying contradiction between the experts' model of an organized,
hygienic home, and psychologized, rationally managed family, and the
form of domestic life adopted and promoted by the bourgeoisie. My
analysis of Australian developments contributes to our understanding·of
the role of the professionals, or intellectuals as they are also referred to,
with regard to the social structuring of the family. Interpretative accounts
and theory in this area frequently suffer from failure to explore tensions
210
The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment 211
and ambivalences, and hence too great a readiness to accept the effec-
tiveness of domination along class and gender lines.
As I noted earlier, theoretical interest in the role of the professional
middle class has come from non-Marxist sociologists as well as Marxists.
In spite of the differences in their critiques, Lasch, Donzelot and Ehren-
reich have also pointed to the impact of the experts upon the family. 1
Whereas many other writers make at least passing reference to the
imposition of 'middle-class' patterns of domestic life upon the working
class in the early years of the twentieth century, the argument of this
work, as that of Lasch, Donzelot and Ehrenreich, is somewhat different.
We all argue that the professionals were emerging as a social force in
their own right in this period, and that the efforts to remake working-
class domestic life were part of a broader effort to reshape the culture
of industrial capitalist societies. Where our analyses differ, however, is
in interpretation and explanation of this development. Donzelot seems
to me to provide no coherent let alone convincing explanation, and that
of Lasch, while his discussion is provocative, is only implicit in his
argument that the shift to corporate capitalism has required a new form
of personality, the family's production of which has been supervised by
the experts. Ehrenreich has also argued that the experts' project has to
be understood in terms of the changing nature of capitalist society, but
that the goal of the new strata of professionals was to instil the work
habits necessary to industrial capitalism. The difference in interpretation
here no doubt reflects Ehrenreich's emphasis on the early twentieth
century, Lasch's on developments coming to fruition in later decades.
Ehrenreich -at least includes an emphasis on the dynamic role of the
experts, their emergence in the class structure and conscious attempt to
carve out a niche for themselves.
The limitations of these interpretations were discussed in Chapter 2
and I shall only briefly recapitalute here. Lasch and Donzelot's anti-
feminism is not shared by Ehrenreich but in none of their accounts do
women play an active role. Rather the professionals impose the new
notions of domestic life largely on behalf of the ruling class, or in
Donzelot's view, in the interest of general social administration.
Moving now from these broader interpretations to the Australian
context, there have been few comparable discussions of the role of the
professional middle class. While debates have been lively .over the role
of women and the family in Australian history, even writers most critical
of the class and gender arrangements evident in the developing Australian
society have stressed the dominance of ruling-class men in laying down
the established patterns of domestic life. Summers, for example, strongly

emphasizes the extension of a bourgeois model of the family in the late
nineteenth century, and Game and Pringle see .the post-Second World
War period in -terms of the .largely successful incorporation- of-working-
class families into the bourgeois cultural hegemony. 2 There is much_ that
is accurate and insightful in their interpretations, but my own work
produces a different emphasis. By stressing··the-complexity, yet coherence,
of the attempts to reform the family, I have argued that the professionals'
strategies and goals were not always at- one with those -of bourgeois
reformers. Furthermore, women were not just passive victims -but par-
ticipated in a variety. of ways in the remaking of home and family.
- The analysis of domestic-science, the medicalization of reproduction
and the changes in childrearing and sexuality, reveal the interlocking
efforts of a network of professional and technical experts. Although
further research would uncover- more of the links between members of
this network, and clarify further the nature -of their inter-action, it is
already ·cleat that by the early decades of the twentieth century the
Australian States each had a core of 'experts~. They corresponded and
met with each other, both professionally and -socially, and despite factions
and .disputes, frequently supported each others' endeavours. The same
people regularly appeared on committees and in government inquiries
and the overlap of concerns was evident in many contexts. Housing
reform for example included ··notions of an appropriate sexual division
of labour, women's role being to provide the clean, well-managed,
'domestic.scientized' home for her.husband returning from the industrial
workforce. It also included an -emphasis on orderly sexual relationships
in the family: mother and father should share the double bedroom;
children should be in separate rooms, boys in one, girls in another.- The
reformers shared many of ~their basic assumptions whether they ~were
doctors, teachers, psychologists or childcare specialists.
There are some indications that they also shared a sirp.ilar social
background. Frequently of Nonconformist, but increasingly secular, back-
ground, they came from families of the colonial urban middle class in
which values of sobriety and diligence were accompanied by aspirations
for worldly advancement. They were then an emerging social group for
which f.ormal education and particular skills promised greate-r prestige
and power than held by their professional or petit-bourgeois parents.
The growth of State institutions provided the opportunity; not only the
general expansion of the public service but particular developments such
as the emergence of the bureaucracy of health and education -departments
provided a new range of positions. The school medical and infant welfare
services were significant institutional bases for the experts' intervention
in the family.
In Australia, in spite of many strategies explicitly directed at working-
class domestic life, the broad thrust of the reform programme was
towards all social strata. This was reflected in, and made possible by,
the provision of universal services by the State. Although the geographical
reach of these services varied in different States, in the metropolitan
areas the infant welfare clinics for example provided centres of reform
action, their influence spread wider by deliberate propaganda and the
diffusion of the modern principles of infant care through newspapers
and magazines. These clinics, but also domestic science teaching, school
medical services, kindergartens and child guidance services, did not
remain confined to industrial working-class areas. Indeed, I have argued
that middle-class families adopted their message with the greatest zeal.
The evidence suggests therefore that any interpretation which concentrates
exclusively on the reformers' efforts, undoubtedly strong though they
were, to incorporate working-class families into another set of cultural
values and practices, at least partly misses the point. The home_ man-
agement and childcare experts, along with reformers of sexual and
reproductive practices, were engaged in a broader missionary endeavour.
The experts shared not only a generally similar social background,
but a pattern of formal training and work experience, frequently in
Britain and the US, which led them to emphasize the value of efficient
management. Not only was this the motif of the emerging industrial
order as exemplified by Taylorism, but it was seen as the golden rule of
all social life. The experts' stress on technical efficiency, on the application
of scientific knowledge- to practical problems, reflected their own material
interests and became their general pattern of consciousness. It took form
in a variety of ways, such as style of language: the precision of termi-
nology and orderly arrangement characteristic of the later childrearing
literature for example. The emphasis on measurement and regular rou-
tine, so typical of the infant welfare movement, provided organizing
principles for the rituals of everyday life. Enthusiasm for the new, the
modern, the technical, indeed for gadgetry of all sorts, frequently accom-
panied other aspects of the technocratic consciousness. Dr Vera Scantle-
bury and her husband Professor Edward Brown, an engineer, were for
instance extremely excited by their new washing-machine; were interested
in radio; and embraced other accoutrements of modern society, such as
motor cars, with considerable delight. Like their colleagues, they shared
some apprehensions about the stresses of modern life, but were generally
confident that social relationships· too were amenable to rational control,
that problems of mental 'hygiene' were those of adjustment to the new
ways of living made necessary .by_ industrial society. So the technocratic
consciousness .was not confined to the public sphere, the professional
middle class aspired to extend it throughout society, through all social
classes and all aspects of life. Management therefore became a favourite
term not only in industry and commerce but in discussion of housework,
childrearing and sexuality. The·kitchen was·.to be a laboratory, children's
play a training ground for business, and the marital bedroom the site
of family planning.
The various. aspects of this preoccupation with efficient management
came together in the -·professionals' emphasis on national and social
efficiency as the unifying goal of· all classes. As Rowse has also argued-
in discussing the intellectuals' 'liberalism', they-saw their· role as .ushering
in,_ and then also directing, a new harmonious social order freed from
outdated class 'antagonisms'. 3 In this respect the experts were clearly
providing ideological leadership in the interest of the stat-us quo of
bourgeois dominance . In a period in which the working class was
becoming more organized through unions and the political labour move-
ment, t-he professional middle class proclaimed the necessity of consensus.
Not only during the First -w-orld= War, but at many other points they
played on the theme of national- survival, meaning of course white
Anglo-Saxon dominance. Concern with Australia's birth rate, with the
behaviour of <;hildren .and with _adults' work and leisure -habits, all
reflected this theme and· were common to bourgeois ·philanthropists· and
professional reformers alike.
However, I have argued that the experts .had a particular message of
their own: a representation of reality which meshed with their own
experience of the world especially their position in the labour market
and the skills related tO· it. In advocating the rational management of
the home, they did not just want to make working-class families cleaner
and better behaved, although t~ey wanted that too. They were striving
_for the_ reordering of even · bourgeois homes. The Truby King infant
welfare faction argued explicitly -chat 'mismanaged' homes were not the
province of the· working class, and all mothers required education in the
scientific principles of baby care. The widening of the ambit of reform
strategies, l believe, is of some significance.
At several points in the preceding chapters I contrasted this broader
goal of the professionals with the narrower focus on the working class
which characterized bourgeois reformers. This analysis raises the question

of the relationship between these groups. It is one which Ehrenreich, for
example, on the American evidence, answers by suggesting that the
professionals constituted a new 'class' threatening the established bour-
geois dominance. The argument that the professionals have been 'stooges'
of the ruling· class has however been more common; but neither inter-
pretation fits my reading of the Australian evidence. Connell and Irving's
brief discussion of the 'reorganization of -the ruling class' in the early
decades of the twentieth century more closely accords with the interpre-
tation I have provided. 4 The growing dominance of industrial capitalists
and the technocrats of both _business and the emerging State bureaucracy
provided the impetus in the economic and political sphere for the
ideology of technical rationality. Moreover, labour representatives came
to share the technocratic consciousness as part of their accommodation
to, or- incorporation into, the structural arrangements of Australian urban
industrial capitalism. On the one hand, we can interpret the develop-
ments I have outlined in terms of a remaking of the bourgeoisie, a
realigning of fractions within the ruling class; and on the other, as part
of a process of enmeshing the working class in the culture of twentieth-
century capitalism.
I have argued, however, that we can trace an even more complex
picture. First, it is one in which women were playing significant roles;
and second, I believe that it was around the experts' ideological con-
struction of womanhood that the underlying contradiction of 'disen-
chanting' the home emerged. A major thrust of my argument has been
the extent to which it was women who were bombarded with the
ideology of the rational home and family. I have not only been interested
in describing the changing pressures on women however; the strategies
to reform domestic life impinged directly on children too, and on men
as well, especially in the discourse on the 'management' of sexuality.
But it was upon women's shoulders in particular that the mantle fell;
it was women who were responsible for producing healthy children in a
hygienic home on behalf of the white race in Asia, the British Empire
and the glorious Australian Commonwealth.
There are several ways in which I have emphasized that Australian
women were not just the unwitting dupes of a male ruling-class pro-
gramme. In many of the developments with which I have been concerned,
groups of women actually took much of the initiarive. On some occasions,
such as the establishment of the earliest kindergartens, creches and infant
welfare centres, it was primarily bourgeois women who led the way.
Even then, though, they acted from a ·variety of motives. Certainly there
were strong emphases on reforming what they saw as bad manners,
'uncleanly' domestic habits and unsuitable childrearing practices. Jn.some
instances though they were also motivated by concern for their fellow
women, for ·the practical difficulties- which arose_ out of their economic
situation. Until professional 'helpers' .replaced. bourgeois women's. char-
itable visiting, the 'lady bouotifuls' were at least exposed to the actual
conditions of working-class family life and met the women and children
face-to-face. While they· nonetheless wanted to keep the social order ·
intact, they wished to ameliorate its worst results, acknowledging. quite
rightl}' that many of them hit_ their working-class sisters hardest. So
despite wanting domestic --~cience training to improve their- 'servant
problem', they also supported public health reforms. Along with using
kindergartens to instil obedience and cleanliness in working-class- chil-
dren, they frequently recognized that their mothers needed. a break. The
same mixture of motives occurred- in infant welfare and in the extension
of antenatal and birth control services.
These women of what I have called the 'charity network' we-re joined,
especially by the interwar years, by another group of women whose role
was also significant. As the reform strategies became institutionalized,
they produced new career opportunities many of which were suited to,
and seized by, women. The women medical graduates of the first decades
of the twentieth century are the most outstanding examples, but women
teachers and nurses, particularly the infant welfare specialists, found
economic reward and personal satisfaction in this sector of the workforce.
They-- accepted that the sexual division of labour should carry through
into the public sphere from the home, seeing the welfare of women and
children as their 'natural' calling. Ironically-enough, of course,.- they also
had to learn skills and undertake tasks considered unwomanly, putting
a cloak_ of cool- professional distance over their supposed emotionality.
The personal accounts of these early professional women reveal their
ingenuity, dynamism and often lively sense of humour. They drove
motor cars and fixed them en- route, went out on night calls or into
remote country areas, and the nurses in particular even went to war. -It
was all in the course of what they saw as their duty, but,· as the diaries
of Vera Scantlebury Brown indicate, they also suffered the strain of
juggling personal lives and professional commitments. In many aspects
of daily life they -experienced at first hand the contradiction between
being - 'natural' women, domestic and m-aternal, and bei.ng modern,
organized and efficient managers.
Women's role in reforming domestic life was not confined however

to those who played a public part. Although historical research cannot
readily make out the full picture of how ordinary women participated
in the movements I have described, there is considerable evidence that
they were active participants, either accepting, rejecting or modifying the
experts' decrees. Many continued to use dummies and rock. and cuddle
babies to sleep, and brought up their children more or less as their
mothers did them, thumbing the nose at too much modern nonsense
out of books. They cooked and sewed as their mothers had too, rejecting
experts' definitions of economy and nutrition for what they knew suited
the tastes and resources of their .own families. Mrs Jennie Jobson's lively
resistance is permanently recorded in the 1920 Basic Wage Enquiry
evidence; responding to the implication that she was unnecessarily ex-
travagant she retorted 'I do not think there is anything extravagant
unless it is the price of eggs, but . . . I am not going to eat egg powder
as long as fow Is will lay eggs!' 5
When women did go along with the experts' advice, it was for a
variety of reasons. In some respects the aura of professional knowledge
did overwhelm them, such as in accepting that four-hourly feeding must
be right for babies because 'scientific' evidence of digestion 'proved' they
needed that length of time ·between feeds. Women who had no sup-
portive network, or who had lost confidence in the guidelines of their
mothers' generation, did welcome the professionals' advice. There were
also often quite reasonable grounds for following it: early toilet-training
lessened nappy. washing, and regularity of domestic routine made it
easier to reconcile the opposing demands of childcare and a clean house.
In particular, medically managed pregnancy and birth did entail fewer
risks than delivery at home without adequate household and nursing_
help; 'managed' sexuality did recognize women's sexual pleasure as
legitimate; and most significant of all, contraception promised relief from
additional financial burdens, emotional demands and sheer physical toil.
As well as these quite understandable patterns of response, there were
also unanticipated effects of professional intervention. For example, the
decline in breastfeeding which. went against the experts' advice and was
not in the best interests of mothers and babies was an unforeseen outcome
of changing childbirth practices and of the extension from artificial to
natural feeding of techniques such as regular feed times and a preoc-
cupation with calculation and measurement.
In all therefore our interpretation of these developments would be
quite remiss if we saw them in simplistic terms. The implication of the
218 The disenchantment of the honie
material used in this book is that our interpretation must include

