The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the Australian Family, 1880-1940

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 Oxford London New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Melbourne Auckland and associates in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia ©Kerreen Reiger 1985 First published 198 5 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Aa, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elearonic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission. Inquiries to be made to Oxford University Press. National Library of Australia 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-AustraliaHistory. 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 Typeset by Computype Expon, Wellington, N.Z. Printed in Hong Kong Published by Oxford University Press, 7 Bowen Crescent, Melbourne OXFORD is a trademark of Oxford University Press

Contents

Preface Abbreviations

Vll

Introduction 1 Setting the questions: the theoretical context

1 11

PART I PRODUCTION 2 The architecture of daily life 3 The administration of the home

32

PART II REPRODUCTION 4 Modernizing confinement 5 Planning the family

84

104

PART III SOCIALIZATION 6 Producing the model modern baby 7 The remaking of childhood

128 153

PART IV SEXUALITY 8 The sexual enlightenment of the young 9 The rational management of sex 10 The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment Appendix On sources and methods Notes Bibliography Index

lX

56

178 190

210 222

233 254 264

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 - colleagues, 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 encouragement and interest helped keep me going. On a formal level, acknowledgement 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 University. 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 experience 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 ACER AEHR AGPS AIDE ALP ANL ANU BMA CPD CPP DBR FKU MDNS M]A MMBW NHMRC PRO RHA RVCN SHWCV Trans.Aust. Med. Cong. Trans.lnt. Med.Cong. VBHCA

Australian Association for the Advancement of Science Australian Council of Educational Research Australian Economic History Review Australian Government Publishing Service Australian Institute of Domestic Economy Australian Labor Party Australian National Library Australian National University British Medical Association Comtnonwealth Parliamentary Debates Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers Decline of the Birth Rate (Royal Commission) Free Kindergarten Union Melbourne District Nursing Service Medical Journal of Australia Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works National Health and Medical Research Council Public Records Office Racial Hygiene Association Royal Victorian College of Nursing Society for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria Transactions of the Australian Medical Congress Transactions of the Intercolonial Medical Congress Victorian Baby Health Centres Association

lX

VPD VPP WCTU WEA

X

Victorian Parliamentary Debates Victorian Parliamentary Papers Women's Christian Temperance Union Workers' Education Association

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 decreasing family size-was altering the very shape of the family itself. Furthermore, a piecemeal but coherent reforming effort was being directed at the interior of family life-at the patterning of family relationships-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 significance 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 organizations 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 charitablecum-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 'hygiene', 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 'femininity'. 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, goaloriented action as a central concern in their analyses of the emergence of modern industrial societies. Weber referred to this as the 'disenchantment' 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

4

The disenchantment of the home

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 construction 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 projectit 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 'modernize' 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 implications 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 complementary 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 naturally 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

6

The disenchantment of the home

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 visa-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 developments 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 theoretical 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 understanding and the substantive analysis proceeded dialectically, each generating 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

8

The disenchantment of the home

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 endeavours 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 movements, there developed a major strategy directed at the organization of work within the household and at ensuring what were seen as 'appropriate' 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 pressures. Both through technology and the introduction of new notions of efficiency, women were facing a complex task of negotiating the interaction 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 'naturalness' 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 contraception, 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' conditions. 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 reproduction. 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 kindergarteners 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

10

The disenchantment of the home

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, childrearing 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 societies, 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 characteristics 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 explanation for, the types of family patterns predominant in advanced Western societies. The interpretation which stresses the significance of the 'bourgeois family model' has emerged out of such debates. In the 1960s and 11

12

The disenchantment of the home

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 modernization 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

14

The disenchantment of the home

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 essentially 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 anachronistic 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 contradictions 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 structure, 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

Setting the questions

15

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'. However, accounts of their position in the class structure of advanced capitalist societies have been quite diverse: some writers insist they are fundamentally 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 personality 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 liberation ... 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 produced 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

16

The disenchantment of the home

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 professionals, 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

Setting the questions

17

families is concerned with the expansion of what he terms the 'psy' complex, the medico-psychiatric-social work field of intervention. Donzelot 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 emergence 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 common 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 interpretations 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. Unfortunately, they share a fundamental weakness: an inadequate conceptualization 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

18

The disenchantment of the home

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 psychoanalytic 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 operating in the perpetuation of widespread systematic social oppression. The work of Nancy Chodorow, in particular, sets out to explain the psychodynamics 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-

Setting the questions

19

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 crossculturally and historically. In particular, some societies more than others distinguish between public and domestic spheres and enforce a corresponding 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 redefinition 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

20

The disenchantment of the home

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 evidence 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 rationalizing 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 womanhood' 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

Setting the questions

21

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 associations 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 representation 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.

22

The disenchantment of the home

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 concerning 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

Setting the questions

23

has assumed a simple and direct correspondence between the material interests of the dominant class and the ideologyjies produced, the reemergence 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 structuring 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 contributions 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 representation 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 reinforcing 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

24

The disenchantment of the home

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 developed 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 unwillingly, 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

Setting the questions

25

language, Giddens refers to this as the 'duality of structure', an emphasis on human agency in conjunction with an emphasis on structured constraints on individual action. 34 Maintaining this balance in the analysis of specific ideologies still remains difficult, especially where sourcematerial is loaded on the side of the powerful groups thus producing their representations of reality. It becomes particularly impor.tant, therefore, 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 meansend 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 remarkably 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 rationalization 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.

26

The disenchantment of the home

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, instrumental 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 instrumental 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,

Setting the questions

27

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 subsequent 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 conflicts' .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

28

The disenchantment of the home

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 contradictions 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

Setting the questions

29

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 characteristic 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 development-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 household 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 acknowl32

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 development. 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 humanitarian 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 inclination and the newer technical experts, formed a dominant group in terms of immediate bourgeois class interests, they were neither homogeneous 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 upperclass 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 Association. 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 managerial 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 organizations, 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, however, were interlocked and a network~ of reformers, bourgeois and professional, 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 considerableceffort was being made to spread particular concepts of appropriate household management and family relationships: those seen to be consistent with the demands of modem, industrial society. In the- ear]Jerdevelopments 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

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35

prescriptions that emerged concerning their family role. Furthermore, labour representatives often encouraged the re-making of the workingclass household along lines acceptable both to bourgeois and professional reformers, with an economically dependent wife ensconced in a wellmanaged, 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 development, but here only a very brief sketch of population developments

36

The disenchantment of the home

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

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37

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 nineteenthcentury 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

38

The disenchantment of the home

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. Although 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

The architecture of daily life

39

of the spheres of home and work was an integral part of capitalist industrial development, which was represented as a natural sexual division 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 relationships were often far from blissful and the hearth a site of hard-pressed labour and bitter struggle. Women's magazines only sometimes acknowledged 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 workingclass 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 consciousness 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 immeasurable. 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 Commonwealth' competition. 11 Women's work in the household was not the focus of these pronouncements; rather her role as comforter of husband

40

The disenchantment of the home

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 Melbourne'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.

