Female Collectivism and Traditional Women in Post -Suffrage New South Wales

Home , Feminism in Australia, Portia Geach

"DOING THEIR BIT": FEMALE COLLECTIVISM AND TRADITIONAL WOMEN IN POST -SUFFRAGE NEW SOUTH WALES

HILARY M. CAREY, History Department, The University of Newcastle

Abstract

This paper is based on a study of the biennial reports of the National Council of Women of New South Wales from 1914-1942 and the returns of the more than 140 organisations which were affiliated with the NCW at some point during this time. Organisations referred to include housewives' associations, the Country Women's Association, patriotic organisations such as the Victoria League and church-based groups such as the Young Women's Christian Association, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the Catholic Women's League. It is argued that many of these traditional women's organisations shared a coherent ideology which can be described as "female collectivism". Female collectivism is characterised by conservative emphasis on non-party, non-sectarian, voluntary activity by women to support the welfare of their own communities. They asserted gender solidarity against what they perceived to be the destabilising forces of masculine, Labor party politics and sectarian conflict. In the 1920s and 1930s this was a successful ideology which achieved many tangible welfare benefits for women.

We believe that women have a very definite contribution to make to the common cause of the community, and it is only by "doing their bit" that we can achieve the ideals which we have in view. (Editorial, HM 1933, 1)

Throughout the 1890s Australian women fought a series of well organised campaigns for the state and federal suffrage. In June 1902 the Commonwealth vote was secured and a couple of months later, in August, white women in NSW achieved the right to vote for their State Parliament as well. It was a euphoric moment for the young democracy and a triumph for first wave feminism. But what did the active, middle class, organising women of New South Wales do after the suffrage was achieved? This question has been asked and answered, usually with some disappointment, many times (Oldfield, 1992, 217-30). Many women simply retired from active political work. In New South Wales, Rose Scott announced the disbandment of her Womanhood Suffrage League and its replacement with a non-political organisation which would educate women in the franchise and "deal with the problems of all women".(SMH, 9 October 1902). In general it has been argued that the political campaign for the suffrage led to an historic peak in female consciousness and political activism in the late nineteenth century which rapidly dissipated after World War I so that women did not rise again as a significant and unified political force until the 1970s. This article draws attention to the many women who were active in community-based service and church organisations in the post-suffrage years. In the turbulent times of the new century, as depression followed war and then war again, women remained active in their own cause, but focussed their energy on the organisations which belonged to the women's sphere. The first section reviews the historiography relating to conservative women with a view to establishing the extent to which this literature provides a model which may be extended to explain the appeal of community organisations for traditional women in Australia in the period from about 1900 to 1942. The second part examines the ideology of traditional women in a journal of interdisciplinary gender studies vol 1 no 2 (1996): 101-116. 101 range C!f organisations affiliated with the National Council of Women of New South Wales, including service groups such as the Country Women's Association and Housewives' Associations, church groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Young Women's Christian Association and the Catholic Women's Association, and patriotic organisations such as the Victoria League. In this period, traditional women developed an ideology appropriate to their own needs and the opportunities of the time which may be described as "female collectivism" or women "doing their bit", as the Housewife Magazine described it in 1933. Under the umbrella of the National Council of Women, and their own extensive national and international organisational structures, traditional women confidently pursued a wide range of political, social and welfare goals for the benefit of women and children and, as they argued, the nation. Despite the large number of women who belonged to one or other of them throughout most of the present century, the organisations which are the subject of this paper have had relatively little attention given to them. In the 1970s second-wave feminists concluded that traditional women's organisations and all they stood for were part of the problem against which they had to contend. Anne Summers argued that feminism was not the same as what she called, "female consciousness". Women who formed Housewives' Associations and other community groups to protect what they saw as their unique contribution to society were not feminists because they showed an active acceptance of female roles (Summers, 1994, 72). The feminist project involved the dismantling of patriarchy, the assertion of women's rights of citizenship and participation in the public sphere and the rejection of the institutions of marriage, the family and femininity. Conservative women were depicted as at worst hostile and at best irrelevant to this project. Commentators such as Webley made heavy weather of explaining the attraction of right-wing women groups such as the Women Who Want to be Women to their Australian adherents (Webley, 1982; Carey, 1987, 178-79). Even today, historians continue to regard traditional women's organisations with little interest or sympathy. In their recent feminist rewriting of Australian history, Lake, McGrath and Quartly relegate traditional women's organisations to the sidelines with the assertion: "Women were to be encouraged into associations in order to reinforce their place in the home" (Lake et al., 1994, 202-3). More sympathetic accounts, such as Willis's study ofthe Anglican Mothers' Union, can also be rather condescending (Willis, 1980). Other historians have seen traditional organisations, more perniciously, as agents supporting the conservative, masculine hegemony. Simms, who uses the term "conservative feminism" to label the ideology of some women's service organisations describes the Red Cross as a "Liberal Party front" (Simms, 1983, 14). With rather more justification, Teather maintains that the Country Women's Association has always been the de facto women's auxiliary of the Country (later the National) Party, but has argued more contentiously that the CWA functioned as a counter-revolutionary organisation supporting the activities of rural para-military fronts in the 1920s and 30s (Teather, 1994). Whilst conservative women's ideology has been a problematic issue for more recent feminists, it forms part of a familiar terrain for historians of the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. It can be argued that traditional women's organisations, such as the CWA and the Housewives' Association, should be seen as the historical heirs of nineteenth century "relational" feminism, as this is defined by Karen Offen (Offen, 1988a, 1988b). On the other hand Offen's definition of relational feminism has been dismissed by critics such as Cott as nothing more than a defence of the status quo for women (Cott, 1989; Offen, 1989). Examining the very considerable program of welfare reforms advocated by traditional women's groups, this judgement seems unreasonable. In the US, historians such as Wendy Sarvasy have gone so far as to argue that in the post-suffrage era of the 1920s women did not abandon