emphasis on the coherence of technical rationality and its .significance,
and also recognition of the ambivalences in the reform message and
variety of class and gender factors operating. I have argued in fact that
one outstanding contradiction runs through all the,material: that between
women seen as natural ·homemakers and mothers and the extension of
techaical rationality to family relati()nsh-.ips and household organization.
Many manifestations of this tension have been described, and I will not
repeat them- here. Instead -I will turn to- some final- discussion of the
significance of this contradiction.
In setting out the book's conceptual framework in Chapter 2, I argued
that the experts' project -should be understood as part of· the broad
process of disenchantment of-which Weber-and Frankfurt School theorists
in particular developed a powerful critique. However I also suggested
that their analysis did not go far enough and that feminist theory takes
us further. Much feminist discussion of the relationship between the
social structures of class and those .of gender inequality has produced a
. fairly depressing picture of tlre degree of interpenetration between them.
Capitalism and patriarchy are. frequently pictured as mutually reinfor<:ing
social· systems, the tentacles of which surround us on all·sides.- ·such a
view leaves little room for optimism about the .po~sibility of major
change; all developments can be interpreted as 'functional' -for some
aspect or other · of capitalism or patriarchy. My argument has been
different. I have_ suggested that ·the technical rationality characteristic of
capitalist social ~arrangements was actually· quite antithetical to- patriarchal
assumptions about women as more 'natural' than men. In the- over-
whelming expansion of the capitalist system,. not only have virtually all
corners · of the -earth beenc- ·rendered available for the exploitation · of
physical resources, but all social relationships have been opened to
relentless. considerations of- calrulation and exchange. In spite of the
enormous ill effects Eaused by- making relationships between people-take
on the features of relations between -'things'; for women there has been
at least the advantage· of admitting their. inclusion in- the sphere of
culture. The critique of technical rationality as a distortion of human
reason; however, remains pertinent but incomplete.
In th-e Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer commence
their account of the -hollow triumph of the rationality of civilization
over magical world views with· the comment that 'the· Enlightenment
has always aimed at liberating men -from fear and establishing- their
sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster trlump-hant'~ 6
They go on to argue that the science and technology characteristic of

modern Western civilization are the apotheosis of long-standing attempts
to conquer the natural world which stands in juxtaposition to the human
and intrinsically threatens it. This conquest involved the growth of the
division of labour, discipline and organization and necessitated the
renunciation of physical pleasures. Adorno and Horkheimer provide a
detailed discussion of the Odysseus saga as encapsulating this overall
course of human development. Without going into the intricacies of
their analysis, what does stand out is the extent to which the dangers
facing Odysseus are fundamentally female, and delineated by Homer
primarily in terms of sexual temptations. Horkheimer and Adorno almost
confront the significance of this, noting in passing that Odysseus's journey
is symbolic of patriarchal society. Repression of sexuality and with it
the suppression of woman have, they say, been the price paid for marriage
and social order, 'for the establishment of systematic conditions of sexual
reproduction' ·upon which property and organized labour depend. They
argue that the ancient identification of women with nature has taken a
different form in modern bourgeois society-that of incorporating women
into a male-dominated world-but only in a broken form, that of
'female chastity and propriety'. 7 Painting, however, as ambivalent a
picture of modern womanhood as Christopher Lasch, Adorno and Horkh-
eimer recognize the injustice of women's situation, but have little hope
that 'the scoldings of the· fury ... will become a sign of humanity'.
They conclude with the scornful remark that 'The last vestiges of female
opposition to the spirit of a male-dominated society are engulfed in a
morass of paltry rackets, religious sects and hobbies'. 8
Other critical theorists have also touched on these themes, but not so
explicitly. Marcuse and Fromm shared a romantic yearning for 'matriar-
chal' values and agreed that sexual and even gender oppression had
accompanied the development of civilization;. and more recently Haber-
mas has addressed the domination of nature theme. 9 While he has raised
issues of significance for the ecological crisis, like earlier Frankfurt School
theorists he has not addressed the relationship between the domination
of nature and of women by men. However, from the early formulation
of Simone de· Beauvoir to the work of several 1970s writers, a relevant
interpretation of the ideology of patriarchal societies has been developed.
De Beauvoir argues, quite clearly along lines similar to Adorno and
Horkheimer, that in the course of the development of civilization women
have been posed as the 'Other', as object to the human subject, which
has hence been fundamentally masculine in character.·10 Like Adorno and
220 The diJencha-ntment -of the home
Horkheimer she regrets this, but accepts its inevitability as the price
· paid ~fo~ human transcend~nce o£ _the natural world, in which she sees .c
fewer dangers though than do =they. Not all feminists~have agreed _with
this _con<;lusion. The lines -Qf historical development trac~d, ~ f()r- example,
by Ruether ~how great._silllil~rity to Adorno and- Horkheimer's and· de
Beauvoir's- accounts. ·However;cc she sees gender and dass oppression as
- -
intimately related but not inevitable -COncomitantS cOfc_buma,n prpgteSS~

Ruether -argues that a world view- which valued fe_male -Creative powers
and saw the- ccosmos as a noo-hietaichica-lly ordered unity was replaced
by, one·_ stressing_- ma_le- power, a- traoscendent _God -and domination of. the
natu_tal- realm. 11 She locates .this 111ajor _transition in mythic- symbols in
the period of the birth _of _-Westerno civilization, ancient Heb~ew--and
Greek cultures. Its material basis lay in the growth of sedentary agri-
cultur-e ~and early urbanization, and therefore a change in. the ~ociety's
relation to nature. Exploitation and mastery _of physicalresources"replaced
dependence on and- harmony with the natural world.- Women, slayes
and other races came to becidentified with the lower sphere which was
to -b~ subjugated._ Furthermore,- the origins uf class- ~oppression can -b~
_see~ in the same -period, as the appropriation of surplus production
provided the basis for a ruling-Elass economic and p_olitical power.
Ruether draws attention to-~h~ -ways in which sex and ra'e imagery, a
bodyjspirit· dualism, provided_ the model for other forms of oppre-ssion
throughout (allowing epochs. •According-to this analysis, therefor-e, ·West-
ern civilization- has been charact~rized by a world .view and socio-
~conomic system- in which~ ~he domination of nature was linked_ to_ the
domination of some persons by others and_- most notaJ,ly ofc women _by
men: Moreover, since the Enlightenment, the growth of_modern-_s~ience
and~ technology have~ continued ~this project of domination.,__ the roots ef
which are- deep in our histOry. Ruether also describes the secularization
of the domination of nature theme, emphasizing how. the identific;ation
of women -:with~ a now r<>manti£ized 'nature' remained; even:~jf.l_tens-ifying
as the dehumanization and alienation of the .industr-ial- world- of work
became -apparent. 12 This then ,was· the .context _of ~the -bourgeois~ falllily's
ideology of separate- sexual-spheres. and -their construction of femininity. · -
I can now- return to my -argument about the implications _of '-disen-
chan.ting'- the home: that a b~ic contradiction emerged through the .ever -
widening expansionc of technicalc ~atio.nality which followed--- capi!alist.
industrialization. I noted in · Chapter 2 th_at critical theorists_ saw the
bourgeois (amily as 'more than~_a "mere lie'_, .as encapsulating at least an
emancipatory moment. -Although they tende-d to view this in terms of
the formation of an autonomous masculine self, they suggested that even

for women, the bourgeois family 'endowed them with an idea of dignity,
which ultimately, as human dignity, worked toward emancipation'.
Ruether makes a similar point: the rational liberalism of bourgeois
society ineluctably broke down traditional hierarchies, including those
of 'head-people and body-people'. 13 If all people, women. as well as
men, possessed 'practical rationality', inequality could not be justified
on the grounds of separate natural capacities. Distinctions which had
been fundamental to class and gender oppression and reflected domi-
nation of the natural world were implicitly threatened; if the realm of
spirit, the mind and will, can be extended to familial and gender
relations-supposedly the epitome of the body, the natural sphere-the
model of domination collapses. Does this mean that domination is
complete, or that emancipation becomes possible? When the experts
intervened in the management of the home and domestic relationships,
they demonstrated not only that housework and childcare were not
'natural' qualities embedded in women, but that reproduction itself
could be controlled by rational means. We are left however with the
same dilemma that Weber and more recent critical theorists have argued
is intrinsic to societies like our own. In the realm of personal and family
life, as in the public sphere, the temptation is to mistake merely technical
rationality for a really reasonable human existence.
Appendix On sources and methods
As the Introduction and Chapter 1 focused primarily on the conceptual

framework, there was not space to elaborate also upon issues of meth-
odology. The following discussion has two purposes: first to situate the
research reported in this book in the context of wider methodological
debates; and_ second, to provide some more specific discussion· of sources
than is appropriate in the text and notes. The actual use of relevant
sources varied: some sections- relied more heavily on a few important
sources, others on a wider range. Rather than a compr:ehensive discussion
of each -and every source material, the comments below concentrate on
specific problems or issues- relating to those sources most deserving of
mention-. A fuller discussion is available in the thesis upon which the
book is based.
1 Records of government and organizations

As will be readily apparent from the text, considerable use was made
of government reports and the records of some organizations. It has been
quite regular practice in both history and sociology to utilize data from
such sources while making allowances for the frequently quite different
purposes for which it was collected. In this study, however, a further
caveat was borne in mind, that such sources had to be read in two ways:
as revealing the attitudes and so on, of the 'experts', of the dominant
groups; and as allowing, nonetheless,_ a reading from 'below'. Thus the
minutes of evidence of the Birth Rate,- Housing and Basic Wage Royal
Commissions, and the minutes of the Melbourne District Nursing Society
can be used to show the responses and resistance of working-class women
and men to the attempts to extend a form of hegemony over them. The
patterns of questioning in the Commissions indicates the concerns of
222
Appendix 223
their 'betters' but the replies and the other issues raised by witnesses
provide at least hints of another side to the story, as well as giving some
valuable descriptive data. The 1920 Basic Wage enquiry was an out-
standing example of this possibility of usi.ng official sources somewhat
'subversively'.
2 Literary sources
2.1 Unpublished manuscript sources
Traditional historians have relied quite heavily on the material provided
by diaries, letters, unpublished speeches and so on. So much so that
they are regarded as part of the historians' stock-in-trade and, method-
ologically, are seen to present only the usual problems of contextualization
and accuracy. In this study some reliance was placed on these materials,
but less for details of events than for perceptions, attitudes and personal
experiences. In recent years the emergence of women's history as a field
of enquiry in its own right has generated considerable interest in the use
of diaries and letters for insights into women's experience in particular,
attempting to explore the patterning of personal life in ways far removed
from the historians' traditional attention to the papers of politicians and
other public figures. This again has constituted a 'history-from-below'
endeavour which has been closely related to the emergence of new-style
social history emphasizing the everyday life of the common people. To
the extent to which such endeavour is a counterbalance to traditional
historiography's attention to the public world, such accounts are of great
value, particularly in bringing to light issues in the patterning of
childhood and familial life. However, not only are the traditional
problems of historians' sources still encountered-that is their bias
towards the literate middle .and upper classes-but the sources are only
of real value if set within their context. This requires not only attention
to the personal biography of the speaker in the specific text, but also
location of the speaker in a structural analysis. The exploration of
meanings and interpretations, important as they are, can only be of more
general value to our understanding of the society and changes of the
past if it is combined with critical examination of the social structuring,
particularly by gender and class, of that personal experience.
Apart from this general comment regarding the principle which has
guided the use of manuscript material in this research, the specific
sources require little comment as their relevance and value is self-evident
in the text. The diary letters of Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown, written
usually to her mothert provided an excellent source of data both -on the _
domestic e_xperience _of. a-.· middle-class woman in the_ interwar period,
but also -concerning the infant· welfare moveme(lt.- They are even fuller,
richer and more· detailed in--their account of everyday life than. is indicated
by their use here. Likewise, other similar manuscript sources gave
descriptions of the management of home and family.
The other major _manuscript collection used, the papers of Dr Victor
Walh1ce, are of multiple value. Not only do they include -()rganizational
material and correspondence .relciting to -the eugenics movement, but
they include a-goldmine of material on birth control. The clinical records
will be discussed separately b-elow, but the collection also- includes
Wallace's unpublished manuscripts on birth control issues and the-letters
from_ patients ·which he used as .data. -The variety of material in this
collection and the meticulous order in which Dr- Wallace- kept it- have
made this collecrion of inesti~able value. Here, in particular, is a possible
unique -combination of the -papers~ of -one of the 'experts' along .with the
views of quite -unknown W'omen •and mef1. The issues of confidentiality
and referencing this collection-are ·discussed more fully-below. -
2.? Newspaper and magazine sources . . .

There is nothing remarkable abou~ my fairly routine use of these sources,
bu~ a few technical comments on sampling procedur~s are called for .
.The sources are grouped together .where similar procedures were usee! ..
Newspapers
a) Daily.- The Argus, the major conservative Melbourne daily, was used
extensively from the early 1900s to the _1930s. It was D<?t sampled but
a published index was used to suggest relevant topics and dates.
b) Religious- pap_ers. In the _early stages of resea_rch -a detailecl~stud.y of
major Victorian denomina,tiQnal journals was undertaken for the 1880s-
90s period, and this was later followed up by a survey of. the. same
papers in the twentieth century. Xhe basic sampling principle followed
was.. to skim four weekly- iss_ues every three months . _To (!void -seasonal
bias~ rotating starting mopt~ wer~~ used~
Exceptions.·· to this -were- the J>resbyt:erian paper which· was a_ monthly,
so every second month- was ~used;. and the Anglican paper, for-which .an.
available index was use_d for. the 1890s. For the twentieth-century period,
similar principles were· applied, but only at five-year intervals. ~
Appendix 225
c) Local paper: the Preston Post. In the early years of the research, the
Melbourne suburb of Preston was a focus of data collection. As the
project shifted in emphasis this became less important, but the material
found in the local newspaper continued to be of value to understanding
everyday familial and neighbourhood life. The weekly Post was sampled
on a rotating four months per year basis from its commencement in
1891 to the early 1900s when the paper became of less value for my
purposes as style and content changed.
Medical journals
The transactions of the Australian medical congresses throughout the
period were searched thoroughly, but no complete coverage of all medical
journals was attempted. The MJA however was searched for the 1920s
and 1930s, the major period of infant welfare, ante-natal and maternal
health developments.
Women's magazines
Following the consultation of work of others, it was decided to select a
variety of women's magazines. The New Idea was studied fairly fully for
every fifth year from 1902 to 1939, by which time it had changed its
title to the Everylady's journal. The amount of material provided by
. this source gave it special importance; study of the Home and Woman's
World, magazines running in the interwar period, generated less data
but useful comparisons. The latter magazines were aimed less at the
housewife than the New Idea, which was full of the 'new ideas' about
domesticity. As the study was not primarily based on these sources and
they were used as a supplement to other material, it was not essential
to trace those difficult 'facts' of journalism, actual circulation figures.
Likewise with the Housewife magazine of the Housewives' As~ociation,
considerations of total readership were less important than the content
and the involvement of some leading women in the movement with
which it was associated. In conclusion, women's magazines cannot, of
course, tell us the response of the readers, except through letters, but
they can indicate changes in domestic ideology and cultural style as well
as provide clues to the timing of social change such as the introduction
of infant welfare and child psychology as popular concerns and the
changing ideological messages of the advertisers.
Store catalogues
Although only limited use was made of one collection of department-
store catalogues, such sources are of considerable value and greater use
could .be made of. them if a .wide and full range were available. Those
useii in this work were from a major Melbourne retailer, Foy & Gibson's,
and they covered the period 1901 to the mid-1930s, with a few years
missing for the earlier period .. Sampling was unnecessary as they do not
require exhaustive reading; changing styles and availability of clothing,
toys and household equipment were readily apparent.
2.3 Other published sources

Several aspects of the study were based on miscellaneous published books
and pamphlets on health and childrearing. Such literature was generally
of a prescriptive or advice nature, written by doctors and other 'experts'
or by some· women themselves. Previous work on childreariJ.?,g advice
manuals has tended to focus either narrowly or widely in terms of time
span. 1 Although this literature cannot tell us enough about actual
childrearing practices, changes within this genre over time and the variety
of advice are themselves of interest. In order to make th.e pamphlets
and books on the childrearing aspect more readily comparable- with.· each
other, and with those studied by others, a systematic .content analysis
was attempted. A scheme of coding was derived from a study of-English
sources since the sixteenth century, modified on the basis of existing
knowledge of Australian material. 2 The coding system identified material
as more or less present, e.g., on home birth or artificial feeding.
Advantages and disadvantages of coding