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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 Melbourne group is indicated by a membership of over three hundred by 1881, the establishment of a central office and a library, and its propaganda 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 workingclass women, about whose housewifery standards the Society was particularly 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-tohouse 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

42

The disenchantment of the home

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 sufficient, 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

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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 established 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 comments 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 Melbourne 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 professionals 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

44

The disenchantment of the home

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 authorities 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 management 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 wholesale'.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'.

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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 development. The town planning movement assiduously promoted the separation 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 scientific 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 plannedin 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 surroundings. In connection with the planning of a town the commercial or business centre would be separated from the noxious trades and manufactures. 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

46

The disenchantment of the home

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 Commission 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 productivity 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 English 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.

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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 supervision 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 spectrum, 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 employers 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

48

The disenchantment of the home

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 children's activities carefully. Thus a definite model of the appropriate-pattern

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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 conditions 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, singlefronted 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.

50

The disenchantment of the home

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 ownership.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 knowledge 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 established 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.

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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 alternatives to traditional building methods and styles of decoration. The First World War exacerbated the demands for low-cost, new-style housing, as building materials and decorations such as wallpaper and imported 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 Australian 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

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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 flywired 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

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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 decoration ... furniture, carvings, printings and statuary are seen to perfection if the rooms containing them are correctly illuminated' .43 Thus not only

54

The disenchantment of the home

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 accompanying 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 importantly 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 developments, such as the attempted imposition of certain standards of family

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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 principles and techniques of management originating in the world of industrial 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 expertsthe professionals in science, medicine, education and architecture-to 56

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reorganize domestic labour through a series of strategies which were full of ambivalence for women as houseworkers. New technology and materials, 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 developments in Victoria shows some significant tensions between reformers who were primarily interested in the working-class home and the professionals 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 commented: 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. substituted.

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

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The disenchantment of the home

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 McPherson College of Domestic Economy. 3 In the meantime, several other 'domestic arts' schools had been established which were proudly announced 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-

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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 framework 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

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The disenchantment of the home

Swinburne and Sir William McPherson provided the institutional bases in Melbourne for domestic science. Swinburne, with his wife's encouragement, 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 conscious 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 aiming 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 complaining. 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

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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 workingclass 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 professional 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 economy training up to the interwar period.

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The disenchantment of the home

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 inconsiderable 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 agegraded 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 accounts or keeping to a rigid timetable for tasks. In accepting, modifying or ignoring the advice, they were not passive but making a variety of

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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 retrospect, 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 ideological 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-

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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. Nonconformists 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 appearing 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 particularly 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

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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 recommended 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 common 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

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The disenchantment of the home

every woman can help balance the national budget'', said Miss Chisholm.' 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 techniques, 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.

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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 demanded Federal control of prices and industrial unrest increased. In 1915 a group of Melbourne middle-class women had formed a housewives' 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 circumstances 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

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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.

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(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, putting clothes away, and the afternoon free for visiting, etc.; Thursdaythorough cleaning of dining-room, stairs, hall and silver; Fridaythorough 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,

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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 uppermiddle-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 Commission 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 electric 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. service of our public.

We are at the

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.

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'working men's wives', they rose early and toiled long. Some took in out-work such as machining, but their evidence pointed so overwhelmingly 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

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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 industrial 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 products 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

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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 oldfashioned 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 housecleaning. 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 "wellpreserved" 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

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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', consciously 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

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of the monotony and blandness of the Australian diet, exhorting housewives to vary menus, serve foods more attractively and shop with more routine. The advice of the earlier period was less systematic in organization 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 Commonwealth 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 professionals from dietetics and domestic science, infant welfare and social work. Although the Report found there was no undue cause for alarm

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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 organizations 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 commercial 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-

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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 consumption 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?-

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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 employers' 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 labour 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

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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 dressmaking skills and the influence of the domestic science movement were made quite clear. Mr Ferguson, the counsel for the employers, emphasized 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 'husband'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 tailormade. 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

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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 recognition was being given to a further aspect of women's role in managing the family household. The maintenance of both physical and psychological 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 preparation 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

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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 adulterated milk, grocers inferior provisions, and drapers shoddy material. This desirable state of things will be brought about by women understanding 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. Although 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

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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 organization of pregnancy and childbirth; in particular, the period included the extension of ante-natal care, and of hospital-based, medically managed, 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 hospitalization 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 transformation 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 correspondingly 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

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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 timesand 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, sufficiently 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 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: 7

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

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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 allowance 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 wellfed 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.

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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-

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class supervision varied. For women whose family and friendship networks 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 expressions 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 nonprofessional 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 midwives 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 antenatal 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 mid1920s reveals a noticeable increase in the number of articles and letters on maternal health. It was recognized by the leaders' attempts to promote

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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 generations 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

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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 problems. 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

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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 controversy 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, particularly 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 midwives 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

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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 midwifery service, that of the MDNS. It had been made ~clear at its commencement 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 midwifery 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 overlooked 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

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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, particularly 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 subsidized 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 profession. 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

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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 'nonnaturalness' 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 controversy. 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 midwifery 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

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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 environment, 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

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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 assumed. 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 Muskett, 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

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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 confinements, but the suggested remedies contributed further to the problems 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

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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 management 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

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developing an ether vaporizer. Dr Small's machine was favourably recommended 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 management 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 commoo. 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 expectancy and masterful inactivity'. In the later years of the nineteenth

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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 .interference.38 Although the use of anaesthesia, forceps and other obstetrical techniques 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

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after delivery were other practical aspects of the organization of confinement. 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 afterwards, 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

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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 reproduction; 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

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supervision was in the hands of a dominant group of upper-middleclass 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 reproductive 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 childbearing 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 professional 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 reproduction 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 professional dominance of reproduction. This was not, however, just a simple 104

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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 fatalistically 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 discourse 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 gynaecology 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 discussed what were valid reasons for such a serious step as to make a woman 'not like other women', or 'unsexed'. Whereas the gravity of

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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

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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 fulfilment 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 propagation 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

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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' interpretation 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

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home and family was shared by conservatives and by liberal reformers, the 'progressives'. It was also increasingly evident in the media, particularly 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. Although 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 phystque: 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 movement, 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 involvement 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

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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 commissioners 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

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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 precaution 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

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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 information 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 ...