102 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) Table 1: Organisations affiliated to the original1888 National Council of Women of the United States

1. National Women's Christian Temperance Union 2. National Free Baptist Women's Missionary Society 3. Illinois Industrial School for Girls 4. Universal Peace Union 5. National American Woman Suffrage Association 6. International Kindergarten Union 7. National Association of Women

feminism but used pragmatic arguments based on female difference to build a feminist welfare state (Sarvasy, 1992). These US feminists attempted to synthesise a program of reform for women which recognised the discrimination they suffered but then proceeded to use gender difference as the basis for emancipation and reform. Grappling with similar issues, Audrey Oldfield uses the term 'domestic feminism' to refer to the policies devised by welfare advocates active in Australia in the same period (Oldfield, 1992, 217-19). These same ideals and political strategies can be discerned among Australian women and the community organisations which they developed in the post-suffrage period. In this paper this program has been called "female collectivism", rather than "feminism" to avoid indulging in too much semantic quibbling. Whatever we choose to call it, it was a significant and influential body of ideas shared by a large number of women in the post-suffrage era. The second part of this article draws on the journals and other records of a range of traditional women's organisations affiliated with the National Council of Women of New South Wales to establish the extent to which these organisations shared a cohesive ideology. The biennial reports of the NCW held in the Mitchell Library are, unfortunately, far from complete and some reports do not include the usual list of affiliated members. The Appendix to this article (Table 3) contains a tabulation of the members of the NCW based on the extant reports for 1914 to 1942 with some additional details from the 1897, 1966 and 1976 reports included for comparative purposes. The published records of the 141 organisations which were affiliated with the NCW over this period constitute a very large resource which few historians have examined in any detail. This article is based on an examination of the brief biennial returns to the NCW as well as the annual reports and publications of a much smaller selection of associations which are held by Mitchell Library. With such a large body of archival material to deal with, this paper is necessarily preliminary, and a discussion of the wider social and historical context of these organisations will have to wait for another occasion. The National Council of Women is an organisation with an impeccable feminist genealogy (NCW, 1896; NCW Jubilee Report, 1946). Founded in the US, it was a product of the first Equal Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls in 1848. Regular conventions were held in the States until 1888 when two permanent organisations were established. The first, the National Council of Women of the United States, was made up of 17 organisations whose work was defined as being of a national character or of a national value. These are listed in Table 1. It was also agreed that other countries should form their own councils and that an International Council of Women should have a coordinating role. The National Council of Women of New South Wales was formed in 1896 with Margaret Windeyer as Hon. Secretary. The eleven organisations which made up the first Council are listed in Table 2. Windeyer was a first-wave feminist, a member of Louisa Lawson's Dawn Club, and a qualified librarian. She was one of the many distinguished women who worked for the National Council of Women, later to include Rose Scott, Jessie Street, Constance Darcy and many of Sydney's professional

Carey: "Doing their Bit" - Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 103 Table.2: National Council of Women of New South Wales, Affiliated Societies 1897.

Name Objects, motto, etc. Origin Founded NSW

Education of Deaf, Dumb Auxiliary for Institution for NSW 1861 and Blind the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, Darlington.

German Women's Charity to help poor German Sydney Not Benevolent Society families. known Minstering Children's Country holidays for NSW 1891-2 Fresh Air League "respectiable" poor children.

Queen's Jubilee Fund Endowment fund for the Sydney 1889 relief of "Distressed women of New South Wales irrespective of class or creed".

Sydney University Aims to bring graduates and Sydney 1892 Women's Association undergraduates together for social and intellectual purposes. Womanhood Suffrage To gain vote for women on Sydney 1891 League of NSW same basis as men. Women's Christian White Ribbon; "For God and us 1883 Temperance Union Humanity". Women's Hospital and Support for unmarried Sydney 1893 Dispensary mothers "a noble work for our less fortunate sisters". Women's Silk-growing, Farms to provide independent Sydney c1896 Co-Operative and rural employment for women. Industrial Association

Working and Factory Charity to aid working girls. Sydney 1889 Girls' Club Motto: "Work is Worship". Women's Literary Society Aims to draw together the Sydney 1890 thinking women of Sydney to discuss books, ideas and social matters. and philanthropic elite. The number of associations affiliated with the NCW rose steadily from an original 11 to 39 societies by 1914, 46 in 1924 and 73 in 1942, as outlined in Table 3. In 1996 it boasts 210 members and maintains a strong belief in the value of voluntary, collectivist a,ction by women as indicated by its purpose which is: "To provide an organisation where members of voluntary bodies and other people interested in the welfare of women, children and the family can work together for the improvement of conditions and protection of rights