The attempt to quantify these sources was very valuable in alerting
attention to themes in a systematic fashion! Thus the actual filling in of
the coding scheme necessitated· a careful check which guarded against
excessively subjective impressions. As a research process, therefore, it was
successful. However, in terms of the later stages of analysis, when
attempts really to use the sources in a quantitive sense were made, the
gross limitations ofthe small sample (30-40) became evident. Moreover,
the lack of direct comparability of such sources is also one of their
outstanding characteristics: some were lengthy, others short; some highly
technical, others popular; some narrow, others broad in focus. While
the coding scheme picked up and crystallized some such differences, for
the purposes of illustrating the analysis it was the flavour of the sources-
their qualitative, not readily quantifiable characteristics-which were of
greatest value. To make claims about the numerical strengtl! of the
change in recommended feeding patterns, three- to four-hourly, for
Appendix 227
example, would be possible but would be less meaningful than to stress

the change in style as well as specific instruction. Furthermore, it is the
context of the later infant care books, their institutionalization through
the baby clinics, which is more important than the actual number of
them recommending regular feeding patterns. It can thus be seen that
excessive quantifying of such sources would only provide an illusion of
facticity; rather the process of systematic content analysis should be seen
as an important research strategy, and the analysis of such sources is
only meaningful in a broader scheme of theoretically informed interpre-
tation of a wide range of data.
3 Clinical records
At several points reference was made to the clinical records held in the
Wallace collection, University of Melbourne Archives. Dr Victor Wal-
lace's records are invaluable source material not only for his own attitude
and professional activities but for the insight which they provide into
the problems brought to him by his patients during the late 1930s and
1940s. The handwritten card records contain highly confidential material,
so names were not recorded in any way, and only very basic information
such as occupational status was noted as background data. Originally I
had hoped to quantify a sample of the 1930s contraceptive records, but
this became impossible due to the inconsistent amount of data. Some
basic counting of a selection of contraception and sexual problems cases
was undertaken, but it does not seem appropriate to use even a numeric
identification system for such confidential material. Nonetheless, as will
have been evident from the use made of this data, it provided consid-
erable insight into the material circumstances, attitudes and familial
experience of a selection of Wallace's patients. Criteria of selection
included time period and amount of information available on the record
card. No claims to representativeness can be made for this data but as
a qualitative source it proved invaluable. A judicious combination of
further quantification with a sensitive use of the experiential material
would be the most fruitful way to utilize such data fully.
4 Oral sources
The emergence of historical research using oral sources has been a feature
of the last couple of decades, although a tradition of oral testimony in
other social sciences such as anthropology and sociology has been long
established. Two major areas of debate have emerged within history
concerning the use of oral material and the controversial issues will be
briefly discussed before the methodology of this studr is-- described.
Although_ two aspects of debate can be distinguished conceptually and
in terms of the timing and- location of the discussions, they overlap
considerably~ Oral history has been promoted on the one hand by left-
wing _historians -attempting to reveal the experience of oppressed -people,
analysis of which comes _from a broadly socialist tradition; on the other
hand it has also been espoused by less theoretically oriented r_esearchers
attempting to record, more or less _for its own sake,- thee everyday life
experience of 'ordinary' people. This has included both academic his-
torians and a variety of commu_nity members working in local history
or _areas of special interest. The dilemmas which have arisen 4ave been
at least threefold: first, the acceptability of oral sources in m~instream,
tradi~ional professional history; second, the technicalities of data collec-
tion, recording and analysis; and third and more substantively; the
significance of theory .in guiding o_ral .history research and in making use
of the material it provides. On this score opinion has not only been
divided amongst those who argue for the 'pure' voice of the subject
with as little editing and ~nalysis as possible; those who use oral
testimony as one source amongst many and·within an unabashed_ analytic
framework; and those who_, fairly -_recently, have been arguing for a
complete deprofessionalization~-of·oral history-.-but only-in a context of
radical politicization of the subjects so that they can: .speak clearly for
themselves.
The first of these controversies, the response of traditional professional
historians to- the use of oral sources, has been so thoroughly worked over
that it ·does not seem . to require many further remarks here. Paul
Thompson's The voice of the past, and discussion in the otal history
journal literature make quite -clear the significance _and value of oral
sources, particularly for the· study of personal and everyday -life in the
late nineteenth and -twentieth _centuries.l All the usual skills of the
historian in responding critically to the data generated· from sources are
of course still crucial to the use of the spoken word. As Italian historian
Allessandro Portelli has argued, oral sources certainly are· different. from
written sources, but many ·of the difficulties in their use are also found
with written material: 'What is written is first· experienced- or seen·, and
is subject to- distortions even before_ it is set down on paper'. 4 Therefore
the reservations applying to oral sources ought to be extended to written
material as well.
Appendix 229
However, the debate over the theoretical and political value of oral
history has raised more important questions than those concerning its
respectability or technicalities. To some extent the rivalry between profes-
sional· historians and those outside the fold of academic history can also
be seen reflected in the dispute over the use and presentation of oral
material. I am less concerned with this issue, however, than with that
of the nature of the claims made for oral history as a means of access
to 'alternative' history, that of non-ruling classes and groups, and the
practical/political import of such history.
Portelli points to several specific contributions oral sources can make
to history, particularly that of 'non-hegemonic classes', arguing that they
have been both over- and under-valued. First, oral sources are precisely
that, oral. Despite the use that is then made of transcripts, the original
source is of value for its form: the style of speech, intonation, velocity
and so on which convey an emotional richness not found in other sources.
Moreover, oral sources are basically narrative sources, linked to a tradition
of folk narrative in which meaning and interpretation become at least
as important as events. As Luisa Passerini has pointed out in her exciting
use of oral ·sources for the study of Fascism, it is what is absent from
the sources-the silences-which can also be as important as what people
articulate. 5 Portelli also points out that oral sources are not only subjective
but always unfinished and partial, but that this of course is true of other
s·ources as well. A final point made -by Portelli goes directly against some
of the claims put forward for the value of oral history: that it allows
the working classjwomenjother oppressed groups to 'speak' directly for
themselves at last. He argues strongly that
the control of the historical discourse remains firmly in the hands of the
historian: It is the historian who selects the people who are to speak;
who asks the questions; and thus contributes to the shaping of the
testimony; who gives the testimony its final polished form. 6
What is involved, however, is the necessity of the historian being involved

in the political process itself, taking sides in the interpretation of the
past and of current reality. Other discussions of the increasingly sophis-
ticated use of oral history in the context of social theory shaped by
socialist political practice have also drawn attention to its potential
challenge to the traditional categories of history, raising questions of
subjectivity and consciousness as central to historical enquiry. The debate
on these issues must also be extended to use of women's oral testimony
in particular. Not only can oral evidence provide the detail of the
routines of women's daily existence, but their creative responses to the
exigencies of material existence, their sense of themselves and their
relationships with others. It is in the light of these methodQlogical
considerations that oral evidence has- been used in this study, as -pan of
a variety of evidence drawn upon, hopefully, in the words of a HiJtory
WorkJhop journal editorial, as pan of 'a dense interaction between theory,
method, and a very careful listening-'.
Interview sample
Although a larger project was planned, the limitations of time and
resources meant that 011ly a relatively small number .of interviews were
eventually undertaken. Almost all interviewees were frolll. the Melbourne
suburb of Preston, the majority of_ them having grown up there in the
early 1900s. The sample, which can make n9 claims to representativeness, -
was found through the assistance of the local historical_society and senior
citizens' clubs. However, -interviews also took place_ with. three profes-
sional women who were involved in the 'reforming' e_fforts as· t-experts'.
Two quite different types of. interview were therefore involved: one
concerning the experience _of_ childhood and everyday _life including later
life; the other with profess~onal (lCtivities. The former series of interviews
used a detailed interview schedule_, but discussion usually flowed freely
over the topics with the- questions being used as a guide. Interviews
lasted on average two hpurs, ·and in a few cases, two -quite lengthy
interviews· took place.
Two panicular difficulties seem worthy of methodological note. Fir~t,
the difficulty of the interviews with the professional women {an<;{ one
man in particular) all_ of whom wanted to portray a picture of their
public life·and professional achievements._ Questions concerning attitudes
and personal ·Iife were treated warily, and considerable concern was
shown that the interview transcript seemed inarticulate, not showing
them to advantage.
The second problem concerns the flood of material generated- by ~oral
sources. The richness, depth and variety of responses produced from
within a very small sample indeed raised questions of the utility of
collecting vast amounts -of such 'qualitative' data. It now. _seems to me
that oral sources can be used in three distinct ways: ( 1) to generate
hypotheses- and insights- in· an exploratory way; (2) to _provide full
accounts of individuals' experiences to be used as completely as possible;
and (3) .to flesh out, confirm and contribute to further· development of
Appendix 231
ideas. This latter role has basically .been the value of oral sources here,
and their value within a theoretically formed broader project is indis-
putable. Full details of the interviewees and the interview schedule are
available in my thesis.
5 Preston: an unfulfilled research promise

As this study was originally planned, it was to have a strong focus on
exploring domestic life in a· local geographical context. The suburb of
Preston, to the north of Melbourne, was chosen because its development
coincided with the period under study and relevant source materials
seemed to be available. The original goal was to use Preston as a data
base through the use of quantitative sources on residence and life cycle
patterns, and other local records to fill out the background to the oral
history project. However, as the research developed, it became increas-
ingly apparent that the important questions being generated from literary
evidence and from the establishment of a coherent theoretical framework
simply did not lend themselves readily to a local research framework.
For some time research simply proceeded on two fronts: on one the
sources finally used; and on the other, local evidence concerning the
development of Preston. The problem this presented for the development
of a coherent argument was eventually only resolved by the critical
abandonment of the latter.
It was originally hoped that a combination of rate-book data, local
church and other organizational records, and possible Registrar-General's
material would throw light on patterns of kinship and the social structure
of the local community. Although several years' worth of data on home
and land ownership, occupations and value of property was recorded for
the purposes of computerization, delay in finding suitable records for
appropriate linkage with this data led to problems. However, the major
difficulty was that the inadequacies of property-oriented sources such as
rate-books for the study of women's and family history became increas-
ingly obvious. Women's marital names too easily concealed their kinship
connections, and the sources revealed only glimpses of families living
near each other. Although access to the Victorian Registrar-General's
records, which was denied at the time of this study but has since been
granted other researchers, would go some way to ·relieve these problems,
considerable limitations must be recognized in the use of quantitative
sources. Although they can provide some basic data on family patterns,
they require enormous outlay of time and energy for little return by way
of material concerning familial relationships or neighbouring patterns,

both of central importance to understanding the dynamics of familial
and social change. With a team of researchers working on a project,
such difficulties can be overcome, but for an individual scholar, the
intoxication with quantitative methodology, which has marked one stage
of the emergence. of family history~ is fraught with some peril.
In conclusion therefore, the local study proved to be. something of a
disappointment despite early optimism concerning the possibilities of
linking a local study with a broader study of familial ideology. However,
the study of Preston was an. invaluable 'grounding' for many issues; not
only did detailed use of local sources provide a much fuller context for
the interviews, but for understanding the material conditions of Austra-
lian suburbia. The reforming strategies with which the final study· is
primarily concerned became less. abstract when the practical realities of
housing, work, transport and other, often inadequate, facilities were
borne in mind. In conclusion therefore I believe that the original goal
of combining detailed, locality-based research with a broader study was
too ambitious, but a not unworthy ambition. Although future research
attempting anything similar would do well to draw on the work of
others on general Australian developments, and then move to a detailed
local study, it must also be recognized that some issues can only be
addressed best at one or other .level of research.
Notes
Introduction
1 e.g., B. Kingston, My wife, my daughter and poor Mary Ann: women and
work in Australia, Nelson, 1975; A. Summers, Damned whores and God's
police: the colonization of women in Australia, Penguin, 1975; ~ Grimshaw,
'The Australian family: an historical interpretation', in A. Burns et al. (eds),
The family in the modern world, Allen and Unwin, 1983.
2 A. Giddens, Central problems in social theory: action, structure and contradiction
in social analysis, Macmillan, 1979, p.l41.
3 S. de Beauvoir, The second sex, Jonathan Cape, 1953; R.R. Ruether, New
woman/new earth: sexist ideologies and human liberation, Seabury Press, 1975.
4 e.g., A. Giddens, A critique of historical materialism, Macmillan, 1982.
5 Ruether, op.cit.
6 R. Samuel (ed.), People's history and socialist theory, Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1981, p. xxxi.
1 Setting the questions

1 E. Shorter, The making of the modern family, Basic Books, 1975; L. Stone,
The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500-1800, Penguin edn, 1979.
2 J. Mechling, 'Advice to historians on advice to mothers', Journal of social
history, vol. 9, Fall 1975, and subsequent 'Comments' in vol. 10, Winter
1976.
3 H. Gadlin, 'Scars and emblems: paradoxes of American life', Journal of
social history, vol. 11, no. 3, 1978.
4 M. Poster, Critical theory of the family, Pluto Press, 1978.
5 To my knowledge only psychologists Graham Little and Ronald Conway
have ever raised these issues, although current work of Bob Connell and
colleagues is more directly relevant; eg., R.W. Connell, et al., Making the
difference, George Allen and Unwin, 1982.
233
6 Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Aspects of sociology, 'The family',

Heinemann, 1973, pp. 129-45_; M. Horkheimer, 'Authority and the family',
Critical theory,_ Seabury Press, 1972.
7 For these debates, see in panicular, P. Walker (ed.), ]Jetween lahour and
capital, Harvester Press, 1979. _
8 Arpects of sociology, p. 13 7.
_- 9 ibid.; for a general discussion- of these issues, see M. Jay, The dialectical
imagination: a history of the Frankfurt School an_d the InstitHte -of _Social
ReJearch, 1923-50, Heinemann, 1973, and D. Held, Introduction critical to
theory, Hutchinson, l-980.
10 P. Berger and H. Kellner, The homeless mind, Penguin edn, 1974.
11 P. Halmos, The faith of the counJellorJ, Constable, 1972; C. Lasch, Haven
in a heartleJJ world: the family besieged, Basic Books, 1977, ·aad::The- culture
of narcissism, Abacus_ edn,. J980. -
12 l..aSch, Cttltu,.e,_ p. -c4 7.
13 J. Donze!o~,~ The poiicing_of_fa11Ji_lie.s, Panthe_on Books, 1979;_ ~· Fpucault,
His~ory_ of Jexuality: vol. I, _A!I cin~roduction, Allen Lane, 19.79. _
14 Foucault, op.cit., p. 14D. -_- __ _ _ _
15 M. Barrett and M. Mcintosh, The_ anti-sofia/family, Ve~o, 1982,_p-. 104.
16 N. Chodorow,- The reprodRctiqn of mothering: psJchoanalysis ant{ the-soci_ology
of gender:, Uni .. -ofCalifornifl-Press, -1978. -
17 B. Ef1renreicli and D. ~~gl!Sf!, For her own good: 150 years of fXPerti _advice
to women, Pluto P.ress, 1979. · . . _ _ _ .. - -
18 B.-&.]. Ehrenreich, 'The profession~-managerial class', in Walker,c-op.cit.
19_ e.g.~ M. Vicinus (ed.), Suffer 1111d be still: Wf)men in the vic.tori4n lf#g(! _Indiana
Uni. Press, 1972.
20 C. Hall,· 'Gender divisions. and class formation in the Birmingham middle
class, 1780-1850', in R. Samuel (ed.), People-'s history and socialist theory,
Routledge and Kegan ·Paul, 1-981.
21 See S. Ortner, 'Is female to 01ale as _na~ure. is to culture?'_, in-c M. Rosaldo
ar1d L. Lamphere, Woman~ cultilt:e and society, Stanfqrd -Uni. -Press,_f974;
and for recent debates, C. ~MacCorm~ck and ·M. Stt"athern, (e-ds),_ Nature,
culture ~and~ gender, Caffibridge U!J.i. Yress, 1980. -
22 Ruether, op.cit:., p. 189.
23 ibid.
24 Ehrenreich, op.cit. _ _
25 T. Rowse, Austr.alian liJJera/ism~anJ nationfll character,_Kibble Books, !978.
- 26 R. ] ohnsqn, '}'iistories of cultQtejtheories of ideology:- notes_ on an. iJnp~se',
in M. Bar~ett et al., (eds),_ ldeoiOKl tina cultural producti!Jn, CroQm Helm,
1979, pp. 49-77. -
27 A. Giddens, Central prohlems1 p. 18~.
28 R. Williams, 'Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory .., (1973),
rep. in R. Dale et al., Schooling and capitalism, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1976.
Notes 235
29 S. Hall, et al., (eds), Culture, media, language, Hutchinson, 1980, p. 29.