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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

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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 advertisements 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 knowledge 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

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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 reprinting 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 contraception. 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 immorality 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

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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 frequently. 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 relationship 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 Parents' 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 authorities 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

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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 halffed, 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

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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 instances --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.

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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 mechanical skill, and his labour will be a drug on the market. 37

These comments indicate the gap that existed between his interpretation 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

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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 conservative 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

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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.

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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 psychological theory and Freudian explanations of the sexual drive were ·also significant: they encouraged the conceptual separation -of sex and procreation 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 practices, 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 acceptance 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

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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-

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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 decision 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 Clinic, provision of contraceptive advice beingc seen- the logical extension 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 mingled 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 immorality 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

as

Planning the family

125

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 Housewives' 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 particular, 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 middleclass 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

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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 commented 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.

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The disenchantment of the home

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 kindergartens. By the interwar period, however, infant welfare marked a new departure from the traditional charitable_ concerns with children of the industrial 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 institutionalization 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

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people started clinics in the main industrial suburbs. 7 During 1917 a clinic was established in Richmond, and several others at North Melbourne, 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-

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The disenchantment of the home

rooming of baby clinics and with them increased professional specialization. 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.

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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 supporters, 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.

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The disenchantment of the home

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, particularly 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 increasing. 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 asleep at his work.

t-o

fall

MOTHER SHOULD NOT BE READ/1VG SHE

NOR SHOULD BE T ALKI1VG.

a.n1.

Feed by the clock.

p.~.

Don't trust to lttck.

'Adopt fully proven methods as taught at the Infant Welfare Centres. Safety first-don't experiment with your baby.'

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135

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 controversies 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

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The disenchantment of the home

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

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137

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 exacerbated 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 judgement 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 cooperation would bear fruit, which they eventually did in the 1930s, there were times when she despaired: 'It is not exactly a quiet life being

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The disenchantment of the home

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 organizations. Baby Week campaigns included concerts, displays of laboursaving 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 Australianmade 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 women's section became so popular that they were sent out independent of the original train; classes of schoolgirls were brought out for demonstra-

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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 philanthropic 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 particular, with an onslaught on working-class women's 'neglect' and 'ignorance' 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 superiority 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 supposedly 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

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The disenchantment of the home

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 nineteenth 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 breastfeeding 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

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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 breastfeeding 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 technicalities, 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' discussions, 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 complexity 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

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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 literature 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 Primrose, 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.

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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 management 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 Victorian 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-

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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 implements. 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

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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 standardized 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

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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 advertisements) replacing it with their new norms. 50 The effects of prescriptions for a model baby cannot be easily ascertained. Although the experts insisted that they were only providing general guidelines and averages, some anxiety was experienced by mothers. 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 developments. 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

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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 commented: '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'.

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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 nervousness 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 'extraordinary·{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 recommended: '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 'overstimulate' 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 c

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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 inexperienced 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 grandmother 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

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in the late 1920s, indicate· that_ her experience was quite ·different from that of many other women. She, like many other contemporary. professionals, 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 .. l am granted. She -wrote: 'I do so ~ant to look after the babe my~lf.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~ cooperation 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 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 .micldleclass 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 c

Result of test meal.

Welfare Centre 1\;f others are HappfJ J.\1 others.

Infant

Accuratt mtasurement 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.

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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 campaign of 'modernizing mothering' became institutionalized. This project represented the combined efforts of various groups, in particular uppermiddle-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 nationalistic 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

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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 reflected a concern with a more scientific approach to childhood, a more intense interest in children_ themselves. Before exploring these developments, 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 interpersonal 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

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The disenchantment of the home

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 adolescents. 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 surveillance but an orderly daily life and, in particular, dearly ordered parent-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-

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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

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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 leisuretime, 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 independent, -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

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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 workingclass 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 Australia 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 Robertson, to have been close to her mother insofar as discussion of daily

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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 sent 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 c

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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

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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-

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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 mothering 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

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topics and more systematic. There .was not of course a complete transformation 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, obedience 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

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proclivities' . 19 No training was foolproof and none of us could be perfect parents anyway. Increasingly in the twentieth century such parental reassurance dwindled, -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 relationship 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 schoolchildren. 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-

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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 emphasison training in manual skills. Fears of German superiority in technological development were already .being expressed, and the Fink. Royal Commission 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 educationists- continued for many years, eventuating in rivalry in training programmes and general orientation. Although both groups were concerned 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

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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 developing 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 techniques and principles of mental measurement. 26 Leaders of the educational 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

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direCtor of the Australian~ Council of Educational -Research,- an organization 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 interested- in 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.

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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 preoccupations: 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 psychologizing 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-

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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 primarily discussed amongst the professionals, their ideas were also disseminated -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 breakthrough. 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 educationists; 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).

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'The Mischief of Fear', John Williams, MD, MRCP, DPM (psychologist). '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 interested 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.

170

The disenchantment of the home

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 encouraging 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 workingclass 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 delinquency 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, whipping 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

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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-

172

The disenchantment of the home

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 parent-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, importance 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.