104 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) in these areas (DAA, 1996). The NCW functioned in the belief that women acting together could achieve social reform for women and their sphere, which included children and the family. The first NCW Constitution (issued on 26 June 1886) is rather quiet on the issue of women's rights, or even women's special talent for community work. Instead it stresses the public benefit, to both the family and the state, of women organising together (NCW Constitution). The first biennial report was more feminist in tone, referring to the NCW as an organisation which strove "to help women to reach a high and equal standard in every phase of work by greater unity of thought, sympathy and purpose." The hint of a more contemporary feminist consciousness in the reference to women achieving a "high and equal standard" is not borne out at the organisational level by the regular reports of the various member groups of the NCW of NSW. Mitchell Library has copies of these up until 1946, and they make conservative reading with the exception of the early reports of the Womanhood Suffrage League, led by Rose Scott. Scott is more familiar with the arguments of equal rights than others who reported to the NCW but she is a thoroughgoing relational feminist in all her public speeches and reports, including those to the NCW (Allen, 1994). The organisations affiliated with the National Council of Women pursued a wide range of activities and included welfare groups, political, service, church, educational and patriotic societies. The first eleven affiliated societies listed in 1896 were mostly paternalist welfare and charitable societies (Table 2). Only the Womanhood Suffrage League of NSW can be seen as overtly feminist. The Working and Factory Girls' Club, which had the motto: "Work is Worship", and the various charities aimed at giving the respectable poor holidays in the country and other benefits, are openly maternalist. By 1913, when the next surviving annual report appears, most of the original eleven organisations, including Rose Scott's Womanhood Suffrage League, had gone. One important exception was the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the original model for many of the popular, female collectivist organisations considered in this paper. Formed originally in the United States, the WCTU had expanded rapidly to become the world's largest women's organisation. In 1922, the WCTU reported to the NCW that it had 73 branches in New South Wales with a membership of 2500 making it one of the largest women's organisations in the state. In the same year the Victoria League in NSW, which fostered good will within the Empire, met ships and provided other services for travellers and migrants, had over 1000 members (VL Annual Report, 1922). Church groups were also strongly supported. By 1926 the Catholic Women's Association had 4000 financial members, the Council of Jewish Women, more than 500 members. Of a number of organisations for girls, the best supported was the Girls' Friendly Society, with 56 branches and over 1500 members. Throughout the 1920s, the membership of the NCW continued to be dominated numerically by welfare associations, particularly those concerned with children, but they were joined by professional women's organisations, such as the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association, the Headmistresses' Association of NSW, the women's section of the Public Service Association and a number of old girls' unions from among Sydney's elite Protestant private schools. Later, most of the teachers' organisations and other women's professional groups, such as the Pharmacists and Trained Secretaries, became affiliated with the NCW. These organisations exerted considerable influence, particularly in gender-segregated industries such as nursing. ATNA alone claimed a membership of 3850 in 1940 (NCW Biennial Report, 1938-40). The NCW represented in some form most of the independent women in the state. These professional groups contributed to the general conservatism of the NCW' s profile. The first of the hugely successful service groups, the Country Women's Association, and the Housewives' Association appear in the NCW lists in the late 1920s, as do patriotic associations such as the Victoria League and the Citizens' Association. The Country Women's

Carey: "Doing their Bit" - Female Collectivism and Traditional Women . 105 Assocjation's meteoric rise to prominence can be charted in their reports to the NCW. Established in NSW in 1922, by 1934, in the middle of the Depression, it could claim over 16,000 members and the construction of 13 hospitals, 30 Baby Health Centres, seven Seaside Holiday Homes and 105 rest rooms. Even the WCTU never achieved this degree of penetration of the community. Membership of the CWA eventually peaked, in 1955, at over 30,000 members in NSW (Teather, 1994, figure 2). Through the lists of affiliated societies it is also possible to observe the waxing and waning of fashionable middle-class causes. The Society for the Protection of Native Races gives way to the Racial Hygiene Centre and the Good Film League in the 1920s. The first world war summoned women to form patriotic associations such as the Australian League of Honour and others to assist servicemen's families, such as the Soldiers' (and Sailors') Mothers, Wives and Widows' Victory Association or the Anzac Fellowship of Women. Other associations demonstrate an extraordinary longevity and resistance to change. The Peace Society, formed in 1816 at the close of the Napoleonic Wars, remained affiliated with the NCW until at least 1918. It had the favourite society of Rose Scott who founded the NSW branch in 1907. The ultimate survivor is the YWCA which appears to be the only organisation which has persisted as an affiliated member of the NCW from 1897 to the present day. Apart from the fact that they were all voluntarist women's organisations, it might seem that little else united the disparate members of the NCW. But this is deceptive. While the organisations reflect the wide range of activities pursued by the middle-class professional women and housewives who made up the majority of the members of most NCW organisations, many also shared a common ideology. Focussing in particular on the largest organisations, such as the Housewives' Progressive Association, the Country Women's Association and the church auxiliaries, this common ideology can be expressed in four major values, namely that the organisations were: 1. Non-political; 2. Non-sectarian; 3. Committment to female collectivism as a force for community and national good; 4. Provision of practical programs of good works to benefit members or the "needy". These values will be examined, briefly, in tum.