30 L. Althusser, 'Ideology and ideological state apparatuses', in Lenin and
philosophy and other essays, New_ Left Books, 1971.
31 e.g., A. Giddens, Critique of Historical Materialism, Macmillan, 1981.
32 Foucault, op.cit., p. 93.
33 A. Giddens, Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory, Macmillan, 1982, p.
221-2.
34 A. Giddens, Central problems, p. 69.
35 e.g., Berger and Kellner, The homeless mind; H. Marcuse, One-dimensional
man: studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society, Beacon Press,
1964.
36 M. Weber, Economy and society, Uni. of California Press edn, 1978.
3 7 M. Horkheimer and M. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Allen Lane
edn, 1973; and see-M. Jay, Dialectical imagination, p. 261.
38 Marcuse, ibid.
39 A. Giddens, Central problems, pp. 220-41; J. Habermas, 'Technology and
science as "ideology" ', in Towards a rational society: student protest, science
and politics, Heinemann, 1971.
40 ibid., p. 112-13.
41 J. Habermas, Legitimation crisis, Beacon Press, 1975; and D. Held, Critical
theory, p. 293.
42 J. Habermas, 'New social movements' (tr. from Theorie das kommunikatien
handelers, 1981), Telos, no. 49, Autumn 1981, pp. 33-7.
43 Giddens, Profiles, p. 98.
44 Rosaldo and Lamphere, op.cit.; Ruether, op.cit.
45 Horkheimer and Adorno, op.cit., pp. 72-80.
46 B. Easlea, Science and sexual oppression, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1981.
2 The architecture of daily life

1 e.g., E. Shorter, The making of the modern family; for a fuller analysis see
E. Zaretsky, Capitalism, the family and personal life, Pluto Press, 1976.
2 G. Davison, The rise and fall of marvellous Melbourne, Melbourne Uni.
Press, 1979; id., 'Public utilities and the expansion of Melbourne in the
1880s', Australian Economic History Review, 1979, vol. 10, pp. 169-89.
3 R.V. Jackson, 'Owner-occupation of houses in Sydney, 1871-1891', AEHR,
vol. 10, 1970, pp. 138-54; Davison, op.cit., p. 187; A.E. Dingle and D.T.
Merrett, 'Home owners and tenants in Melbourne, 1891-1911 ', AEHR, vol.
12, no. 1, March 1972, pp. 21-35.
4 B. Lewis, Sunday at Kooyong Road, Hutchinson, 1976, p. 15.
5 G. Johnston, My brother jack, CollinsjFontana, 1964, p. 7; see too D.
Malouf, ]ohnno, Uni of Queensland Press, 1975, Penguin edn, 1976; H.
Porter, The watcher on the cast iron balcony: an Australian autobiography,
London, Faber and Faber, 1963.
6 J. McCarty, 'Australian capital cities in the nineteenth century', AEHR, 1970,

pp. 107-37.
7 M. Poster, Critical theory of the family; C. Lasch, Culture of narcissism; E.
Zaretsky, .op.cit. ·
8 Spectator and Central Mission Gazette, 27 August 1880, p. 883.
9 Presbyterian Monthly, l February 1888, p. 35.
10 Preston Post, 6 August 1904.
11 New Idea, 1 November 1902, p. 329.
12 e.g., Preston Post, 1 Mar<:h 1890.
13 Australian Health Society, A quarter century's record, Melb., AHS, 1_900.
14 Australian Health Society, The meetings for wives and daughters, Melbourne,
Walker, May and Co., 1884.
15 Australian Health Society, Pure air and ventilation, Tract no. 2, 1876.
16 J. Greig, 'Report of school -medical inspectors', attached to Annual Report
of Minister of Public Instruction, 1913-14, p. 109, VPP no. 1, vol. 2,
1914.
17 Editorial, Intercolonial Medical Journal, vol. 3, 1899, pp. 106-11; J. W.
Barrett, The twin ideals: an educated Commonwealth, H.K. Lewis and Co.,
1918, vol. 2, p. 5.
18 _A. Hyslop, 'The social reform movement in Melbourne, 1890 to 1914',
unpublished Ph.D. thesis, La Trobe Uni., 1980, pp. 342-3; for Sydney
developments see M. Lewis, 'Populate or perish, aspects of infant and
maternal welfare in Sydney, 1870-1959', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Uni.
of Sydney, 1976.
19 Barrett, op.cit., pp. 6-8. _
20 B. Gandevia, Tears often shed, Pergamon Press, 1978, ch.lO; 'History of
infectious diseases in Victoria', Health Bulletin, Vic. Dept of Health, no.43,
1936, pp. 1221-9.
21 V. Scantlebury Brown, MSS. diary letters, 21 September 1928, _9 February
1929. Papers held at Uni. of Melbourne, Social Studies Department Library.
22 Victoria, Royal Commission on-Housing, 1913-17, Final Report, VPP V.2,
1917, Minutes of Evidence, Q.6392 (hereafter cited as Housing Commis-
sion, -Evidence).
23 L. Sandercock, Cities for sale, Melbourne Uni. Press, 1977, p. 68.
24 e.g., Mr John Sulman, Housing Commission, Evidence, Q.6387-8, 6389.
25 ibid., Q.270+27l1.
26 ibid., Q.2717.
27 ibid., Q.2828.
28 ibid., Q.8951-6.
29 ibid., Q.2124-5, 6465.
30 ibid., Q.3247.
31 ibid., Q.2124-5.
32 ibid., Q.6589.
NoteJ 237
33 ibid., Q.6465.
34 Royal Commission on the Basic Wage, 1920, Minutes of Evidence, taken
at Melbourne, Vic. Govt Pr. 1920, Q.6398.
3 5 R. Boyd, AuJtralia's homes.· why Australians built the way they did, Mel-
bourne Uni. Press, 1952, Penguin edn, 1968; F. Costello, 'Development in
flat life: its sociological disadvantages', Architecture, 1 January 1936, p. 5.
36 D. Stephen (ed.), A mesJage to the homeless, Melb., [1925}.
37 H. Desbrowe Annear, For every man his home.· a book of Australian homes
and the purpose of their design, vol. 2, no. 1, October 1922, p. 3; Boyd
refers to this publishing venture as 'an ambitious propaganda magazine'
launched by a 'group of prominent artists and enthusiastic young architects'.
38 ibid., vol. 1, no. 1, March 1922, p. 11.
39 e.g., Everyman's home, p. 12; J. Greig, Report on School Medical Inspection,
Minister's Report, 1916-17, App. D, pp. 23-5, VPP, no. 10, vol. 2, 1918.
The latter gives an account of the operation of the open-air school at
Blackburn, Victoria.
40 R. Alsop, 'The kitchen as it should be', Real Property Annual, 1917, p.
33; ArguJ, 5 April 1934, p. 13, referred to 'a kitchen which has been
planned scientifically as a modern factory'.
41 Everyman's Home, March 1922, p. 12.
42 In 1938 it was reported that nearly 400 women per week attended dem-
onstrations of cookery in one Melbourne centre, Colonial Gas Association,
Fifty years of good public service, 1888-1938, Melb., Col. Gas Assoc. [1938};
The State Elearicity Commission by then also gave demonstrations of
elearical appliances, Argus, 15 January 1938, p. 13.
43 Everyman's Home, vol. 1, 1922.
44 R.B. Hamilton, 'Home furniture and artistic interiors', Everyman's Home,
vol. 1, 1922, p. 45.
45 e.g., R.W. Telford, 'Hygienic clothing and hygienic house furniture', Health
Bulletin, no. 3, 1925, pp. 67-70.
46 J .R. Adams, Distinctive Australian homes, 192 5, p. 78.
47 Health Bulletin, no. 18, 1929, p. 604; 'Electricity in the home', The
Housewife, February 1934, p. 11.
3 The administration of the home

1 Vic. Minister for Public Instruction, Annual Report, 1895-6, pp. 34, 53,
VPP no. 35, vol. 4, 1896.
2 Minister's Report, 1894-5, Appendix B, p. 7, VPP no. 50, 1895-6.
3 J.H. Docherty, The 'Emily Mac'.· the story of Emily McPherson College, 1906-
1979, Ormond Book and Educational Supplies, 1981, p. 4.
4 Miss J. Flynn, Chief Inspector of Secondary Schools, 'Report', attached to
Minister's Report, 1927-8, p. 23, VPP no. 2, 1929.
5 Docherty, op.cit., pp. 6-7.

6 F. Kelly, 'The woman question' in Melbourne, unpublished Ph~D. Thesis,
Monash University, 1982.
7 Mrs Fawcett Story, 'Domestic economy in state schools', Education Gazette
and Teachers' Aid, July 1900, p. 12.
8 See 'Stella May Allan' by Patricia Keep, Australian dictionary of biography,
vol. 7, 1891-1939; 'Interview with Mrs E.F. Allan', New Idea,~ 1 January
1903, p. 4 51. It was reported here that, after a meeting in New Zealand,
Mrs Allan was challenged by a local publican to compete with his 13-year-
old daughter in 'making a bed, darning a stocking,- playing a tune, and
cooking a chop'. She had, ofcourse, performed admirably. She then married
and moved to Melbourne, raising four daughters.
9 George Swinburne was not only an employer but a 'technical expert' himself,
_ his interest in domestic science being part of his enthusiasm for technical
education, see S. Murray-Smith, 'A history of technical education in Aus-
tralia', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Uni of Melb., 1966, vol. 2, p. 771.
10 Docherty, op.cit., p. 60ff.
11 Letter .from McPherson to Premier Lawson, quoted in Emily McPherson
College of Domestic Economy, unpublished pamphlet by J. Goodchild, College
Council, 193 5, pp. 6-7.
12 'Obituary: William McPherson', College of Domestic Economy Magazine, no.
6, 1931, p. 5.
13 Docherty, op.cit., p. 64.
14 ibid.
15 Story, op.cit., pp. 12-13.
16 Argus, 20 August 1907, p. 4; 17 September 1909, p. 7.
17 See Kingston, op.cit., ch. 3.
18 Docherty, op.cit., p. 92.
19 College of Domestic Economy, Prospectus, 1910-13, p. 6.
20 A. Henry Papers, ANL, MS. 1066j17, newspaper clipping from the Argus,
January 1900, 'Cooking and cooks for the million'.
21 Vic. PRO Education Department, special case file 1213, 'Red Cross cookery',
p. 3.
22 ibid., Flora Pell to the Director, Mr Hansen, 20 December 1915. She asked
permission to bring out the book, and did so in 1916 (Argus, 8 July
1916); but correspondence in 1928 reveals that the Department was not
pleased.
23 H. Hartmann, 'Capitalism and women's work in the home, 1900-1930',
Ph.D., Yale University, 1974, p. 168.
24 Spectator and Central Mission Gazette, 7 March 1884, p. 547.
25 Argus, editorial, 29 March 1921.
26 Church of England Messenger, 5 October 1920.
27 ·Argus, 6 .November 1901.
Notes 239
28 Leaflet, October 1930, 'The housewife's pages: saving time and money', p.
17.
29 R.M. Vaile, Cottage cookery, hygienic and economic, Geo. Robertson and Co.,
1892, press notices in 2nd edn, 1897.
30 W.A. Sinclair, 'Aspects of economic growth 1900-1930' in A.H. Boxer
(ed.), Aspects of the Australian economy, Melbourne Uni. Press, 2nd edn,
1969, pp. 101-12; E.A. Boehm, Twentieth century economic development in
Australia, Longman Cheshire, 2nd edn, 1979, pp. 26-7.
31 C.B. Schedvin, Australia and the Great Depression, Sydney Uni. Press, 1970,
pp. 51-2.
32 M. Maxwell, 'History of the Housewives' Association', The Housewife, June
1937, pp. 26-9.
33 See Ivy Brookes papers, MS. 1924, ANL, series 38, for reference to conflicts
between Ivy Brookes, a founder, and later patroness, of the Association,
and the executive.
34 e.g., 'Bedrock', Argus, 18 June 1911, p. 20. The New Idea in February
1903, too, had unleashed a hornet's nest of readers' letters with a letter on
how three people lived on £50 per year, New Idea, 1 April 1903, p. 699.
3 5 'Trades' Unions' deputation to Prime Minister, Prime Minister's Dept,
correspondence files class 5 (Royal Commissions), 'Basic Wage Main File',
1920, Australian Archives, CRS A460 Item A5 j2, Argus, 26 September
1921. .
36 A.B. Piddington, The next step.· a family basic income, Macmillan, 1921.
37 ibid., p. 58.
38 Australia. Royal Commission on the Basic Wage, 1920, Report and Minutes
of Evidence, vol. 1, (Melb.), Melb. Govt. Pr., 1920, pp. 32-3.
39 ibid., Evidence Q. 12268-12270.
40 Vaile, op.cit., p. 72.
41 H. Rankin, Handbook of domestic science, W. Brooks & Co., {n.d.), p. 95.
Miss Rankin therefore recommended that Saturday must be for 'recreation'.
42 Lady (Deborah) Hackett, The Australian household guide, 1916, p. 308.
43 'Vesta', Argus, 4 April 1921, p. 12.
44 Basic Wage, Evidence Q.12200-3.
45 ibid., Q.12181.
46 ibid., Q.14370-4, 14407.
47 Argus, 16 April 1936.
48 Basic wage, Evidence, Q.llB 16-17.
49 Wife of a commercial artist writing to Dr V. Wallace in the 1940s, letter
held in the clinical records, 1940s 'reasons for contraception' series, V.H.
Wallace MS. papers, University of Melbourne Archives.
50 Vaile, op.cit., p. 75.
51 Basic Wage Evidence, Q.28502-4, 26856.
52 Argus, 18 May 1938, p. 8.
53 e.g., Everylady's cookbook, ed. and compiled by Miss Lucy Drake, Melb.,
1934: My daily dinner cookery book. The work of a practical housewife. What
to have and how- to cook it~ (by KEAB) [n.d.} (early 1920s?); I.J. Holmes,
Breakfast, dinner, tea, recipes and menus, Veritas {1925).
54 Advisory Council on Nutrition, Final Report, Govt. Pr., 1938.
55 Comments of Prime Minister Lyons, quoted in 'Resolution of NHMRC',
Australian Archives, Dept. of Health No. 455, C.R.S. 1928, item 15)/
17fl.
56 Nutrition,_ op.cit.
57 e.g., Church of England, Mothers' Union, 'Good recipes for hard times',
Leaflet, April 1931, p. 18ff.
58 Argus, 25 May 1938, p. 6.
59 Nutrition, op.cit., p. 46
60 List 'C' attached to 'Basic Wage Main File', 1920, Prime Minister's Dept,
correspondence files class 5 (Royal Commission), Australian Ar-chives .CRS
A460, Item 5 f2.
61 Basic _Wage, Evidence, Q.26966, 24619.
62 ibid., Q.24462-4.
63 ibid., Q.12193-5, 12262-3, 12271-5, 12288-99, 12985-6, 11634-7.
64 ibid., Q.l3757-9.
65 ibid., Q.l2842-3.
66 cf., E. Zaretsky, Capitalism, the family and personal life, and S. Ewen,
_Captains of consciousness, McGraw Hill, 1976, ch. 6.
67 Story, op.cit., pp. 13-14.
4 Modernizing confinement
1 Healthy mothers and sturdy children, 1893, pp. 7-8.
2 e~g., articles of Sister M.A. Peck in issues of the Everylady's journal, 1933;
M. Purcell, The Australian haby, {Age?], 1928.
3 ibid.
4 MDNS Weekly Minutes, 24 May 1910.
5 ibid., 27 April 1926.
6 ibid., 13 June 1923.
7 ibid., 26 October 1926.
8 ibid., 4 May 1926.
11M. Chamberlain, Old wives' tales, Virago, 1981, pp. 111-12.
12 N. Williamson, 'Mary Kirkpatrick: the biography of a midwife', Second
Women and Labour Conference Papers, 1980, vol. 1, PP·- 410-19; interview
with infant welfare sister, Sr E. Dawson of Box Hill, December ·1980.
13 M. Allan, ·The need for ante-natal clinics', MJA, 15 July 1922, vol. 2, pp.
53-4.
Notes 241
14 Argus, 29 December 1928, pp. 8, 15; M.R. Allan, 'Report on maternal