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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 childrearing 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

174

The disenchantment of the home

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 interweaving of traditional charitable endeavours with the newer 'modernizing' strategies can be seen clearly in the attempts to change patterns of childrearing, especially in the activities of the kindergarteners and playgrounds 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 mothering, was subjected to new pressures which implicitly made it a more difficult, anxiety-prone and psychologically oriented enterprise than in

The remaking of childhood

175

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 consequence 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 desirablethat 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

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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 remedies 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 principles of eugenics. However, the fundamental contradiction between them was never actually resolved and the tension continues to underlie presentday 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 conspicuous. 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

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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 modesty' had prevent-ed-doctors from 'Writing-on this subject-in-the past~ but that now~ people 'are becoming ~ware of the physiological- influences~ 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,- maSturbation. 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,

on

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181

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 legislation 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

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182

the c-hurches,- as well as- -in -secular society, about- the propriety- -of 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 -modernizing, 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
-

-

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.

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The sexual enlightenment of the young

183

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 Department'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 medical 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

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The disenchantment of the home

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 theiraversion 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'.

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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 arguments 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 missteps'. 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

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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 expression 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

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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 paradoxical 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 ourselves'.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

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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. unnameable' 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 excluded 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 influenced 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 appeared, 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

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circumstances of which their elders would not have approved. Moreover, much ignorance continued with or without the happy childhood innocence 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 developments raise many questions. Which parents were most likely to respond to the calls to 'rationally manage' their children's sexuality? Did workingclass 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 prostitution were part of .broader shared concerns with eliminating the propagation of the 'unfit' and, the converse, encouraging healthy, 'efficient' 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

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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 discussion 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 increasingly 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

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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-syphilis. 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 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 conditions producing theni:·1

cc

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

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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 professionals such as teachers, and women prominent in the upper-middleclass 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 discussion. 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 disseminated 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

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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 somewhat 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 professional 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 discourse 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 movements, 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 knowledge on sexual matters and spread a scientific, 'hygienic' attitude.

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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

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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 'multiplication 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 thatalthough- Australia did need -a- much higher population, it was the quality of this which counted. The concern with the 'multiplication of

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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, sterilization 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

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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 elsewhere, 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 immigrants, 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

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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 promoting 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 depression 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 insignificant and the general climate of discussion with regard to hygienephysical, 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:

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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 contributed 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

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problems, mental testing, psychological guidance for parents and "perversions" '. 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 disturbances'. ] 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 paediatrician 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 naturethe 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

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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

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establish a birth control clinic, so his interest in sexual matters also increased. His papers therefore reveal on the one hand, a firm commitment 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 ejaculation 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 tonguekissing 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

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'-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 dissatisfaction 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 marriage. 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

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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

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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- attractioQ_. 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 magazine 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.ragement 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 homemade health and beauty remedies· were increasingly_ replaced by ac!vertisements 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 nineteenthcentury 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

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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 flatchested: 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-

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care advice and other aspects of health. Through these columns and through the portrayal of body imagery, the 'modern' approach- to sexuality 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 relationships, 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 certificates' 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

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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 characterized both popular media and professional sources. In this aspect of their re-forming strategies, the experts spearheaded, but could not control, 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 Australian 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 household more efficient and scientific and family life itself more 'rationally' ordered. This thread l have analysed as an ideology of technical rationality, 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 characteristic 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

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and ambivalences, and hence too great a readiness to accept the effectiveness 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 Ehrenreich 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 workingclass 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 antifeminism 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

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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-workingclass 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 participated 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, background, 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

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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 workingclass 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_ management 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 terminology and orderly arrangement characteristic of the later childrearing literature for example. The emphasis on measurement and regular routine, 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 accompanied other aspects of the technocratic consciousness. Dr Vera Scantlebury 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

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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 arguedin 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 movement, 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

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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 bourgeois dominance. The argument that the professionals have been 'stooges' of the ruling· class has however been more common; but neither interpretation 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 interpretation 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 developments 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 twentiethcentury 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 construction of womanhood that the underlying contradiction of 'disenchanting' 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 programme. 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.

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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. charitable 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- children, 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.

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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 extravagant 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 supportive 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 preoccupation 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

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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- overwhelming 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

The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment

219

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 Horkheimer 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 'matriarchal' values and agreed that sexual and even gender oppression had accompanied the development of civilization;. and more recently Habermas 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

The diJencha-ntment -of the home

220

Horkheimer she regrets this, but accepts its inevitability as the price · paid ~fo~ human transcend~nce o£ _the natural world, in which she sees 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 agricultur-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, ·Western 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 '-disenchan.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 .c

-

-

The experts and the dilemma of disenchantment

221

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 domination 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 methodology. 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 outstanding 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, methodologically, 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

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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 Dresbyt: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. ~

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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-

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The disenchantment of the home

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 sourcestheir 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

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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 interpretation 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 Wallace'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 considerable 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

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The disenchantment of the home

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 leftwing _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 historians 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 collection, 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.

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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 professional· 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 sophisticated 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

230

The disenchantment of the home

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 professional 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 indisputable. 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 increasingly 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 increasingly 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

232

The disenchantment of the home

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 Australian 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

234

The disenchantment of the home

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 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.

to

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.

236

The disenchantment of the home

6 J. McCarty, 'Australian capital cities in the nineteenth century', 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17

18

19 20

21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

AEHR, 1970, pp. 107-37. M. Poster, Critical theory of the family; C. Lasch, Culture of narcissism; E. Zaretsky, .op.cit. · Spectator and Central Mission Gazette, 27 August 1880, p. 883. Presbyterian Monthly, l February 1888, p. 35. Preston Post, 6 August 1904. New Idea, 1 November 1902, p. 329. e.g., Preston Post, 1 Mar<:h 1890. Australian Health Society, A quarter century's record, Melb., AHS, 1_900. Australian Health Society, The meetings for wives and daughters, Melbourne, Walker, May and Co., 1884. Australian Health Society, Pure air and ventilation, Tract no. 2, 1876. 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. 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. _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. Barrett, op.cit., pp. 6-8. _ 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. V. Scantlebury Brown, MSS. diary letters, 21 September 1928, _9 February 1929. Papers held at Uni. of Melbourne, Social Studies Department Library. Victoria, Royal Commission on-Housing, 1913-17, Final Report, VPP V.2, 1917, Minutes of Evidence, Q.6392 (hereafter cited as Housing Commission, -Evidence). L. Sandercock, Cities for sale, Melbourne Uni. Press, 1977, p. 68. e.g., Mr John Sulman, Housing Commission, Evidence, Q.6387-8, 6389. ibid., Q.270+27l1. ibid., Q.2717. ibid., Q.2828. ibid., Q.8951-6. ibid., Q.2124-5, 6465. ibid., Q.3247. ibid., Q.2124-5. 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, Melbourne 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 demonstrations 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, 19061979, 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.