NON-POLITICAL

A number of NCW-affiliated organisations declared themselves to be "non-political". This can generally be taken as code for "non-Labor". Certainly organisations with overt connections with the Labor Party did not affiliate with the NCW, whereas women's sections of the United Australia Party, the Country Party and the Liberal Party all did. Women were attracted to patriotic organisations, such as the Victoria League, "a non-sectarian, non-political association of men and women who desire to foster friendly understanding between Britons all over the world" (NCW Biennial Report, 1926-8); the Women's League of NSW, which combined loyalty to King and empire with feminist demands for "real equality of liberties, status, and opportunities between men and women", an equal moral standard and equal pay for equal work (NCW Biennial Report, 1926-8); and the Anzac Fellowship of Women, founded in 1921 to foster the commemoration of Anzac Day and foster friendship with "new-comers from the Old Country" (NCW Biennial Report, 1933-34). The most right-wing of these patriotic organisations, the Guild of Empire, founded by Adela Pankhurst Walsh (Summers, 1980), was also the most popular with a membership of over 2500 in 1934. The objects of the Guild were

106 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) to "promote industrial cooperation between employer and employed" and to bring about unity among all classes of Australians for the building up of the nation as part of the British Empire as well as "preserving the freedom which is the heritage of the British Empire" (NCW Biennial Report, 1933-34). In her analysis of the Guild, Castle saw its purpose to be plainly, even crudely obvious. It aimed to preserve ruling class hegemony among working people by creating a "false consciousness" based on women's shared experience as subordinate housewives whose interests were identical with those of the bosses (Castle, 1980, 307). This explanation of patriotic organisations has the virtue of simplicity, but the concept of "false consciousness" is a very blunt instrument with which to analyse these groups. Indeed, it might be asked why gender itself, defined as the social construction of sexuality, should not be dismissed in the same way as mere false consciousness. I would argue that women belonged to these conservative organisations not because they forwarded a subversive ruling class agenda but because they provided tangible local benefits to the communities out of which they sprang. This is not to deny their essential conservatism on most social questions, including those concerning women. It remains to be asked, nevertheless, why the NCW's member organisations were so reluctant to be identified with party, or rather Labor Party, politics? Some tentative explanations may be offered here. In the first place, community-based women"s organisations might have chosen to put aside politics because of their need to appeal to a mass membership drawing on adherents of all political persuasions. This was particularly important in the context of the divisive and occasionally violent politics of New South Wales in the 1920s and 30s. In addition, some of the branches of welfare work conducted by women through their organisations, such as those to assist travellers and imperial subjects, required a spirit of toleration in dealing with the public who made use of their services. But the vehemence of the antipathy to party politics suggests there was more to it than that. The pamphlets of the Victoria League stated in bold writing: "There are no party politics in the Victoria League" (VL, Aims and Objects, 1924) In her address to the 1929 Annual Conference, Mrs Matt Sawyer insisted that the Country Women's Association remain forever non-political and non sectarian. "We must stand or fall by this pledge" (quoted in Townsend, 1988, 98). The enforcement of this policy meant the actual ejection of Labor activists from some women's organisations. In the early formation of the Catholic Women's Association in NSW, the three Golding sisters were excluded from the executive because of their party political affiliations (Carey, 1987, 10-11). The eschewal of party politics may also have been born out of a practical strategy to maximise the lobbying potential of the organisations with wealthy patrons. Snobbery was certainly a factor in the rejection of working-class ideology by women's traditional organisations. Even though their popular success led inevitably to a wide cross-section of the community becoming members, most groups chose their leaders from among the wives of the conservative professional and business classes. The most successful managed to secure the patronage of the wife of the Governor, or even that of the Governor General. Women chose to secure the welfare goals sought by their associations by securing the approbation of Australia's conservative power elite. This was a pragmatic policy which provided considerable gains for the organisation, and practical support for women's traditionally invisible and undervalued social networks. A rejection of party politics also allowed for the affirmation of gender solidarity against the divisions imposed by class. The favoured ideology of traditional women, politically active and yet non-party could be unstable. Some service organisations solved the dilemma by drifting away from any political action towards an exclusively social service role. Organisations which maintained a more proactive role tended to break along party political lines. The two housewives' associations in the NCW- the Housewives' Progressive Association and the Housewives' Association suffered

Carey: "Doing their Bit" -Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 107 from division ofthis kind. In 1951 the Housewives' Association ofNSW reformed after a split with.the earlier association of the same name, founded in 1926, on the organisation's attitude toward communism. The banner of the new journal, The Housewife, proclaimed it to be "Non party Non-sectarian Non-communist". Early issues had only two themes: the control of prices through pressure on politicians and the Red Menace which was disrupting industry. Editorials by Ethel M. Watson, the President of the Housewives' Association, were uniformly earnest, insisting that women "study the political aspect of every day" and urge their menfolk to attend union meetings to combat the Communists. The Communists, she argued, were few but strong whereas women were in the majority in Australia and "wonderful workers in our different charities". If women's organisations banded together they could find the strength to halt rising prices and sort out the general muddle (HW, 1951, 1). The housewife was seen as a conservative force for change on practical issues of concern to women. The Housewife cheered the extension of direct political rights to women such as the opening up of juries to women in 1953: "Housewives! gradually you are being accepted as intelligent persons by the 'powers that be"'(HW, 1952, 5). In the late 1950s The Housewife abandoned attempts at political and economic analysis and became a vehicle promoting the woman as a consumer, finally ceasing publication in 1957. The final issue covered topics such as Friday Night Shopping, the consumption of shark and was made up of a melange of recipes and household hints.