mortality and morbidity in the state of Victoria', MJA, 2 June 1928, pp.
668-84; 'Vesta', 'Maternal Mortality', Argus, 11 January 1928, p. 4; 'Vesta's
Appeal supported', Argus, 13 January 1928, p. 15; Argus, 3 May 1928,
p. 17.
15 J. Main and V. Scantlebury, Report of the Minister of Public Health on
the Welfare of Women and Children, 1926, p. 13, VPP no. 9, 1926;
Dame Janet Campbell, Report on Maternal and Child Welfare in Australia,
Canberra, Govt. Pr. 1930; 'Maternal Mortality', editorial, MJA, 1 December
1934, pp. 725-7; C. Thame, 'Health and the State', Unpublished Ph.D.
thesis ANU, 1974.
16 E. Sydney Morris, 'Maternal morbidity and mortality'; C. Thame, op.cit.,
p. 162ff.
17 Morris, op.cit., p. 33 7.
18 B.H. Swift, 'Some remarks on the relief of pain in childbirth', MJA, 16
January 1937, p. 88.
19 Morris, op.cit., p. 308.
20 D.B.R. Evidence, Q. 3600, 3179-3180; see too letters to the editor of the
MJA, e.g., MJA 19 February 1921, vol. 1, p. 66, 17 January 1925, vol. 1,
pp. 75-6.
21 Interview with Dame Mary Herring, May 1980.
22 MDNS Minutes, 14 May 1918, 26 November 1918, e.g., the medical
students were not always ready on time to accompany the midwife.
23 Dunbar Hooper, 'Address', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., in Supplement to the
M]A, 27 August 1927, pp. 79-80.
24 F.W. Way, 'President's address to section of midwifery and diseases of
women', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1896, p. 321.
25 F. Barrington, 'Presidential address to section of obstetrics and gynaecology',
Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1920, p. 156.
26 e.g., A. Ellis, The Australian baby: advice to Australian mothers, Ward,
Lock & Co., 1902; E. Aitkin, The Australian mother's own book, 1912.
27 P. Muskett, Illustrated medical guide, William Brooks & Co., 1903, p.
334.
28 F. Meyer, 'The obligations of gynaecology to obstetrics', Trans. Int. Med.
Cong., 1889, p. 712.
29 C.J. Pike, 'A plea for the more frequent administration of chloroform in
confinements', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1903, pp. 379-80.
30 T.G. Wilson, 'The early recognition and treatment of puerperal sepsis',
Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1908, p. 6.
3 1 Interview with one of her contemporaries, Dr C., August 1980.
3 2 M. de Garis, 'Pain and other reflexes in labour; mechanism and source of
visceral pain', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1929, pp. 331-5; 'A redefinition of
normal labour; the cause of pain in labour', MJA, vol. 2, 22 August 1925,
pp. 222-5.
33 T.H. Small, 'Analgesia and anaesthetics in midwifery', Trans. Aust. Med.

Cong., 19-29, MJA, 23 October 1937, pp. 208-09.
34 e.g., Discussion at 1937 Aust. Med. Cong., MJA, 23 October 1937, p. 712;
Dr Brian Swift, 'Some remarks on the relief of pain in childbirth', MJA,
16 January 1937, p. 88.
35 H. Jellett, 'The future of obstetrical practice', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong.,
1929, pp. 306.
36 Discussion at the 1889 Inter-Colonial Medical Congress, see Trans., p. 714;
Wilkinson, Trans. Int. Med. -Cong., 1892, p. 544; A.M. Wilson, 'The
prevention of disease in infancy and childhood', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong.,
Supp. AVA, 29 October 1927, p. 312; C. Thame, op.cit., pp. 163.;.4.
37 Barrington, op.cit., pp. 153-5.
38 Sir E. McLean, comments in discussion, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1929, p.
314.
39 e.g., H. Jellett, op.cit., P• 31 L
40 R. Tate Sutherland, 'Some notes on early rising during the_ puerperium',
Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1911, pp. 403-09.
41 ibid., p. 403.
42- P. Muskett, op.cit., p. 37.
43 Editorial, 'The relief of labour pains', MJA, 20 March 1937, p. 442.-
5 Planning the family

1 J. Donnison, Midwives and medical men: a history of inter-professional rivalries
and women's rights, Heine_mann, 1977; M. Chamberlain, op~cit., B. Ehren-
reich and D. English, Witches, midwives and nurses.· a history of women
healers, Feminist Press, 1973.
2 ]. Foreman, 'Chairman's address,. section of Gynaecology', Trans. Int. Med.
Con., 1887, p. 171.
3 e.g., 'Essay on maternal morbidity and mortality', the prize-winning essay
by Dr E. Sydney Morris, AtfA, 12 September 1925.
4 F.. C. Batchelor, 'President's address to section of obstetrics and gynaecology',
Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1889, p. 633.
5 Argus, 18 March 1914, p. 6.
6 e.g., W. Balis-Headley, Dress with reference to heat, Melb. Aust. Health
Society, 1876; W. Balls-Headley, 'President's address to section of mid-
wifery', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1892, pp. 512-23.
7 ibid., p. 512; also The evolution of the diseases of women, Geo. Robertson
and Co., 1894; see too, M.U. O'Sullivan, The proclivity of civilized woman
to uterine displacements: the antidote, Stillwell and Co., 1893~
8 R. Worrall, 'The causes, results and treatment, immediate and remote, of
injuries in the genital tract', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1908, p. 20; and F.
Meyer, 'The obligation of gynaecology to obstetrics', Trans., 1889, p. 712.
Notes 243
9 Worrall, op.cit.
10 See L. Doyal, The politica/economy of health, Pluto Press, 1979; ]. Lewis,
The politics of motherhood, Croom Helm, 1980.
11 Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1937, in MJA, 30 October 1937, p. 764.
12 e.g., Speakers at the National Conference on Infant Mortality, London,
1908; see too C. Dyhouse, 'Working class mothers and infant mortality in
England, 1895-1914',]. of Social History, vol. 12, no. 2, 1978, pp. 248-
67; A. Davin, 'Imperalism and motherhood', History Workshop Journal,
Spring 1978, pp. 9-6 5.
13 Dr Abbott, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1929, p. 12.
14 Argus, 18 June 1913, p. 5.
15 Debate on Maternity Allowance Bill, 25 September 1912, CPD, 1912, p.
3438.
16 ibid., p. 3444.
17 N. Hicks, This sin and scandal: Australia's population debate, 1891-1911,
ANU Press, 1978.
18 Australian crude birth rates fell from 34.4 per 1000 in 1890-2 to 16.4 in
1934, although they temporarily rose after the Second World War (e.g.,
24.07 in 1947). Population and Australia: a demographic analysis and
projection, the first report of the National Population Inquiry, AGPS, 1975; E.
Browne, The empty cradle: fertility control in Australia, Uni. of NSW Press,
1979.
19 Dr J. Foreman, 'Conservative gynaecology', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1899,
p. 171.
20 G. Horne, 'Causation of ectopic pregnancy', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1903,
p. 392.
21 Dr V. Wallace papers, case records of sexual counselling cases.
22 NSW Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth Rate, 1903, vol. 2,
Minutes of Evidence (henceforth cited as DBR), Q. 3162.
23 ibid., Q. 5994.
24 S. Warren, The wife's guide and friend, 1893.
25 Mrs B. Smyth, Limitation of offspring, Rae Bros., 1893; see Farley Kelly,
'Mrs Smyth and the body politic', in Second women and labour conference,
Papers, Melb., 1980, vol. 1, pp. 159-75.
26 DBR, Evidence, Q. 3851-2.
27 ibid., Q. 1086-7.
28 ibid., Q. 2889-2890, 2336-7, 6019.
29 ibid., Q. 3496.
30 Evening News (Syd.), 20 October 1903, cited in DBR Evidence, p. 268.
31 J.W. Barrett Papers, Melbourne University Archives, personal correspond-
ence file, letters from women re the birth rate.
32 Daily Telegraph (Syd.), 1 July 1903, quoted DBR Evidence, p. 265.
33 Wallace, Women and children first, 1946, ch. 5. In 1944 Wallace undertook
a small sociological survey of 5 30 of his patients to ascertain their reasons

for family limitation. Apart .frorn. his collation of the results, the actual
letters are held in the Wallace papers.
34 Argus, 15 March, 1928, Dr- Marshall Allan Speaking to meeting of Victorian
Women~s Citizen Movement.
35 DBR Evidence, Q. 5674.
36 ibid., Q. 5680, 5719-22~
37 ibid., Q. 5780-5781.
38 Newspaper clipping field held in MDNS records, held at the After-Care
Hospital, Victoria Parade, East .Melbourne.
39 Barrett, op.cit., p. 346.
40 Dr Abbott, 'Presidential ·address to section of obstetrics and gynaecology',
Trans. Aust. Med Cong., 1929, p. 12.
41 D.H.E. Lines, 'President's. address' given at Aust. Med. Congress, 1934,
MJA, 17 February 1934, p~ 216.
42 From discussions in an interview with the late Dame Mary Herring-, May
1980; Dr Anderson's lecture on medical ethics, reported in MJA, 16 July
1921, vol. 2, pp. 40-6.
43 M. Allan, 'President's address- -to section of obstetrics and gyriaecology',
Anst. Med. Cong., 1937, MJA, 23-0,tober 1937,~p. 698.-
44 Wallace papers, Unpublished MS., 'The development of family planning
in Australia', p. 57; Vimy Wilhelm, 'The Australian Federation of Family
- Planning Associations: abrief historical outline', typescript in Wallace
papers.
45 M. Piddington, 'Institute of family relations, 1/1/33', in Bessie Rischbieth
papers, MS. 2004, series 12, held at ANL, Canberra.
46 Interview with Dame Mary Herring; N. Rosenthal, People not cases, Royal
District Nursing Service, Nel~rt, ch. 6; MDNS Minutes, held at After-Care
Hospital.
47 Wallace, 'Family planning', ch. 3.
48 ibid., p. 37.
49 Coogee ALP Branch to Mr S.M. Falstein, MHR, 10 July 1942; Rev~ T.R.
Pelham to Prime Minister;- 2 June 1942; W.- Hunt to Prime Minister, 17
June 1940; and others in Prime Minister's Dept, correspondence files. Multi-
Number series, 3rd system, -1934-50, 'Birth Control 1940-1942', Australian
Archives, CRS A.461, item Q347 /1/l.
50 ibid.; Broken Hill Housewives' Assoc. to PM, 25 March 1940.
51 Browne, op.cit.
6 Producing ~he model.modern baby

1 Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1924, MJA Supp., 12 July 1924, p. 482.
2 N _ Hicks; This sin and scandal, ch. 1; M. Lewis, 'Populate or perish,., ch.
Notes 245
5; see too, Gandevia, Tears often shed, pp. 79-82, 122-127, ch. 15; and C.
Thame, 'Health and the State'.
3 K. Laster, 'The forgotten crime: infanticide', Unpublished paper presented
to 3rd Women and Labour Conference, Adelaide, June 1982.
4 C. D. Hunter, What kills our babies, Australian Health Society ( 1878), tract
no. 7, Mason, Firth and McCutcheon, 1878 (rep. 1883).
5 Sir H. Allen, 'Opening address to general session', Trans. Int. Med. Cong.,
1908, Govt. Pr., 1909, pp. 29-31.
6 Lewis, op.cit., ch. 4; Thame, op.cit., p. 208; B. Gandevia, op.cit., p. 126.
7 'History of the maternal, infant and pre-school movement in Victoria',
typescript MS. (undated and unsigned), held at Vic. Dept of Maternal and
Child Welfare; interview with Sr E. Dawson, December 1979; see also,
jubilee Conference on Maternal and Child Health, April 5-B, 1976, Session
1, The progress of infant welfare services in Victoria over the past 50 years;
VBHCA, The story of the baby health centre 'movement in Victoria (n.d.), both
made available by Sr E. Dawson of Box Hill, Victoria.
8 VBHCA Minutes of Executive Committee 1918.
9 VBHCA Minutes, 9 May 1919; W. Kapper, 'Biographical Notes on Dr Vera
Scantlebury Brown', Typescript MS., 1977, held with V. Scantlebury Brown
papers (p. 3).
10 V. Scantlebury Brown papers, MS. diary letter, 24 January 1919.
11 ibid., 14 December 1919 (letter to her brother, Cliff Scantlebury).
12 After arriving from England in 1887, J.T. Tweddle, an accountant, rose to
become managing director of a woollens firm. A Methodist, he was on the
council of Wesley College, and was vice-president of Queen's College at
the University. His interest in infant welfare was strong and sincere, leading
him and his wife to play an active role in the movement. Who's Who in
Australia, Syd., 1929.
13 Victoria, Director of Infant Welfare, Annual Reports, 1928-9, 1938-9.
14 VBHCA, 'The story of the baby health centre movement', p. 2. Similar
arguments were advanced in England; see Lewis, The politics of motherhood,
pp. 102-03.
15 H. Main and V. Scantlebury, Report to the Minister of Public Health on
the Welfare of Women and Children, Dept of Public Health, Victoria,
1926, pp. 45-6, VPP, no. 9, vol. 2, 1926; Lewis, 'Populate or Perish', pp.
141 ff; In North America, however, paediatricians were in clear control, V.
Scantlebury Brown, 'Experiences abroad with special reference in infant
welfare', MJA, 8 January 1927, esp. pp. 40-41.
16 Main and Scantlebury, op.cit.
17 Argus, 14 August 1926; 15 September 1926.
18 Report of Royal Commission on Health; Dame Janet Campbell, Report on
Maternal and Child Welfare in Australia, Govt. Pr., 1930.
19 V. Scantlebury Brown, A guide and tables for infant feeding, Melb., Dept
of Public Health, 1929; id., 'Some Aspects of the infant welfare movement
in Victoria, 1917-1935', Health Bulletin, July-December 1935, pp. 1239-
53.
20 Society for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria, First Annual
Report, 1920-1, p. 2.
21 For fuller details see the biography written by his daughter, Mary King,
Truby King: the man, Geo. Allen and Unwin,- 1948._
22 V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 5 December 1928.
23 ibid., 18 August 1929.
- 24 Interview with Dr C., 5 August 1980.
25 C.E. Sayers, The Women's, chs. 18-22.
26 V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 18 August 1929.
27 ibid., 5 December 1929.
28 SHMCV Annual Reports, 1920-1, 192-1-2; Main and Scantlebury, op.cit.
29 E. Dawson, 'The maternal and infant welfare movement: reminiscences of
early training and field work', and 'To do with traips', RVCN, Infant Welfare
Section, Newsletter, April and July 1973; Report of the -Victorian Railway
Commissioners, 1925, pp.- 34-5, VPP, rio. 19, vol. 2, 1925.
30 Main and Scantlebury, op.cit., p. 41; SHMCV Annual Report, 1931-2.
31 Sr Maud Primrose, 'Mothercraft not learnt by instinct', The Housewife, 2
January 1939, p. 32.
32 e.g., C.D. Hunter, What kills our babies; C. McCarthy, On the excessive
mortality of infants and its causes, Geo. Robertson, 1867, pp. 18-19; J._
Usher, The perils of a baby, Samuel Mullen, 1888.
33 S. Warren, The wife's guide and friend, p. 49, p. 80.
34 Hunter, -op.cit., p. 9.
35 e.g., V. Scantlebury, 'Some aspects of infant welfare work in Victoria', Aust.
Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Proceedings, 1928, pp. 496..;502; G.
Springthorpe, 'Restoration of breast milk feeding: a consideration of fifty
~ases'; H. Boyd Graham, 'Infant- feeding to the age of six months'; A.
Jefferies Turner, 'Infant feeding', F. Truby King, 'Infant feeding', both in
Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1927, Supp. to MJA, 3 September 1927.
36 e.g., V. Scantlebury Brown, Guide; M. Harper, The parents' book, Angus
and Robertson, 1927; NSW Dept. of Public Health, Notes for m_others,
NSW Govt. Pr. 1916; Your baby: a practical guide to mother and babies,
Woman's World, 1925, 1938.
37 M. Harper, 'Maintenance of lactation', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1924,
MJA, Supp. 5 April 1924, p. 187.
38 Dr] . Wood, 'Comments', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1927, p. 121.
39 M. Harper, The parents' book, p. 29.
40 Sr M. Primrose, 'Giving baby his first lesson', The Housewife, 1 September
1937, p. 22.
41 S. Ewen, Captains of consciou.rness, pp. 13-18.
Notes 247
42 D. Miller and G. Swanson, The changing American parent, John Wiley,