238

The disenchantment of the home

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-yearold 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 Australia', 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.

240

The disenchantment of the home

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. 9 ibid., 26 October 1915. 10 ibid., 4 October 1932. 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.

242

The disenchantment of the home

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

2 3 4 5 6

7

8

and women's rights, Heine_mann, 1977; M. Chamberlain, op~cit., B. Ehrenreich and D. English, Witches, midwives and nurses.· a history of women healers, Feminist Press, 1973. ]. Foreman, 'Chairman's address,. section of Gynaecology', Trans. Int. Med. Con., 1887, p. 171. e.g., 'Essay on maternal morbidity and mortality', the prize-winning essay by Dr E. Sydney Morris, AtfA, 12 September 1925. F.. C. Batchelor, 'President's address to section of obstetrics and gynaecology', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1889, p. 633. Argus, 18 March 1914, p. 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 midwifery', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1892, pp. 512-23. 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~ 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. 24867; 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 correspondence 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

The disenchantment of the home

244

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: brief 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. MultiNumber 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.

a

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

3 4 5 6 7

8 9

10 11 12

13 14

15

16 17 18 19

245

5; see too, Gandevia, Tears often shed, pp. 79-82, 122-127, ch. 15; and C. Thame, 'Health and the State'. K. Laster, 'The forgotten crime: infanticide', Unpublished paper presented to 3rd Women and Labour Conference, Adelaide, June 1982. C. D. Hunter, What kills our babies, Australian Health Society ( 1878), tract no. 7, Mason, Firth and McCutcheon, 1878 (rep. 1883). Sir H. Allen, 'Opening address to general session', Trans. Int. Med. Cong., 1908, Govt. Pr., 1909, pp. 29-31. Lewis, op.cit., ch. 4; Thame, op.cit., p. 208; B. Gandevia, op.cit., p. 126. '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. VBHCA Minutes of Executive Committee 1918. 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). V. Scantlebury Brown papers, MS. diary letter, 24 January 1919. ibid., 14 December 1919 (letter to her brother, Cliff Scantlebury). 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. Victoria, Director of Infant Welfare, Annual Reports, 1928-9, 1938-9. 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. 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. Main and Scantlebury, op.cit. Argus, 14 August 1926; 15 September 1926. Report of Royal Commission on Health; Dame Janet Campbell, Report on Maternal and Child Welfare in Australia, Govt. Pr., 1930. V. Scantlebury Brown, A guide and tables for infant feeding, Melb., Dept

246

20 21 22 23 - 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

33 34 35

36

37 38 39 40 41

The disenchantment of the home of Public Health, 1929; id., 'Some Aspects of the infant welfare movement in Victoria, 1917-1935', Health Bulletin, July-December 1935, pp. 123953. Society for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria, First Annual Report, 1920-1, p. 2. For fuller details see the biography written by his daughter, Mary King, Truby King: the man, Geo. Allen and Unwin,- 1948._ V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 5 December 1928. ibid., 18 August 1929. Interview with Dr C., 5 August 1980. C.E. Sayers, The Women's, chs. 18-22. V. Scantlebury Brown MS. diary letters, 18 August 1929. ibid., 5 December 1929. SHMCV Annual Reports, 1920-1, 192-1-2; Main and Scantlebury, op.cit. 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. Main and Scantlebury, op.cit., p. 41; SHMCV Annual Report, 1931-2. Sr Maud Primrose, 'Mothercraft not learnt by instinct', The Housewife, 2 January 1939, p. 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. S. Warren, The wife's guide and friend, p. 49, p. 80. Hunter, -op.cit., p. 9. 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. 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. M. Harper, 'Maintenance of lactation', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1924, MJA, Supp. 5 April 1924, p. 187. Dr] . Wood, 'Comments', Trans. Aust. Med. Cong., 1927, p. 121. M. Harper, The parents' book, p. 29. Sr M. Primrose, 'Giving baby his first lesson', The Housewife, 1 September 1937, p. 22. 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 literature', 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.

The disenchantment of the home

248

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. 8193; 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. 160307; 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 Kindergarten 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;

The disenchantment of the home

250

-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

_2

3 4

5

6

7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

J. Ellis,

The human body ~ de!cribed for the inJtruction of the young of both sexes, Geo. Slater [n.da. ). Bea~ey, The generative system and its function in health and disease, F.F. .Bailliere, 187~, 3rd edn, 1880, 4th, 1883. ~.F. Ford, A bibliography oof Australian medicine, 1790-1900, Sydney Uni. Press. 1976. 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). ibid., p. 85. 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~ Varley, Private addresses, p. 5. 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. Church of England Messenger, 12 October 1885, p. 15. Church of England Messenger, 12 October 1885, p. 14. Courtney to Education Dept., 23 July 1903, PRO (Vic.) Education D@partment, Special Case File 1106. ibid., Dr Kitchen to Bligh; enclosed with Bligh's 1903 letters- to the Education Dept. ibid., Mr McGillivray, testimonial- on behalf of Mr Bligh,- 22 July 19(}3. Advocate, editorial, 7 June l884f p. 14. Miss Douglas to F. Tate, 25 November 1913, Special Case File 1106. ibid., Council of Sex Hygiene and Morality to Director, 5 June 1916, and Memo to Director, 25 July 1916. Argus, 12 July 1916. Education Gazette and Teachers' Aid, 20 June 1929, pp. 151-2 and 21 October 1930, p. 472. Argus, 17 September 1926, p. 16. 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. 478. 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. Mackenzie, '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

252

The disenchantment of the home

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 distinguished . 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

2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

J.