NON-SECTARIAN

Traditional women's organisations had rather more success in uniting their members across the boundaries of sectarianism. The CWA, the Red Cross and the Housewives' Association all prided themselves on the fact that women of all religious persuasions could become members. The Housewives' Progressive Association described themselves in 1934 as a "world-wide, non sectarian movement for promoting the educational, economic and social welfare of women." with the mottos: "Non-party, non-sectarian: For the Good That We Can Do" (HM, 1933, 26). Against the divisions of sectarian religion, groups like the Housewives asserted the need for women to band together. In fact, like the claim to political impartiality, the rhetoric of traditional women's organisations was somewhat strained in reality. "Non-sectarian" was more often to be understood to mean "Protestant". Few Catholics became members of the Young Women's Christian Association, the Women's Christian Temperance Union or its offshoot, Traveller's Aid, although Catholics did make use of the facilities provided by these groups. Nevertheless, in an age when many Australian communities divided along sectarian lines, the capacity of these organisations to unite women from different Protestant denominations was a significant achievement. Catholics tended to form their own rival organisations to counter the Protestant ascendancy.

FEMALE COLLECTIVISM

Traditional women's organisations sustained a powerful commitment to the positive good which could be achieved by women acting together. This may be their most distinctive feature and bears careful consideration. In the 1930s, the leading women's organisations in terms of numbers all had a strong ·belief in the value of women's collective action as a force for change. Organisations which espoused this value most coherently included the Housewives' Association of NSW founded

108 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) by Portia Geach in 1918, the Country Women's Association and a number of church auxiliaries, particularly Kate Egan's Catholic Women's Association (CWR, 1930-40). The first editorial of The Housewife Magazine, the official journal of the Housewives' Progressive Association, was an eloquent expression of the female collectivist creed proclaiming: "Unity is Strength" (HM, 1933, 1). Through their membership of women's associations great things could be achieved. Conversely, the masculinist individualism of "a lone hand" would "accomplish nothing". The Housewives' Progressive Association was probably the most left leaning of the associations affiliated with the National Council of Women. The profile of Mrs Bernard Muscio, President of the NCW, carried in the December 1933 issue of The Housewife, explicitly links women's voluntary work in associations to the lack of opportunities for women in public life. Women were "practically debarred" from membership of the various houses of Parliament and even Municipal Councils. In this void, women who wished to serve the nation could find the best practical means to doing so through the many women's organisations of voluntary social service. Mrs Muscio, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Good Film League, the Travellers' Aid Society and the Board of Social Study and Training, as well as being President of the Women Graduates, the Lyceum Club and Vice-President of the Players' Club and the Film Society, was presented as a model for active women to follow. Despite such claims, the Housewives' Progressive Association was conservative on many social issues. There were close associations between the Housewives and the Racial Hygiene Association, and articles covered issues such as the problem of unreliable native servants for white women in New Guinea or the need to petition the State government against the policy of attempting to assimilate "octorenes" into white families. In the mid 1930s the Housewives' Progressive Association adopted an overtly feminist position, changing the name of its journal to The Progressive Journal and coopting the support of like-minded women's groups which included the Feminist Club, the Kindergarten Union, The Racial Hygiene Association, The Big Sister Movement, the Citizens' Association, The Guild of Empire and other smaller groups. Trumpeting the change of name, and the change of policy, The Progressive Journal proclaimed that it aimed to realise women's full potential as leaders in the public world through the force of female collectivism:

Only by a united front can the supplanting of the masculine state, by a world of Women and Men with equal rights, be accomplished. Divided, and comparing their progress jealously with one another, Women's Associations will only retard the action. There is a common goal, a glorious goal: the emancipation of Women (PJ, November 1935, 2).

This kind of rhetoric was uncharacteristic of most members of the women's organisations affiliated with the NCW, particularly the country women who flocked to join the Country Women's Association. In the mid 1930s, Portia Geach's Housewives claimed to have 15,000 mostly city-based members. In country New South Wales, the Country Women's Association just exceeded this figure, with a claimed membership of 17,226 women formed into 316 branches. A profile of Mrs Matt Sawyer, re-elected in 1935 for her seventh year as State President, provided an admiring account of the financial security and remarkable welfare achievements of the CWA. A short editorial comment in the Progressive Journal nevertheless regretted that there was little cooperation between the two organisations: "We are looking forward to the day when by such affiliation of women's organisations we can bridge the gap between the country women and the city women, just as in other parts of the world all women are combined in a fighting Federation" (PJ, May 1935, 28). The CW A provided services for women in tough, gender-segregated rural areas where there was little sympathy for liberal ideas or any creed which did not provide a direct practical return on hard work. In the 1920s and 30s the rise of the CWA coincided with the activities