1958; 'Fun Morality: an analysis of recent American child-training litera-
ture', in M. Mead and M. Wolfenstein (eds), Childhood in contemporary
cultures, Uni. of Chicago Press, 1955.
43 V. Scantlebury Brown, Annual Report of the Director of Infant Welfare,
1938-9, p. 6; see too comments of Dr Dale, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong.,
1929, p. 497.
44 V. Scantlebury Brown, 'Aspects of infant welfare work', AAAS 1928, pp.
493-4.
45 V. Scantlebury Brown, MS. diary letters, 2 March 1929.
46 J. Turner, 'Infant feeding', p. 118.
47 V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 8 July 1929 (B.6).
48 Dr S.F. McDonald, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1929, p. 452.
49 MJA, 30 September 1922, vol. 2, pp. 395-6. Contradictions emerged such
as paediatrician Dr Jeff Wood arguing that scientific analysis of milk and
accurate measurements are very important, but, 'One must ... be guided
solely by the baby's condition and his weight chart. It is easy to advise
that he have less or more without knowing exactly how much he is getting',
Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., Supp. MJA, 3 September 1927, p. 119.
50 e.g., Everylady's journal, 1 February 1928, p. 165; M. Peck, Your baby, pp.
84-5; A. Purcell, The Australian haby, Melb., rep. from articles in the Age,
( 1928).
51 V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 2 November 1928.
52 ibid., 8 October cl931.
53 e.g., Sr Peck advised care in choosing a shawl, not too lacy as baby's fingers
would get caught, not too fluffy or wool in his mouth, Peck, p. 67. The
increased stress on Australian-made products after the First World War was
reflected in the emphasis on Australian wool, on dried fruits and locally
made infant products, e.g., in London Baby Carriages Stores' advertisements.
54 Foys catalogues, 1906-30s. See Appendix for discussion.
55 Harper, The parents' book, p. 67.
56 Hunter, op.cit., p. 17.
57 G. Dunlop, Our babies: a textbook for mothers, Aust. Medical Publishing
Co., 1928, p. 62; on the 'mothering' hour see M. Primrose, 'Affection as
essential as food', The Housewife, 1 October 193 7.
58 Harper, op.cit., pp. 69-70.
59 V. Scantlebury Brown, MS. diary letters, 13 December 1928.
60 Purcell, op.cit., p. 55.
61 Interview with Dr C., 5 August 1980.
62 V. Scantlebury Brown, MS. diary letters, 28 December 1928.
63 ibid., 14 September 1928.
64 ibid., 5 December 1929.
7 The remaking of childhood
1 B. Dickey, No charity there: a short history of social welfare in Australia,

Nelson, 1980, pp. 127-32; A. Hyslop, 'The social reform movement in
Melbourne', chs. 7 & 8; C. Lasch, Haven in a heartless world, pp. 16-17.
2 B. Lewis, Sunday at Kooyong Road; E. Turner, Seven little Attstralians, Ward,
Lock and Co., 1894; id., The_ family at Misrule, Ward, _Lock and Co.,
1894; L. Mack, Girls together: a story of Australian school-girl life, Melrose
{n.d.].
3 e~g., R. Twopeny, Town -Jife in Australia, 1883, Peng. edn, 1973, pp. 81-
93; J. Ackermann, Australia from a woman's point of view, Cassell, 1912,
p. 207; M. Franklin, Childhood at Brindabella: my first ten years, Angus
and Robertson, 1979 (Arkon. edn), pp. 141-2.
4 D. Malouf, Johnno, Penguin, 1976, -pp. 37-8.
5 Porter, op.cit., p. 140.
6 H.H. Richardson, The fortune-s of Richard Mahoney, Heinemann, 1925;
Ethel Robertson papers, MS: 13 3, series 2 j 1, 91, Canberra, ANL
-7 Alfred Deakin tolvy, 14 July 1884, Deakin papers held at ANL, Canberra,
MS. 1540, Correspondence,--1884-99. 'To Ivy on her second birthday', and
then also 15 April 1887. -
8 Georgiana McCrae to Edie, 21 April 1886, McCrae family papers, held at
La Trobe Library, Vic., MS. 9162; see too Eliza Chomley memoirs, La
Trobe Library, Melbourne, MS. 9034, Box 912/5; letters made available
by interviewee Mrs Cork.
9 Deakin papers, 1540/19/356, 7 September 1890.
10 ibid., Correspondence, 20 February 1887.
11 P.E. Muskett,_ The feeding and management of Australian infants.
12 E. Coles, Coles funny picture book, 1st published M~lb. 1909, 71st-(Surprise)
edn, 1979. (See illustration 'Whipping machine for naughty boys'.)
13 Franklin, op.cit., p. -7.
14 Harvey Sutton, 'Recent progress in child hygiene', Presidential address to
Sanitary Science and Hygiene Section, AAAS Meeting, Wellington, N.Z.,
1923, N.Z. Govt. Pr., 1924, pp. 646 and 665.
15 M. Anderson, Mother lore, Angus and Robertson, 1919.
16 E. Aitken, The Australian mother's own book: a complete trea-tise 011 the rearing
and management of Australian children, 1912.
17 P. Muskett, Illustrated Australian medical guide, p. 117.
18 Church of England Messenger, 3 June 188 5, report of Archdeacon Julius at
Ballarat.
19 M. Weigall, Our children, Melville, Muller and Slade, 1895.
20 J. Bostock, 'Mental hygiene',- Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1929, p. 302.
21 Victoria, Royal Commission on Technical Education (Fink Commission)
Report, 1901, p. 85 VPP 1900-01; Vic. Education Dept, Special Case File,
no. 1110, FKU held at Vic. PRO.
Notes 249
22 D. Edgar, 'The educational ideas and influence of Dr John Smyth', M.Ed.,

Uni. of Melbourne, 1967, esp. pp. 261-284; A.M. a'Beckett, The growth
and development. of the Free Kindergarten Movement in Victoria, 1939; M.
Walker, 'The Development of Kindergartens in Australia', M.Ed., Uni. of
Sydney, 1964.
23 Lady Hackett, A complete Australian household guide, p. 82; for similar
sentiments see too the Education Gazette and Teachers' Aid 22 September
1914, pp. 3 5 1-3, and both the 'General report on the work of the free
kindergarten union of Victoria', and a questionnaire on the 'Missionary
endeavour of the FKU', held in FKU Special Case file, 1110.
24 C. Heinig, 'Child development as promoted by the facilities for child and
parent education in nursery schools and kindergartens'. AAAS, Proceedings,
1939, pp. 218-223; M.V. Gutteridge, 'The story of an Australian nursery
school', Australian Educational Studies, 1st Series, Melb. (ACER), 1932.
2 5 Child Study and Adult Health Association, Memorandum and Articles of
Association, Syd., P.S. Garling Pr. [n.d.); D. Izett, Health and longevity,
according to the theories of the late Dr G. Carroll, with an account of the
Child Study Association, Syd., Epworth, 1915.
26 Edgar, op.cit., p. 38.5ff.
27 K.S. Cunningham, Review of education in Australia, Melb., ACER 1939.
28 Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1909, p. 199; Gandevia, Tears often shed, p. 140.
29 'Medical inspection in State Schools: weighing, measuring and recording',
Educ. Gaz. and Teachers' Aid, 22 September 1914, pp. 345-6.
30 A. Muhl, 'Mental hygiene', Health Bulletin, Nos. 57, 58, 1939, pp. 1603-
07; see too The young child: a series of five lectures on child management,
Melb., Melb. Uni. Press, 1931.
31 F. Morris, 'The children's court and the problem child', The Housewife, 5
February 1930, p. 10.
32 A. Muhl, 'Mental Hygiene'.
3 3 ] . Greig, 'Report of School Medical Service', attached to Report of Minister
of Education, VPP, 1927-8, p. 37.
34 The young child, Preface.
35 M.V. Gutteridge, The child at home/The child growing up, a series of lectures
by the Principal of the Kindergarten Training College, Mel b., Free Kinder-
garten Union of Victoria, [1934], [1937].
36 Typescript History of Playgrounds Association, in Ivy Brookes papers held
at ANL, MS. 1924, series 29, item 181.
37 'The business of play', Everylady's journal, 6 October 1912, p. 588.
38 Franklin, op.cit., p. 68.
39 Gutteridge, op.cit., p. 13.
40 V. Scantlebury Brown, MS. diary letters, 8 February 1930.
41 Leaflet (Mothers' Union), April 1932; Gutteridge, op.cit., p. 11.
42 C. Heinig, 'Child development as promoted by the facilities for child and
parent education in nursery schools and kindergartens', AAAS, 1939, p. 221;
-A. Muhl, 'Mental hygiene'-.

43 Gutteridge, op.cit., p. 16.-
44 ibid., p. 25.
45 E.M. Chesser, Perfect health for women and children, Methuen, 1912, p. -55.
46 Everylady's Journal, 6 May 1922, p. 65, 2 April 1922, p. 380.
8 The sexual enlightenment of the young

1 J. Ellis, The human body ~ de!cribed for the inJtruction of the young of both
sexes, Geo. Slater [n.da.
_2 ). Bea~ey, The generative system and its function in health and disease, F.F.
.Bailliere, 187~, 3rd edn, 1880, 4th, 1883.
3 ~.F. Ford, A bibliography oof Australian medicine, 1790-1900, Sydney Uni.
Press. 1976.
4 J. Beaney, The medica/embassy to England, being a report of the trial Bailliere
vs. Beaney, May 1880, Stillwell & Co., 1880 (rep. from the Argus).
5 ibid., p. 85.
6 H. Varley, Private addresses to boys and youths on an important subject,
containing valuable information for boys, youth, and parents, Varley- Bros~,
1895, p. 30. His lecture to Men on a vitally important subject was published
in 1894; his The curse -of manhooaseems no longer to be available~
7 Varley, Private addresses, p. 5.
8 E.M. Sigswonh and- T.J. Wyke, 'A study of Victorian .prostitution and
venereal disease', in M. -Vicinus, Suffer and be still: women in the -Victorian
age, Indiana Uni. Press, 1972; J. Weeks, Sex, politic.s and society: the
regulation of sexuality since 1800, ch. 5, Longman, 1981.
9 Church of England Messenger, 12 October 1885, p. 15.
10 Church of England Messenger, 12 October 1885, p. 14.
11 Courtney to Education Dept., 23 July 1903, PRO (Vic.) Education D@part-
ment, Special Case File 1106.
12 ibid., Dr Kitchen to Bligh; enclosed with Bligh's 1903 letters- to the
Education Dept.
13 ibid., Mr McGillivray, testimonial- on behalf of Mr Bligh,- 22 July 19(}3.
14 Advocate, editorial, 7 June l884f p. 14.
15 Miss Douglas to F. Tate, 25 November 1913, Special Case File 1106.
16 ibid., Council of Sex Hygiene and Morality to Director, 5 June 1916, and
Memo to Director, 25 July 1916.
17 Argus, 12 July 1916.
18 Education Gazette and Teachers' Aid, 20 June 1929, pp. 151-2 and 21
October 1930, p. 472.
19 Argus, 17 September 1926, p. 16.
20 Australian Association for Fighting VD., The silent foe and my campaign
against it [n.da.
Notes 251
21 ibid., p. 23; p. 25.

22 ibid., pp. 25-6.
23 M. Piddington, Tell them, or the second stage of mothercraft, {1925], pp. 47-
8.
24 ibid;, p. 33.
25 G. Sweet, The responsibility of the community towards sex education, 1916.
26 Mrs Carpenter, 'Sex education in relation to the youth of our state', address
to Racial Hygiene Congress, 1929, Report, Sydney, RHA 1929, p. 18.
27 V. Smith and E. Irwin, The story of ovum and sperm; and how they grew
into the baby kangaroo. Stories of birth and sex for children, Australasian
League of Honour, 1920.
28 Piddington, op.cit., pp. 95-6.
29 ibid., p. 99.
30 ibid., p. 33; E.J. Bamford, Growing and knowing: a simple story of life for
boys and girls, Kyneton, Vic. {1940].
9 The rational management of sex

1 J. Beaney, The generative system, p. 11.
2 Sir James Barrett, 'Venereal disease', Address, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong.,
1914, p. 138.
3 ibid., p. 159, Dr Hallen.
4 Australian Association for Fighting VD, 'Annual Report', 1929, in Health
Bulletin, no. 23, 1930, pp. 761-4. The Society was established in 1921,
largely as a result of Sir James Barrett's pressure, Argus, 9 October 1921,
p. 17; Argus, 24 November 1921, p. 10; J. Barrett, The twin ideals, section
IV, pp. 443-93.
5 WCTU convention report, p. 111 included in the Association for Moral and
Social Hygiene (UK) papers (later known as the Josephine Butler Society),
Correspondence Box-'Australia'. Papers held at Fawcett Library, London.
6 Discussion, Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1937, p. 517.
7 For an overview of the British eugenics movement, see G .R. Searle, Eugenics
and politics in Britain, 1900-1914, Leyden, 1976; and for divergent views
concerning the class basis of the British eugenics movement, see D. Mac-
kenzie, 'Sociologists in competition: the Biometrician-Mendelian debate'
and G.R. Searle, 'Eugenics and class', in The roots of sociobiology, Past &
Present Society, London, 1978.
8 Truby King, 'Education and eugenics', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1914, p.
84; for fuller discussion of these attitudes, see C. Bacchi, 'Evolution, eugenics
and women: the impact of scientific theories on attitudes towards women,
1870-1920', in E. Windshuttle, (ed.), Women, class and history, Fontana,
1980, pp. 132-56.
9 SA Branch of British Science Guild, Race Building, 1916 (reprinted from
series in the Adelaide Mail), p. 20.