Ehrenreich, 'The professional managerial class'. (I have referred to Barbara Ehrenreich's work in particular.) Summers, Damned whores and God's police; A. Game and R. Pringle, 'The making of the Australian family', Intervention, 1979. Rowse, Australian liberalism, ch. 2. R. Connell and T. Irving, Class structure in Australian history, Longman Cheshire, 1980, pp. 200-0 l. Basic Wage, Evidence, Q. 26966. Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic, p. 3. ibid., p. 69ff. ibid., Notes and Drafts, p. 250. J. Habermas, 'A reply to my critics', in J.B. Thompson and D. Held, Habermas, Critical debates, Macmillan, 1982. S. de Beauvoir, op.cit. Ruether, op.cit. ibid., pp. 190-191; see too R. Easlea, op.cit. 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 5 L. Passerini, '"Work ideology and consensus under Italian fascism', History Workshop Journal, 8, 1979. 6 Portelli, op.cit., p. 104. oc

-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. Annual Reports of the Minister- for Public Instruction, 1890s-1920s. Report of the Royal Commission_ on Housing,_ 1913-1 7. Repon of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition _of Melbourne, 1889-1981. Report of the Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board, 1936-7. Repon to the Minister of Public Health on the Welfare of Women and Children, 1926. (Main and Scantlebury report). -254

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(i) Official

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Victoria (only sources used substantially are listed) Education Dept Correspondence files, Special Case Files, held at the Victorian Public Records Office. Health and· Maternal Welfare, miscellaneous infant welfare material held by the Health Commission of Victoria. (ii) Papers of individuals and organizations BARRETT, J .w.

Papers, Melbourne University Archives: correspondence. BROOKES, 1. Papers, MS. 1924, ANL: Series 29, Playgrounds and Recreation Association of Victoria, Series 38, Housewives Association. CUMPSTON, J.H.L. Papers, MS. 613, ANL: miscellaneous speeches and newspaper reports. CHURCH OF ENGLAND MOfHERS' UNION. Annual Reports, held at M.U. office, St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. DEAKIN, A. Papers, MS. 1540, ANL: correspondence, 1884-99. EUGENICS SOCIETY OF VICTORIA. Correspondence and Minutes. 1936-61 (held with Wallace papers, see below). KAPPER, w. 'Biographical Notes on Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown', typescript MS, 1977 (held with V. Scantlebury Brown papers, see below). MELBOURNE DISTRICT NURSING SOCIETY. Papers held at After-Care Hospital, Victoria Pde, East Melbourne: Executive committee minutes, miscellaneous newspaper files. SCANTLEBURY BROWN, v. MS. papers held at Melbourne University, Social Studies Dept. Library. The extensive diary letters collection was used particularly, but also memorabilia of Dr Scantlebury Brown's public life. SOCIETY FOR THE HEALTH OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF VICTORIA. Reports and papers held at the Tweddle Hospital, Footscray. VICIDRIAN BABY HEALTH CENTRES' ASSOCIATION. Papers at La Trobe Library, Mel b. Minutes of Executive Committee, 1920s. Reports of Medical Officer, 1920s. WALLACE, DR v.H. Papers and records held at Melbourne University Archives (includes Eugenics Society material).

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C

Contemporary books, .pamphlets and articles

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South Australian Branch. Race building, Report of Local Branch, (rep. from The Mail, Adelaide, 1916). BURNS, G.R. Cots to coffins: infant mortality in Melbourne. 1943, Melb., Rawsons Bookshop, 1944. CHESSER, E.M. Child health and character. London, Faber and Gwyer Ltd., 1927. CHILDREN'S WELFARE EXHIBITION, 1913, Melb. Thos. Urquart and Co., 192 Collins St., Melb., 1913. CHILD STUDY AND·ADULT HEALTH ASSOCIATION. Memorandum and Articles of Association. Sydney, P.S. Garling -PR., {n.d.] CLUB BE,· C.P.B. Lecture on some points in the feeding and nursing of infants and children. Australian Trained Nurses Assoc., 1901. COLES, E.W. Coles Funny Picture Book. 1st published Melb., 1909, 71st (Surprise) edn. 1979. COLLEGE OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY MAGAZINE, no. 6, 1931. COLLEGE OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY PROSPECTUS 1910-15. Melb., Arbuckle, Waddell and Fawkner, 1915. COLONIAL GAS ASSOCIATION. Fifty years of good public service, 1888-1938. Melb., Col. Gas Assoc., 1938. CUNNINGHAM, K.S. 'Problem children in Melbourne schools'. Australian Educational Studies, 1st series, ACER, 193 7. CUNNINGHAM, K.S. Review of education in Australia. Melb., ACER, 1939. CUNNINGHAM, K.S., and RADFORD, W. (eds). Education for complete living. Melb., MUP, 1938. DRAKE, L., (ed.). Everylady's cookbook. Swinburne Technical College, Vic., 1934. DUNLOP, G. Our babies: a textbook for mothers. Syd., Aust. Medical Publishing Co., 1928. ELLIS, A. The Australian baby: advice to Australian mothers. Melb., Ward Lock and Co., 1902. ELLIS, J. The human body described for the instruction of the young of both sexes. Melb., Geo. Salter, {n.d.]. FINKE, L. The child and sex. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1944. FRANCIS, HENRY ALEXANDER. Pregnartcy and normal labour. A practical guide for the use of mothers and nurses living in the bush. Brisbane, Pole Outridge and Co., 1891. GARDNER, A.W. First ten months of infancy; being hints to mothers. Ind. ed., Melb., Kemp and Boyce, 1888. GILES, D. Miss Drake's home cookery, revised version {1944]. {GOODCHILD, J.}. Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy, unpublished pamphlet. Melb., College Council, 1935. GUTTERIDGE, M.V. The child at home; The child growing up: a series of lectures BRITISH SCIENCE GUILD,

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WEIGALL, M. Our_ children. Melb., WILUS, T.R.H. 'The mortality and

Melville, Muller and Slade, 1895. management of infancy', in Australian Health Society, Health lectures for the people. Melb., AHS, 1886. WORKERS' EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF NSW. Teaching of sex hygiene. WEA [1918].