Carey: "Doing their Bit" -Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 109 of paramilitary groups opposed to the radical government of Jack Lang. In these circumstances, the CWA did well to steer clear of politics. Instead, the objects of the CWA were all highly practical and measured in bricks and mortar. Nevertheless, in her interviews with CWA members, Teather has emphasised that most women considered that the "unwritten objects" of the CWA, which included the provision of a female support network, the opportunities it provided for personal growth and its effectiveness as a lobby for women's interests with government, were all important benefits which motivated women to join and become active in the association (Teather, 1992, 369). The ethos of female collectivism which this entailed was left implicit. Reports on their activities to the NCW and in the CWA journal, The Country Woman in New South Wales, are concerned almost exclusively with an enumeration of the number of hospitals, baby clinics, libraries and other services the CWA had succeeded in establishing in country areas. The only references outside this severely practical range was to the CWA's support for patriotic causes, such as the establishment of a competition for schoolchildren on the subject of Empire Day, with prizes distributed by the branches (NCW Biennial Report, 1933-34, 27). Women's church auxiliaries and service organisations can also be considered to have endorsed the principles of female collectivism implicitly, rather than explicitly. Protestant organisations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), and the Travellers' Aid Society were among the NCW's most long-serving members and readily identified with its non-party, welfare orientation. For these organisations, women were united not merely by their sex, but by their faith. The constitution of the YWCA, formed in Sydney in 1881, stated that the first object of the association was: "the promotion of the religious, moral, social and intellectual welfare of young women by association on a Christian basis", and only secondly the rendering of assistance to young women entering the city as strangers (YWCA Annual Report, 1907-8, 5). In 1930, the author of a jubilee pamphlet saw that the YWCA was called to encourage women to develop as citizens and leaders and to extend their fellowship throughout the whole world. Christian female collectivism should know no boundaries: "Our Association is international, our membership embraces girls and women of all lands, races, and classes, and our opportunity is unsurpassed of bringing about happy international understanding" (The Golden Milestone, 1930, 23). The extent to which denominational church auxiliaries shared in the female collectivist spirit depended to a large extent on the personality of the leaders. Under the leadership of Kate Egan and Ellen Fanning respectively, the Catholic Women's Association and the National Council of Jewish Women did identify with many of the wider ambitions of the NCW to which both were affiliated (Kennedy, 1985; Carey, 1987, 1-65). This can be contrasted with the more narrow focus of the Anglican Mothers' Union or the Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union in the same period. Both organisations had considerable importance in developing parish networks of women who worked to support the causes of their churches, but neither affiliated with the NCW until after 1940. In its official organ, Mothers in Australia, (later Mia-Mia) first published in 1918, the Mothers Union expressed the most reactionary and conservative values of any women's organisation considered in this paper, beginning with a call to uphold the "sanctity of marriage" and including the need to instil in mothers their great responsibility in training their boys and girls to be future fathers and mothers of the Empire (MA, 1918, 1). The main Presbyterian women's organisation, the PWMU, was also out of step with the collectivist female organisations affiliated with the NCW in that its work remained tightly focussed on mission fund-raising. The object of the association, as adopted in the Constitution endorsed by the General Assembly in 1912, was "to spread abroad the knowledge of God as He is revealed in His Son Jesus Christ" (PWMU Annual Report, 1920-21). It is

110 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) curious that Presbyterian women were given no special attributes or welfare tasks other than being effective fund-raisers for a valued cause. By the beginning of the second world war, despite the ongoing differences between the many members of the NCW, there was significant consensus on the best way to achieve community goals for the women of New South Wales. Eschewing the language of structural change and equal rights asserted by the Labor party and more identifiable feminists, many of the NCW' s members supported a program of non-party, non-sectarian action which called on women to act voluntarily, collectively and conservatively to support their local communities and churches. In the 1960s the NCW moved away from a program of political change for women to endorse an almost exclusively welfare role. By 1975, when members of the NCW participated in the program of activities sponsored in celebration of International Women's Year, the annual report noted with disapproval the image presented of Australian women by the likes of Germaine Greer and Elizabeth Reid at the United Nations IWY meeting (NCW Biennial Report, 1974-76). Under the motto: "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you", the organisation presented a more conservative and welfare-bound image for itself than it had done in the 1920s and 30s. The ideology of female collectivism had served its time but it should be acknowledged as an important and influential creed which provided considerable benefits for Australian women at a time of recovery from war and depression.

Abbreviations

CWA: Country Women's Association CWR: Catholic Women's Review DAA: Directory of Australian Associations HM: The Housewife Magazine HW: The Housewife MA: Mothers in Australia NCW: National Council of Women PJ: The Progressive Journal SMH: Sydney Morning Herald VL: Victoria League WCTU: Women's Christian Temperance Union YWCA: Young Women's Christian Association

Works Cited

Primary Sources [All primary sources held by Mitchell Library unless otherwise stated]

Anglican Mother's Union: Mothers in Australia (Mia-Mia), 1918 Catholic Women's Association: Catholic Women's Review, 1930-40 Minutes, StMary's Archdiocesan Archives Country Women's Association: The Country Woman Housewives' Association of NSW: The Housewife, 1951-57 Housewives' Progressive Association: The Housewife Magazine, 1933-35 Progressive Journal, 1935-36

Carey: "Doing their Bit" - Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 111 National Council of Women: Biennial Reports, 1897, 1913-14 to 1926-28; 1933-40; 1966-76. Constitution, 1896 Jubilee Report, 1896-1946 Report of Inaugural Meeting, 1896. Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union: Annual Reports Traveller's Aid Society of NSW: Annual Reports, 1957-68 Victoria League: Aims and Objects, c.l924 Annual Reports, 1919-27 Young Women's Christian Association: Annual Reports, 1885-1940