10 V. Wallace, unpublished MS. 'The development of family planning in
Australia'. The papers of the· Victorian-Eugenics society are-hcld.with the
Wallace papers, Melbourne University Archives.
1 I Eugenics Society, Minutes, Mrs Currie, 23 March 1938..
12 'Physical and Mental Testing', MJ~, vol. 2, 12 September- 192)-, pp. 352-
~7.
13 A. Booth, Voluntary sterilization for human betterment, Eugenics Society of
Vic.~ 1938.
14 ibid., pp. 12-13.
15 W.E. Agar, Eugenics and the future of the Australian population, Eugenics
Society of Vic., 1939, p. 10-11.
16 Eugenics Society, Minutes, March 1938.
17 Dr Granville Waddy, 'Eugenics', Aust. Racial -Hygiene Congress, 1929:,
Report, pp. 62-3.
18 G.R. Searle, The quest for national efficiency, Oxford Uni. Press, 1971, pp.
80-1.
19 Eugenics Society of Victoria, List of Office-bearers ·and Members, 19_38, in
Eugenics Society papers.
20 J.S. Moyes, (Bishop of Armidale), Marriage and sex: the church's-task, St
John's College Press, Morpeth., NSW [1932], p. 19.
21 SA Branch ofBritish Science Guild, Race building; p. 20; 'Health Certificate
before marriage', Argus,- 3c() July 1917, p. 8.
_22 See Mrs L. Goodisson, 'Marriage advice centre' - [n.d.], p. 30,- and- also
typescript broadcast [1940] on the work -of the RHA,_ both- in Wallace
papers,. 4j12.
23 Institute qf Family -Relations, Prevention of racial decay [n:d.], _held with
correspondence from M. Piddington to B. Rischbieth,. Rischbieth papers,
MS. 2004, series 12_, held at A~.L.
24 e.g., E. Atkinson -and, W.J .. Dakin, Sex hygiene and- sex. education-, Angus
and Robertson, 191 s-; Piddington, Tell them,· pp. 118-19.
25 Discussion, Tr-ans. Aust. -Med. Cong., 1914, p. 148.
26 Australian Racial Hygiene Congress, 1929, Report, p. 43;-see too a-collection
of p~pers for a decade earlier, Workers' Education Association --of-NSW,
Teaching of sex hygiene, WEA, {1918].
27 Agar, Eug-enics, p. 3.
-28 Everylady's Journal, 1 March 193 3, p. 107.
29 ibid., 1 January 19 3 7.
3.0 ibid., 'Beauty for the older woman', 1 July 1937.
31- Argus, 17 July 1918, p. J3.
32 Wallace papers, Sexual Counselling files; advan<;e proofs of the -Woman in
1941 announced that Dr 'Wykeham Terriss' is the pen name 'ofa distin-
guished . Harley Street spe(:ialist' whose work was widely known- overseas,
Notes 253
and who wrote on 'a subject that is of vital importance to the people of
the Commonwealth', a confidential page proof attached to P.M.'s file E.
34 7I 117 Aust. Archives, item 267 I 1, Sect. I.
10 The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment

1 Donzelot, Policing of families; Lasch, The culture of narcissism; B. and J.
Ehrenreich, 'The professional managerial class'. (I have referred to Barbara
Ehrenreich's work in particular.)
2 Summers, Damned whores and God's police; A. Game and R. Pringle, 'The
making of the Australian family', Intervention, 1979.
3 Rowse, Australian liberalism, ch. 2.
4 R. Connell and T. Irving, Class structure in Australian history, Longman
Cheshire, 1980, pp. 200-0 l.
5 Basic Wage, Evidence, Q. 26966.
6 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic, p. 3.
7 ibid., p. 69ff.
8 ibid., Notes and Drafts, p. 250.
9 J. Habermas, 'A reply to my critics', in J.B. Thompson and D. Held,
Habermas, Critical debates, Macmillan, 1982.
10 S. de Beauvoir, op.cit.
11 Ruether, op.cit.
12 ibid., pp. 190-191; see too R. Easlea, op.cit.
13 Ruether, op.cit., p. 192.
Appendix
1 e.g., D. Hunt, Parents an~ children in history: the psychology of family lifo in
ea~ly modern France, New York, Basic Books, 1970; M. Wolfenstein, 'Fun
morality'.
2 A.]. Stewart, D.G. Winter, and A.D. Winter, 'Coding categories for the
study of childrearing from historical sources', J. of Interdisciplinary History,
vol. 4, Spring 1975, pp. 687-701.
3 P. Thompson, The voice of the past, Oxford Uni. Press, 1978.
4 A. Portelli, ~The peculiarities of oral history', History Workshop Journal, 12,
1981, pp. 96-107 oc
5 L. Passerini, '"Work ideology and consensus under Italian fascism', History

Workshop Journal, 8, 1979.
6 Portelli, op.cit., p. 104.
-Bibliography
From the many sources used both directly and indirectly in this study,
only the more significant are listed below. A comprehensive bil?liography
is available in the original thesis.
PRIMARY SOURCES
A Official publications
Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, in particular:

Report (final) of the Advisory Council on Nutrition, 1938.
Report of the Royal Commission on the Basic Wage, 1920.-
Repon of the Royal Commission on Health, 1926.
Report on Maternal and Child Welfare in Australia, by Dame Janet Campbell,
1930.
Report on Mortality in Childbirth, by the Committee on Death and Invalidity in
the Commonwealth, 1917-19.
New South Wales. Report of the Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth
Rate and_the mortality-of infants -in New South Wales,
(VoL 1) N.S.W. Govt. Printer, 1904. '-
(Vol. 2) Other evidence, exhibits, etc. Minutes of evidence, N.S.W. Govt. Printer,
1904. This unreleased second volume is held on microfilm in the Menzies library of
the Australian National University._
VIctorian Parliamentary Papers, in particular:_

Annual Reports of the- Direetor -of Infant Welfare, 1927-40.
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B Archival and manuscript
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Dept of Health, Miscellaneous files (including Correspondence).
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LATER WORKS
A Books· and articles
ALTHUSSER, L. 'Ideology and ideological state apparatuses', in unin and
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HORKHEIMER, M., and ADORNO, T.W. Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1944. Allen
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B Theses
EDGAR, P. 'The educational ideas and influence of Dr John Smyth'. M.Ed.,
Melbourne University, 1967.
FOLEY, J. 'The Eugenics Society of Victoria'. B.A. (Hons.), Melbourne
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HARTMANN, H. 'Capitalism and women's work in the home, 1900-1930'.
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HICKS, N. 'Evidence and contemporary opinion about the peopling of
Australia, 1891-1911'. Ph.D., ANU., 1971.
HYSWP, A. 'The Social Reform Movement in Melbourne, 1890-1914'. Ph.D.,
La Trobe University, 1980.
LEWIS, M. 'Populate or perish: aspects of infant and maternal welfare in
Sydney, 1870-1939'. Ph.D., Sydney University, 1976.
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Index
Abbott, Dr 122 Barrett, Dr Edith 59, 193

a'Beckett, Mrs Ada 164, 185 Barrett, Dr James 117, 121, 192, 193
abortion 95, 104, 110, 114, 115, 119, Barrington, Dr Fourness 100 -
121; .medical opinion 123 base/superstruaure 23
Adorno and -Horkheimer 26,29,-218- Basic Wage Enquiry· see Royal Commis-
19 sion on the Basic Wage
advertising 2, 15, 174 Batchelor, Dr 106
Advisory Council on N ritrition 7 5, 7 6-7 Beaney, DrJames 179, 180, 182, 191
Agar, -Professor 198 beaut}' 81, 82, ~ 207-8
age of consent 1, 181 Berry, Professor Richard 197
Aitken, Sister 162 Better Farming Train 138
Alfred Hospital 89 bio-politics 24
Allan, Dr Marshall (Professor) 89, 99, binh control 122~3; acceptance by med-
123 ical profession 122; class distinc-
Allan, Mrs Stella see 'Vesta' tions 119; clinics 123-, 124, _134,
Allen, Sir Harry 129, 192 conservative reaction 124; propa-
AlthliSSer 2 3, 2 4 gandists 114; services _. 216; see also
Annear, Desbrowe 51 birth rate; .contraception; family ·plan~
ante-natal care 84, 88, 89, 90, 98, 216; - ning
clinics 89; exercise 85 binb rate 40, 61, 64, 102, 107, 110-
anthropometries 166 11, 114, 214; see ttl.ro Royal Com-
architects 45, 46, 51-2; attitudes to mission into the Decline of the Birth
women 52 Rate
architecture, Modernist style 54 Bligh, Rev. William - 182-3, 184
artificial feeding see infant feeding Booth, Mrs Angela · 197, 198
Association for Fighting VD 185,-193 Bostock, Dr 163
Association of Creches 13 5 bourgeoisie 2, 3, 13, 20
Australian Church 3 3 breastfeeding 140, 141-2, 143; see also
infants, feeding
Brown, Dr Macarthur 194
baby bonus 89, 109; see also maternity Brown, Dr Vera Scantlebury 13 2, 134,
allowance 135, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150,
baby competitions 146 170-1' 213-, 2 16
baby heatth centres see infant welfare Brown, Professor 150, 213
centres budgeting 6 5, 66
Baby Week 138 Bush Nursing 59
Balls-Headley, Professor 107 Butler,_ Mrs Janie 124, 199
264
Index 265
calculation and measurement 217; in in- class orientation: of reform strategies 9,

fant feeding 144-5; see also measure- 34, 17 4, 213; 'of domestic science 60;
ment of infant welfare 13 9
Campbell, Dame Janet 134 class structure 14- 15, 211; see also
Carpenter, Mrs 187 professional middle class
Carroll, Dr Alan 16 5 clothing 68-9, 78-80
charity network 10, 92, 216; see also Clarke, Lady Janet 59, 61
upper middle class charity network; College of Domestic Economy 58, 60,
philanthropists 62; see also Emily McPherson College
charity workers 13 7 of Domestic Economy
childbirth 2, 8, 9, 19, 84, 89, 104, Collingwood Mission 48
21 7; analgesics and anaesthesia 97, contraception 2, 8, 40, 104, 106, 110,
98, 99, 100, 101; bed rest 101; doc- 112, 120, 121, 123, 200, 202, 208,
tors in attendance 89, 90-1; effect of 21 7; medical supervision 12 2; rea-
civilization 107, 108; episiotomy sons · for adoption 116; techniques
101; home 84, 94, 96, 97, 217; 113, 120, 122; women's attitudes
hospital delivery 84, 94, 95-6, 143; 115-17
medical event 93, 95; pain in cont~adiction 5, 10, 20, 103, 104, 196,
labour 98; perineal tears 101; po- 215, 218, 220
sition of woman 100-1; psychologi- Cook, Joseph 110
cal aspects 94; use of forceps 99, cookery 56, 66, 74; classes 57; courses
100; women's perceptions 95, 96, 62
117-18; see also lying-in homes; mid- cost of living 67, 77
wifery Council of Mental Hygiene 168
childcare 2 8, 221; professionals 128 Craig, William 109
child development 167 creches 9, 130, 215
child endowment 67, 109 critical theorists 220, 221; see also
child guidance 2, 169, 213 Frankfurt School
childhood 174; chores 154-5; leisure Cunningham, Dr K.S. 165, 168
15 5-6; orderliness 156; see also par-
ent-child relationships; play; toys Dale, John 108
child psychology 16, 168, 174 de Beauvoir, Simone 21, 28, 219
Child Study Association of New South de Garis, Dr Mary 98, 99
Wales 165 Deakin, Alfred 158, 159, 162, 172
child welfare 59, 75, 130 Deakin, Mrs Pattie 164, 19 3
childrearing 1, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16, 19, delinquency 16 7
129, 174, 212, 214; literature 161-3, demographic transition 104; see also birth
213 rate
children: medical inspection 166; work deserted wives 39
experience 154-5 discipline 159-61
Children's Courts 168 diet 85
Children's Hospital 129, 166 dieticians 7 5
Chisholm, Miss 60, 65 disenchantment 3, 10, 25, 218, 220
Chodorow, Nancy 18-19 domestic economy 52, 68; move-
Chomley, Eliza 158 ment 8, 40, 57, 69; see also domestic
Church of England Mothers' Union 6 5, science
181 Domestic Economy, Australian Institute
civilization: effects on disease in women of 58-9
107, on home and family 108-9, on domestic labour 18, 19, 28, 71, 72; see
mothering 13 9, on parturition 10 7-8 also housework
domestic science 3, 41, 47, 56, 57, 61, Franklin, Miles 160, 170
62' 63' 71' 76' 121' 171, 174' 212' Free Kinderganen Union 135, 138, 164
213, 216; movement 73, 79; wom- Freud, Sigmund 14, 18, 186, 219
en's response 62-3
domestic servants 32, 50, 52, 61, 149, gas appliances 53
216 gender 4, 5, 6, 17, 24, 27, 28, 34, 211,
domination 17, 18, 27, 2 21; medical, 218, 220, 221
ofwomen 125, of nature 29, 218- Giddens, A. 24, 26, 27
20 Glencross, Eleanor 67 ·
Donzelot, Jacques 16-17, 18, 24, 167, GPs 93
211 Greig, Dr Jane 42, 59, 168
dummies 147, 186 Gunn, -Alexander 169
Dunlop, Dr 147 Gutteridge, Mary 165, 169, 171, 185
gynaecological problems: effect· of modern
Education Department 13 5, 182, .18 3, civilization 167; and faulty obstetric
184 practice ·1 0 5; and working con-
education of girls 109 ditions 109
Educational Research, Australian Council gynaecology 84, 104-7
of 166
Ehrenreich, B. D. 20, 211, 215 Habermas 26, 27, 210, 219
elearical suppliers 53 Haire, Norman 207
Ellis, Dr Constance 131, 185, 193 'hand and eye' training 163
Emily McPherson College of Domestic Harper, Dr Margaret 141, 14 5, 148
Economy 58, 62, 65 Heagney, Muriel 78
English Ladies Sanitary Association 41 health: centres 148, see also infant wel-
eugenic movement 195-6 fare centres; departments 15 1, 212;
eugenics 42, 109, 194, 199, 200, 202, education 41, 4 2
208, 209; 'negative' 195, 196; Health Department 184
'positive' 195, 198 Health Inspectors' Association 19 3
Eugenic Society 12 4, 196 Health Society, Australian 40, 80, 129,
Eugenics Society, British 195; Vic- 131, 133, 144_
torian 197, 198, 199 Health Week 167
hegemony 23, 24, 212
Faith, Sister 48 Henderson, Janet 48
family: bourgeois model 11, 1~, 18, 19, Henry, Alice 62
28, 212; extended 12; nuclear 12; Herring, Dr Mary 123
patterns of living 48-9; planning home as a haven 37, 38, 175
214; relationships 1, 2, 116, 209, home ownership 38, 50
211, 212; working class 19 home birth see childbirth
family allowances 106; see also child ·en- Hooper, Miss Eva 165
dowment housewife, reconstruction of 2, 8, 19,
fashion 81-2 35, 59, 68-9, 81, 82
father, theory of 14, 15, 18, 20 housewifery 10, 20, 40, 47, 55, 63, 73,
femininity 3, 5, 6, 18, 20, 28, 220 82, 149
feminism: domestic 59; theory 4, 5, Housewives' Association 67, 125
18, 28, 80, 218 housework 28, 54, 214, 221; see also
flies· 44 domestic labour
foetal development 84 housing _ 4 5; reform 212; views of
Foucault, Michel 17, 24, 189, 194, 202 working class. women 49
Frankfurt S€hool 13-14, 18, 26, 218, human agency 6, 2 5
219; see also critical theorists Hughes, W.M. 67
Index 267
Hunter, Dr Charles 129 layette 86