LATER WORKS A

Books· and articles

'Ideology and ideological state apparatuses', in unin and philosophy and other essay.I. Lon., New Left Books, 1971. BACCHI, c. 'Evolution, eugenics and women: the impact of seientific theories on attitudes towards women, 187Q-1920', in E. Windshuttle (ed.), Women, class and history. Melbourn~, Fontana, 1980. BARRETT, M., et al. (ed.). Ideology and cultural production. Lond., Croom Helm, 1979. BERGER, P., and KELLNER, H. The homeless mind. Ringwood, Vic., Penguin edn, 1974. BROWN, P. and JORDANOVA, L.J. 'Oppressive dichotomies: the naturejculture_ debate', in Women in society: interdisciplinary _essays. Lon., Virago, 1981. BROWNE_, E. The empty cradle: ftrtility control in Australia. Syd., Uni. of NSW Press, 1979. CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL STUDIES. On ideology. Lon., Hutchinson, 1978. CHAMBERLAIN~ M. Old wives tales. Lon., Virago, 1981. CHODOROW, N.- The reproduction of mothering: psychoanalysis and th_e sociology of gender. Berkeley Uni. of California Press, 1978. DANIELS, K. 'Women's history', in Osbourne, G., and ·Mandie, W.F., (eds), New history: studying Australia today. Syd., Geo. Allen and Unwin, 1982. DAVIN, A. 'Imperialism and motherhood'. History Workshop journal, Spring, 1978. DAVISON, G. The rise and fall of marvellous Melbourne. Melb., Melb. Uni. Press, 1979. DE MAUSE, L. (ed.). A history of childhood. N.Y., the Psycho-History Press, 1974. DOCHERTY, J.H. The Emily Mac: the story of Emily McPherson College, 19061979. Melb., Ormond Book and Educational Supplies, 1981. DONNISON, J. Mid~ives ant/ medical men: a history of inte~profossional rivalries and women's rights. Lon., Heinemann, 1977. DONZEIDT, J. The policing offa1fli/ies. N.Y., Pantheon Books, 1979. DOYAL, L. The political economy of health. Lon., Pluto Press, 1979. DYHOUSE, c. 'Working class mothers and infant mortality in England, 18951914', journal of Social History, Vol. 12, no. 2, 1978. ALTHUSSER, L.

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J.- The politics of motherhood. Inn., Croom Helm, 1980. McCORMACK, c. and STRATHERN, M. (eds). Nature, culture ant/ gender. Cambridge, CUP, 1980. MACDONALD, P. Marriage in Australia: age at first marriage and proportions marrying, 1860-1971. Canberra, A.N.U. Press, 1974. MACKENZIE, D. 'Sociobiologists in -competition: the Biometrician-Mendelian debate', _in The_ roots of sociobiolugy. Past. and Present SoCiety- Conference, London, 1978. MARCUSE, H. One-dimensional man: studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston, Beacon- Press, 1964. MARCUSE, H. Eros and civilization: a philosophical enquiry into Freud. Boston, Beacon---Press, 1962. MECHLING,_ J. 'Advice to historians on advice to mothers', Journal of Social History, Vol. 9, Fall, 1975. MECHLING, J. 'Comments', in Journar of Social History, Vol. 10, Winter, 1976. MORGAN, D. Social theory and the family. Lon., Routledge and Kegan ·Paul, 1976. NEWSON, E. and J. 'Cultural aspects of childrearing', in Richards, M., The child's integration into the social world. Cambridge, CUP 1974. ORTNER, s. 'Is female to male as Nature is to Culture?', in Rosaldo, M. and Lamphere, L., Women, culture and~society. Stanford, Stanford Uni. Press,_ 1974. PASSER.INI, L. 'Work ideology and consensus under Italian Fascism', History Workshop journal, 8, 1979. PORTELli, A. 'The peCuliarities of oral history', History Workshop Journal, 10, 1981. POSTER, M. Critical theory of the family. Lon., Pluto Press, 1978. ROSENTHAL, N. People not cases: The Royal District Nursing Society. Melbourne, Nelson, 1974. REUTHER, R.R. New woman/new earth: sexist ideologies and human liberation. N.Y.,_Seabury Press, 1975. SAMUEL, R.~ (eel.). People's history _and socialist theory. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. SANDERCOCK, L. Cities for sale: property, politics and urban planning inAustralia. Melb., MUP, 1977. SEARLE, G.R. 'Eugenics and class', in The roots of sociobiology. Past and Present Society Conference, Lon., 1978. SEARLE, G.R. The quest for nattonal efficiency. Lon~, Oxford Uni. Press, 1971. SHORTER, E. The making of the modern family. N.Y., Basic Books, 1975. STONE, L. The family, sex and m4rriage in England, 1500-1800. Penguin edn, 1979. LEWIS,

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B

Theses

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Index

Abbott, Dr 122 a'Beckett, Mrs Ada 164, 185 abortion 95, 104, 110, 114, 115, 119, 121; .medical opinion 123 Adorno and -Horkheimer 26,29,-21819 advertising 2, 15, 174 Advisory Council on N ritrition 7 5, 7 6-7 Agar, -Professor 198 age of consent 1, 181 Aitken, Sister 162 Alfred Hospital 89 Allan, Dr Marshall (Professor) 89, 99, 123 Allan, Mrs Stella see 'Vesta' Allen, Sir Harry 129, 192 AlthliSSer 2 3, 2 4 Annear, Desbrowe 51 ante-natal care 84, 88, 89, 90, 98, 216; clinics 89; exercise 85 anthropometries 166 architects 45, 46, 51-2; attitudes to women 52 architecture, Modernist style 54 artificial feeding see infant feeding Association for Fighting VD 185,-193 Association of Creches 13 5 Australian Church 3 3

baby bonus 89, 109; see also maternity allowance baby competitions 146 baby heatth centres see infant welfare centres Baby Week 138 Balls-Headley, Professor 107

264

Barrett, Dr Edith 59, 193 Barrett, Dr James 117, 121, 192, 193 Barrington, Dr Fourness 100 base/superstruaure 23 Basic Wage Enquiry· see Royal Commission on the Basic Wage Batchelor, Dr 106 Beaney, DrJames 179, 180, 182, 191 beaut}' 81, 82, ~ 207-8 Berry, Professor Richard 197 Better Farming Train 138 bio-politics 24 binh control 122~3; acceptance by medical profession 122; class distinctions 119; clinics 123-, 124, _134, conservative reaction 124; propagandists 114; services _. 216; see also birth rate; .contraception; family ·plan~ - ning binb rate 40, 61, 64, 102, 107, 11011, 114, 214; see ttl.ro Royal Commission into the Decline of the Birth Rate Bligh, Rev. William - 182-3, 184 Booth, Mrs Angela · 197, 198 Bostock, Dr 163 bourgeoisie 2, 3, 13, 20 breastfeeding 140, 141-2, 143; see also infants, feeding Brown, Dr Macarthur 194 Brown, Dr Vera Scantlebury 13 2, 134, 135, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 170-1' 213-, 2 16 Brown, Professor 150, 213 budgeting 6 5, 66 Bush Nursing 59 Butler,_ Mrs Janie 124, 199