Secondary Sources

Allen, Judith, Rose Scott: Vision and Revision in Feminism. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994. Carey, Hilary, Truly Feminine Truly Catholic. A History of the Catholic Women's League in the Archdiocese of Sydney 1913-87. Sydney: UNSW Press, 1987. Castle, Josie, "The Australian Women's Guild of Empire." Women, Class and History: Feminist Perspectives in Australia, 1788-1978. Ed. Elizabeth Windschurtle. Melbourne: Fontana, 1980, 287-312. Cott, Nancy F., "Comment on Karen Offen's Defining Feminism." Signs 15 (1989): 203-5. Directory of Australian Associations March 1996-July 1996, Edition 25, Melbourne: Information Australia, 1996. Kennedy, Sally. Faith and Feminism. Sydney: Dove, 1985. Lake, Marilyn. Ann McGrath and Marian Quartly, Creating a Nation 1788-1990. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1994. Offen, Karen. "Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach." Signs 14 (1988): 119-57. ------. "On the French Origin of the Words Feminism and Feminist." Feminist Issues 8 (1988): 45-51. ------. "Reply to Cott." Signs 15 (1989): 206-9. Oldfield, Audrey, Woman Suffrage in Australia. A Gift or a Struggle?. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Sarvasy, Wendy. "Beyond the Difference versus Equality Debate: Post-suffrage Feminism, Citizenship, and the Quest for a Feminist Welfare State." Signs 17 (1992): 329-62. Simms, M. "Conservative Feminism in Australia: A Case Study of Feminist Ideology." Women and Labour Conference Papers 3, Australian Feminism. Ed. School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University. Macquarie University, North Ryde, 7-17. Summers, Anne. Damned Whores and God's Police, New edition, Penguin, 1994, [First published, 1975]. ------. "The Unwritten History of Adela Pankhurst Walsh." Women, Class and History: feminist perspectives in Australia, 1788-1978. Ed. Elizabeth Windschuttle. Melbourne: Fontana, 1980, 388-402. Teather, Elizabeth K. "The Country Women's Association in the 1920s and 1930s as a Counter-revolutionary Organisation." Journal of Australian Studies, 41 (1994), 67-78. ------. "Remote Rural Women's Ideologies, Spaces and Networks: The Example of the Country Women's Association of New South Wales, 1922-1992." Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology 28 (1992) 369- 90. The Golden Milestone 1880-1930. Sydney: YWCA, 1930. Townsend, Helen. Serving the Country. Sydney: Doubleday, 1988. Webley, Irene. "Women Who Want to be Women." Australia and the New Right. Ed. Marion Sawer. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1982, 135-51. Willis, Sabine. "Homes are Divine Workshops." Women, Class and History: Feminist Perspectives in Australia, 1788- 1978. Ed. Elizabeth Windschuttle. Melbourne: Fontana, 1980, 173-91.

112 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) APPENDIX

Table 3: National Council of Women of NSW, Affiliated Societies 1897-1942 Source: Extant Biennial Reports

Name 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (With date of establishment 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 in NSW if known) 9 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 6 7 7 4 6 8 4 6 8 4 0 2 6 6

Abbotsleigh Old Girls' Union X X X X X X X X After Care Assoc. X X AIF Wives' Holiday Assoc. X Alice Rawson School for Mothers X Allan Carroll Child Study Assoc. X X X Anzac Fellowship of Women, 1921 X X X X Argyle School Old Girls' X X X Arts Club X X X Ascham Old Girls' X Australian Board of Missions X X X X X X X X X Auxiliary Australian League of Honour X Australian Mothercraft Soc X X X X X X Australian Trained Nursing X X X X X X X X Assoc.(ATNA) Baby Clinics (1914) X X X Big Sister Movement X X X X British Empire League X X Bush Book Club X X X X Catholic Women's X X X X X X X Assoc.(League), 1913 Chatswood CEGS Old Girls' X X X C of E Assoc. for Religious X X Instruction in Public Schools C of E Deaconess' Institute X X X X X X X X X X X C of E Girls' Grammar School X X X X X X X X Old Girls' Union C ofE Homes X X X X X X X X Churchwomen's Diocesan Guild X Citizens' Assoc., 1914 X X X X X X City Girls' Amateur Sports Assoc. X X Claremont Old Girls' X Combined Committee of Women X X X X Teachers Congregational Women's Assoc. X X X X X Council of Jewish Women X X X X X X (National) 1923 Country Women's Assoc., 1922 X X X X X Crippled Children's Soc. X X X X Dominican Old Girls' Union X Education of Deaf, Dumb and X Blind Feminist Club X X X X X X X X X X Fort Street High School Old Girls' X Fresh Air League, 1891 X X X X X X X X X X Friends of Armenia X X X German Women's Benevolent Soc. X Girl Aids X Girls' Friendly Soc. X X X X X X X X X X X

Carey: "Doing their Bit" - Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 113 T!lble 3 (con.): National Council of Women of NSW, AtTIIiated Societies 1897-1942 Source: Extant Biennial Reports

Name 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (With date of establishment 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 in NSW if known) 9 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 6 7 7 4 6 8 4 6 8 4 0 2 6 6