Lines, Dr 12 3
'Ideal Home, exhibitions 51 lying-in homes 94, 95
ideology 11, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 40,
125, 196, 219; domestic 28; McCrae, Georgiana 158
femininity 220; home and family MacKellar, Charles 110
33, 37, 38, 120-1; national effic- McPherson, Emily 60
iency 199; resistance 24; technical McPherson, Sir William 60
rationality 21 0; woman as house- Main, Dr Henrietta 134
wife 51-1; womanhood 20, 21, management 17, 22, 61, 214; house-
215 hold 66; illness 80; infant 147;
illness 80 sexuality 215
individualism 12, 27 manual training 163-4
infants: clothing 146; equipment 148; Marcuse 26, 27, 219
feeding 140-5, 21 7, artificial 140, marital conflict 39
141, 143, 151, 'hand feeding, 143; marriage 12, 200, 208, 219
rational control 141-2, see also Marriage Advice Centre 200
breastfeeding; furniture 150; Marxist analysis 5, 17
management 147; mortality 86, masculinity 5, 6, 18
95, 129, 143, 158, 196 mass media 2, 15, 16
infant welfare 3, 9, 121, 216; centres or masturbation 180, 185-6, 191
clinics 90, 130, 133, 149, 150, 213, maternal attachment 19
medical control 13 3; role of women maternal mortality 89, 90, 95
215, women,s reactions 148-9, 150- maternal welfare 121
1; movement 52, 89, 128-40, 194, maternity allowance 89, 94, 134; see also
class direction 139, 149; services baby bonus
213; specialists 151, 216 MDNS 86-8, 92, 97, 120, 123, 124,
infectious disease 36, 44 193
Institute of Family Relations 123, 200 measurement: of children 16 5; mental
intellectuals 22 166; see also calculation and measure-
IQ testing 167 ment
medical students 92
J ellett, Dr 101 Medical Women,s Association 131
Jobson, Jennie 217 Medical Women,s Society 193
juvenile courts 154 medicalization of reproduction 212
Melbourne Teachers, College 16 5
kindergarten movement 2, 9, 164, 17 2; menstruation 111, 112
role of women 215 mental hygiene 168, 172
Kindergarten Teachers, College 165 Mental Hygiene Movement 201, 214
kindergartens 48, 130, 163, 170, 174, mental retardation 166
213, 216 Meyer, Dr Felix 97
King, Dr Frederick Truby 129, 136, midwifery 87, 93, 108; 'meddle-
142, 144-5, 147, 195, 214 some, 99, 100, 10 1; see also. obstet-
kitchens 52-3, 73-4, 214 rics
midwives 88, 90-1, 93; untrained 92,
labour, 'cave-dweller,s, 10 1; see also 9 5; registration 91
childbirth Midwives Act ( 1915) 91, 92
Lady Gowrie Centres 16 5 milk 36, 42, 129; supply · 42-3; see
Laidlaw, Mrs W. 193 also infants, feeding
Lasch, Christopher 16, 18, 167, 211, Ministry for Motherhood 134
219 modernization theory 12-13
268 The .disenchantment of the home
Moorhouse, Bishop 181, 182 philanthropists 33, 59, 174, 175, 214;
Morris, Dr E.S. 89, 90 see also charity network
mother, theory of 18, 20, 157 physical education 163, 166
mothercraft 5, 82, 128, 139, 152; Piddington, Marion 67, 123, 186, 187,
nurses 150 188, 200
motherhood 10, 117, 152, 161, 169; Piddington, Mr Justice A.B. 67
redefinition 152 Pittaway, G.R. 185
Mothers' Union, Church of England 65, play 169, 170-1, 214; see also toys
181 playgrounds movement 170
Muhl, Anita 167, 168 Plunket system 13 3, 15 1
Muskett, Dr Phillip 96, 101, 159, 162 Prahran Health Centre 89, 123
pre-contraceptive consciousness 111-13
narcissism 16 pre-schools 16 5
National Council of Women 43, 59, pregnancy 2, 8, 84-5, 217
183 prices 67
National Health and Medical Research Primrose, Sister Maud 136, 139, 142
Council 75 professional middle class 11, 18, 19,
National Thrift Week 6 5 22, 34, 211
naturejculture division 2~1, 29, 218 professional-managerial class 15, 20
nature study 164 prostitution 181, 191, 192
'neglected' children 154 psychoanalysis 18, 188
neighbourhood network 87 psychiatrists 16
'new education' 169 Psychological Society 16 5
'new woman' 40, 59, 81 psychology 22, 122, 148, 163, 165,
Notification of Births 13 5 167, 186, 196, 200, 201, 202
nursery schools 16 5 'psy' complex 17
nurses 9, 216; infant welfare 133-4; puberty 106, 112, 187
monthly 94 Public Health Department 108, 134-5
nutrition 74-5, 76 public health officials 22
punishment 160; see also parent-child
obstetrics 84, 89, 90-1, 92, 93, 95, 104; relationships
see also midwifery Purcell, Sister 141, 146
Osborn, A.R. 185 pure food 36
ovulation 111 purposive-rational action 8
Odysseus 219 Pye, Emmel~ne 185
O'Reilly, Cresswell 202
Queen Victoria Hospital 89
paediatrics 134 Queensbetry Street· Cookery Centre 62
Paediatric Society, Australian 166;
Melbourne 197 Racial Hygiene Association 123~ 200
parental behaviour 17 3 Racial Hygiene Congress 187
parent-child ·relationships 15 3, 157, Racial Hygiene Movement 196
158-9; changing assumptions 161; Rankin, Miss 69
reserve and formality 15 8 rationality 3, 6, 9, 16, 25, 26, 55, 221;
parenthood 169 control of procreation 12 5; formal
parturition see childbirth and substantive 2 5; instrumental
patriarchy 4, 5, 218 25; technical 3, 4, 6, 25, 28, 215,
Peck, Sister 141, 146 218, 222
Pell, Flora 63 reason: instrumental 7, 26, 27; liber-
personal relationships 80-1 ating 26; moral or practical 3, 26
Index 269
reform: programmes 24; strategies 214, slum clearance 46

women's reactions 217, women's Small, Dr T.H. 98
role 215-17; see also class orientation Symth, Dr John 59, 185
of reform strategies Smyth, Mrs Brettena 115
Registration of Births Act 149 social action 3, 4, 29
Richardson, Henry Handel 156 Social Darwinism 194
'Rita' 59, 61, 63, 65, 66, 74 Social Hygiene Society 12 4
romantic love 12 'social purity' campaign 179, 181, 190
routine, domestic 69-70, 71; and infant social workers 16
care 142, 151 socialist feminist theory 5
Royal Commission on the Basic Wage Society for Sex Education 18 5
67-9, 70-1, 72, 77, 217 Society for the Health of Women and
Royal Commission into the Decline of the Children of Victoria 133, 135, 136,
Birth Rate (1903) 91, 95, 110, 113, 137
114, 118, 129 Solly, R.H. 4 7
Royal Commission on Health 134 Springthorpe, Guy 169
Royal Commission on Housing ( 1913- squattocracy 33, 34
17) 46 State 1, 3, 15, 61, 80, 130, 155, 161;
Royal Commission on Technical Educa- institutions, growth of 212
tion 164 sterilization of the 'unfit' 195, 197
Ruether, Rosemary Radford 21, 220, Story, Mrs 61
221, 234 Strong, Reverend Charles 33
suburbia 35, 50-1
sanitary sens1t1veness 42, 43, 44 suffrage, women's 106
Scantlebury, Dr Vera see Brown, Dr Vera Sulman, John 4 5
Scantlebury surveillance, professional 8, 24; of child-
school medical officers 4 2 ren 154
School Medical Service 166, 168, 213 Sutton, Harvey 108
separate spheres 8, 20, 32-3, 61 Sweet, Georgina 185, 187
separation of home and work 32, 38-9, Swinburne, George 59-60
45 Sydney City Council 48
servan.ts see domestic servants
sewing 57, 78-9 Talbot, Lady Margaret 43, 59, 61
sex: counselling 203-5; education 9, Talbot Milkinstitute 43, 131
129, 178, 179, 182, 183, 184, 192, Taylorism 213
193, 201 teachers 2, 2 2; women 216
'sex-blind' social theory 4 technical rationality 3, 4, 6, 25, 28,
Sex Education Society 184, 185, 187 215, 218, 222; see also technocratic
sexual division of labour 37, 38, 39, consciousness
47, 212, 216 technical training 16 3
sexuality 2, 7, 9, 10, 17, 111, 122, technocratic consciousness 26-7,. 28, 210,
208, 212, 214; children's 180; 2 13, 2 14, 2 15; see also technical ra-
commercialization 206; and hy- tionality
giene 10, 201, 208; ignorance temperan-ce 2, 21, 179, 190
111, 112, 204-5; problems 203-5; Terris, Dr Wykeham 207
repression 13, 14, 18, 29, 194, 219; thrift 64, 68-9
social construction 194, 208; social town planning 4 5, 46
pressures 194; spiritual aspects 202; Town Planning Association of New South
women's 194, 217 Wales 45
Simpson, Dr George 12 3 Town Planning Commission ( 1922) 46
toys 170-1 Weigall, Marian 162

Tregear, Reverend Charles 4 7 wet-nurses 140
Truby -King Mothercraft Society 136 Wheeler, Mrs Eleanor 49
Tweddle, Joseph 133 ·White Cross Union 181, 182
White Cross League 184
upper middle class charity network 33, Williams, John 169
84, 105, 193; see also charity network; Wilson, Dr T.G. 98
philanthropists · womanhood: bourgeois ideal 20, 21;
urban growth 36 Victorian ideal 2; see_ also reform
strategies
Vaile, Rita see 'Rita' women: career opportunities · 62; doctOrs
Varley, Henry 180-1 131-3, 216; household experience
VD 179, 181, 184, 190, 191, 192, 63;_ police 154, 181; reaction to
193, 194, 196, 198, 200; compulsory experts 217; as social agents 9, see
notification 193 also reform strategies; teachers 216
'Vesta' 59, 65, 74, 93, 164 Women's Hospital- 89, 95, 99, 131
Victorian Baby Health· Centres Assoc- women's magazines 39, 173, 206~ 7 -
iation 89, 135, 138 Women's Medic~! Association - 184
violence, domestic 39 women's movement 27
Wallace, Dr Victor 116, 120, 124, 197, Women's Welfare Clinic 124
202 Women Teachers' Association 59 ·
waste disposal 36, 43 Worrall, Dr Ralph 107, 192
Way, Dr 95
wcru 181, 183, 184, 194 Younger.;.Ross, Dr Isabella 131
Weber, Max 3, 12, 25, 27, 218, 221 YWCA 184
Sources of illustrations
1 and 2: from the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy Magazine, 1931.
3: from Colonial Gas Association, Fifty Years of Good Public Service, Melbourne, 1938;
courtesy of the Gas and -Fuel Corporation of Victoria. 4 and 5: from N. Rosenthal;
People - Not Cases, The Royal District Nursing Service, Nelson, Melbourne, 1974;
courtesy of the author. 6 and 7: from the Annual Reports of the Society for the Health
of Women and Children ·of Victoria; -made available by the Tweddle Baby Hospital,
Footscray. 8: courtesy of Cath James. 9: from _Maternal and Child Welfare Manual;
courtesy of the Victorian Health Commission, Division of Maternal and Child Welfare.
10: from Woman's World, 1931. 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16: courtesy of the Institute of
Early Childhood Development, Melbourne. 15: from M. Piddington, Te// -Them~, The
1
Second Stage of Mothercraft, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1925. 17 and 18: from S.D.
Yarrington, The Silent Fox, Melboume, 'Pitt-way' Institute, 1941; efforts to trace the
copyright holder have not yet been successful.

Kerreen Reiger - The Disenchantment of The Home - Modernizing The Australian Family, 1880-1940-Oxford University Press, USA (1986)

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The disenchantment of the home

Modernizing the Australian

©Kerreen Reiger 1985

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair

National Library of Australia

Reiger, Kerreen, 1946-.

1. Family-Australia-History. 2. Home economics-Australia-

Edited by Valerie Haye

This book is a revised and shortened version of my Ph.D. thesis, 'The

AAAS Australian Association for the Advancement of Science

interest of, the dominant class, but represented a fundamental threat to

of this study is an argument concerning certainly the interpenetration of

with the Australian developments charted in subsequent chapters. The

under greater professional surveillance, usually, though not totally, under

with the 'healthy management' of sex, seeing sexual hygiene as a matter

1970s the rapid .growth of historical demography threw new. light on

a much more critical notion of 'modernization' than that common in

emphasized the contradictory nature of bourgeois family patterns and

theorists, including Christopher Lasch, is that under advanced capitalism

families is concerned with the expansion of what he terms the 'psy'

phasizes the differences in the experience of girls and boys as they

their conclusion. 19 Furthermore, as Catherine Hall has argued, the actual

Furthermore, the superficial reversal of earlier typologies-the represen-

has assumed a simple and direct correspondence between the material

not only conceptually difficult but presents especial problems in empirical

language, Giddens refers to this as the 'duality of structure', an emphasis

The Frankfurt School theorists shared Weber's anxiety about reason,

is not just class domination but the essential interest of humanity in

realities of class and other power relationships, especially those of gender.

campaigns such as those for pure milk, kindergartens, playgrounds and

prescriptions that emerged concerning their family role. Furthermore,

writes Brian Lewis of his childhood experience around 1914. 4 And

and the provision of major urban facilities is necessary to provide a basis

The religious newspapers, in particular the Methodist and Presbyterian

of the spheres of home and work was an integral part of capitalist

and formative influence on her children's character. Norah, of Ibsen's A

To induce and assist people, by personal influence, example and

holiness equals citizenship. The strength of such sentiments is apparent

The creation of a health conscience, a sort of extra sense-sanitary

campaigners, responsibility for superv1s1on of food and milk supplies

Similar themes and ideological emphasis are apparent in housing

reflected in the professional overlap between architecture and broader

The line of questioning continued unabated; it was a favourite issue in

such as kindergartens were discussed as possible remedies for what were

of family living repeatedly surfaced in the discussions of housing reform;

By the interwar period some significant developments were also taking

The material basis of this concept was provided by changes in the

better houses'. He argued for two-storey houses, a maximum of window

suit the dominant concept of it as a workshop or 'laboratory'. 'It is not

behaviour and housewifery. A second major point is that several strategies

reorganize domestic labour through a series of strategies which were full

ment to establish a major training centre. When this at last eventuated,

Swinburne and Sir William McPherson provided the institutional bases

The significance of McPherson's benevolence towards 'institutions aim-

responses. Perhaps most telling of all is that as secondary education

tion patterns became more standardized through the introduction of

instituted. By then the exhortations to frugality drew both on older,

In the early twentieth century, as economic conditions improved after

(To Witness)-Take an ordinary woman who is desirous of assisting her

that co-ordination of work leads to efficiency, that exactitude in the

New experts and a new audience: Miss Thelma Crump giving a

An Electric Appliance for Every Need

Technology and the construction of the modern housewife. From the