Girls' Progressive Club X X X Girls' Secondary Schools Clubs X X X X Good Film League, 1922 X X X X X Guild of Empire X X X Head Mistresses' Assoc. X X X X X X X of NSW, 1916 Health Soc. of New South Wales X X X Home Economics Teachers Assoc. X X X X Home for Incurables X X X X Housewives' Assoc., 1926 X X X X Housewives' Progressive X X X X Assoc., 1917 Industrial Arts Soc. X X Infants' Mistresses' Assoc. X X X X Infants' Home, Ashfield, 1874 X X X X X X X X X Kindergarten Union of NSW, 1895 X X X X X X X X X X X Loan Training Fund X X X X X X X X X Loyalty League X Lyceum Oub X X X X X X X Manly Voters' League X X Mathieson Congregational Church X Union Women's Guild Meriden Old Girls' X Methodist Ladies College Old Girls' X X X X X Methodist Women's Federation X X X X National Assoc. of NSW, Women's X Section Needleworth Teachers' Assoc. X Nellie Stewart Memorial Fund X X X New Zealand Women's Assoc. of NSW X Norland Institute X X X Normanhurst Old Girls Union X X X X X NSW Cookery Teachers' Assoc. X X NSW Protestant Federation of Girls' X X Homes NSW Women's Amateur Sports Council X X NSW Women's Hockey Assoc. X X X Peace Soc., 1907 X X X X X X Playgoers X X X Presb. Ladies' College Ex-Students' X X X X X X X X Union Presb. Women's Federation (Assoc) X X X X X X Prisoner's Aid Assoc. X X X X X X X X X Professional Women Workers' Assoc. X X X X X X X X X Protection to Native Races Association X X X Protestant Federation X X Public Service (Clerical Women) X X Queen Victoria Club X X X X Queen's Jubilee Fund X X X X Rachel Foster Hospital X X X X

114 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996) Table 3 (con.): National Council of Women of NSW, AtTiliated Societies 1897-1942 Source: Extant Biennial Reports

Name 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (With date of establishment 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 in NSW if known) 9 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 6 7 7 4 6 8 4 6 8 4 0 2 6 6

Racial Hygiene Centre, 1925 X X X X Ravenswood Old Girls' Union X X X X X X X Red Cross Auxiliary (After-care), 1914 X X X X X X X Redlands Old Girls' X X X X X Royal Soc. for Welfare Mothers X X X X X X X X and Babies Sailors' and Soldiers' Mothers Wives X and Widows' Assoc. Salvation Army X X X X X X X X Shirley Old Girls' Union X Social Workers' Assoc. X X Soc. of Women Painters X X Soc. of Women Writers X X Soldiers' Mothers, Wives and X X X Relatives' Victory Assoc. StJohn's Ambulance Assoc. X X Surgical Aid Mission X X Sydney Day Nursery Assoc X X X X X X X X X X X Sydney Girls' High School X X X X X X X Old Girls' Sydney Hebrew Ladies' Maternity X X X X X X X X X and Benevolent Assoc. 1843 Sydney Medical Mission X X Sydney University Settlement, 1891 X X X X X X Sydney University Women Graduates' X X X X Sydney University Women's Club X X X Tamworth Women's Circle X Technical College Vocations Club X UAP Women's Club, 1915 X Victoria League, 1917 X X X X X X Women Justices' Assoc. of NSW X X X X X X Women Pharmacists' Assoc. X X Women Public School Asst X X X X Teachers' Assoc. Womanhood Suffrage League X Women's Aid to Primary Producers X X Women's Christian Temperance X X X X X X X X X X X X Union, 1882 Women's Club X X X X X X X X X X Women's Country Party (Club) of NSW X X X X X Women's Horticultural Soc. X Women's Hospital X Women's League X X Women's Liberal League X Women's Literary Soc. X Women's Loyalty League of NSW X X X Women's National Club X X X Women's Progressive League (Assoc.) X X X Women's Reform League X X Women's Section Land Values League X X X Women's Section Liberal Assoc. X X

Carey: "Doing their Bit" - Female Collectivism and Traditional Women 115 T~ble 3 (con.): National Council of Women of NSW, AftUiated Societies 1897-1942 Source: Extant Biennial Reports

Name 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (With date of establishment 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 in NSW if known) 9 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 6 7 7 4 6 8 4 6 8 4 0 2 6 6

Women's Service Club X Women's Silk-growing Cooperative X Women's Union of Service X X Women's United (Australia) Party Club X X X Working and Factory Girls' Oub X Woolloomooloo Day Nursery X X World Peace Group- Theosophical X Young Women's Christian Association, X X X X X X X X X X X 1926

TOTAL NUMBER OF SOCIETIES AFFILIATED WITH NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN: 1897-11; 1914-39; 1916-39; 1918-34; 1924-46; 1926-47; 1928-71; 1940-74; 1942-73; 1966-1955; 1976-106.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are soliciting contributions for JIGS vol. 2 no. 2, which will be a special issue devoted to lesbian and gay social history in Newcastle and the Hunter region. It is expected that this issue will appear in mid-1997, to coincide with the region's bicentenary. Articles relevant to any aspect of the topic, from any period (including the present), are welcome. There will also be a limited amount of space for creative writing and graphics on the same theme.

Deadline: 31 March 1997

Submission of manuscripts: Contributors should consult the instructions given in the "Submission of Manuscripts" page published at the back of JIGS for guidance in relation to manuscript preparation, style, etc. Authors whose contributions are accepted will be asked to send a copy on floppy disc. Contributions should not be sent to the JIGS Editorial Board, but to the guest editor:

Dr Jim Wafer Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Newcastle NSW 2308

Phone: 049-215 878 Fax: 049-216 902 Email: [email protected]

116 jigs vol 1 no 2 (1996)