Index calculation and measurement 217; in infant feeding 144-5; see also measurement Campbell, Dame Janet 134 Carpenter, Mrs 187 Carroll, Dr Alan 16 5 charity network 10, 92, 216; see also upper middle class charity network; philanthropists charity workers 13 7 childbirth 2, 8, 9, 19, 84, 89, 104, 21 7; analgesics and anaesthesia 97, 98, 99, 100, 101; bed rest 101; doctors in attendance 89, 90-1; effect of civilization 107, 108; episiotomy 101; home 84, 94, 96, 97, 217; hospital delivery 84, 94, 95-6, 143; medical event 93, 95; pain in labour 98; perineal tears 101; position of woman 100-1; psychological aspects 94; use of forceps 99, 100; women's perceptions 95, 96, 117-18; see also lying-in homes; midwifery childcare 2 8, 221; professionals 128 child development 167 child endowment 67, 109 child guidance 2, 169, 213 childhood 174; chores 154-5; leisure 15 5-6; orderliness 156; see also parent-child relationships; play; toys child psychology 16, 168, 174 Child Study Association of New South Wales 165 child welfare 59, 75, 130 childrearing 1, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16, 19, 129, 174, 212, 214; literature 161-3, 213 children: medical inspection 166; work experience 154-5 Children's Courts 168 Children's Hospital 129, 166 Chisholm, Miss 60, 65 Chodorow, Nancy 18-19 Chomley, Eliza 158 Church of England Mothers' Union 6 5, 181 civilization: effects on disease in women 107, on home and family 108-9, on mothering 13 9, on parturition 10 7-8

265 class orientation: of reform strategies 9, 34, 17 4, 213; 'of domestic science 60; of infant welfare 13 9 class structure 14- 15, 211; see also professional middle class clothing 68-9, 78-80 Clarke, Lady Janet 59, 61 College of Domestic Economy 58, 60, 62; see also Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy Collingwood Mission 48 contraception 2, 8, 40, 104, 106, 110, 112, 120, 121, 123, 200, 202, 208, 21 7; medical supervision 12 2; reasons · for adoption 116; techniques 113, 120, 122; women's attitudes 115-17 cont~adiction 5, 10, 20, 103, 104, 196, 215, 218, 220 Cook, Joseph 110 cookery 56, 66, 74; classes 57; courses 62 cost of living 67, 77 Council of Mental Hygiene 168 Craig, William 109 creches 9, 130, 215 critical theorists 220, 221; see also Frankfurt School Cunningham, Dr K.S. 165, 168 Dale, John 108 de Beauvoir, Simone 21, 28, 219 de Garis, Dr Mary 98, 99 Deakin, Alfred 158, 159, 162, 172 Deakin, Mrs Pattie 164, 19 3 delinquency 16 7 demographic transition 104; see also birth rate deserted wives 39 discipline 159-61 diet 85 dieticians 7 5 disenchantment 3, 10, 25, 218, 220 domestic economy 52, 68; movement 8, 40, 57, 69; see also domestic science Domestic Economy, Australian Institute of 58-9 domestic labour 18, 19, 28, 71, 72; see also housework

266

domestic science 3, 41, 47, 56, 57, 61, 62' 63' 71' 76' 121' 171, 174' 212' 213, 216; movement 73, 79; women's response 62-3 domestic servants 32, 50, 52, 61, 149, 216 domination 17, 18, 27, 2 21; medical, ofwomen 125, of nature 29, 21820 Donzelot, Jacques 16-17, 18, 24, 167, 211 dummies 147, 186 Dunlop, Dr 147 Education Department 13 5, 182, .18 3, 184 education of girls 109 Educational Research, Australian Council of 166 Ehrenreich, B. D. 20, 211, 215 elearical suppliers 53 Ellis, Dr Constance 131, 185, 193 Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy 58, 62, 65 English Ladies Sanitary Association 41 eugenic movement 195-6 eugenics 42, 109, 194, 199, 200, 202, 208, 209; 'negative' 195, 196; 'positive' 195, 198 Eugenic Society 12 4, 196 Eugenics Society, British 195; Victorian 197, 198, 199 Faith, Sister 48 family: bourgeois model 11, 1~, 18, 19, 28, 212; extended 12; nuclear 12; patterns of living 48-9; planning 214; relationships 1, 2, 116, 209, 211, 212; working class 19 family allowances 106; see also child ·endowment fashion 81-2 father, theory of 14, 15, 18, 20 femininity 3, 5, 6, 18, 20, 28, 220 feminism: domestic 59; theory 4, 5, 18, 28, 80, 218 flies· 44 foetal development 84 Foucault, Michel 17, 24, 189, 194, 202 Frankfurt S€hool 13-14, 18, 26, 218, 219; see also critical theorists

The disenchantment of the home Franklin, Miles 160, 170 Free Kinderganen Union 135, 138, 164 Freud, Sigmund 14, 18, 186, 219 gas appliances 53 gender 4, 5, 6, 17, 24, 27, 28, 34, 211, 218, 220, 221 Giddens, A. 24, 26, 27 Glencross, Eleanor 67 · GPs 93 Greig, Dr Jane 42, 59, 168 Gunn, -Alexander 169 Gutteridge, Mary 165, 169, 171, 185 gynaecological problems: effect· of modern civilization 167; and faulty obstetric practice ·1 0 5; and working conditions 109 gynaecology 84, 104-7 Habermas 26, 27, 210, 219 Haire, Norman 207 'hand and eye' training 163 Harper, Dr Margaret 141, 14 5, 148 Heagney, Muriel 78 health: centres 148, see also infant welfare centres; departments 15 1, 212; education 41, 4 2 Health Department 184 Health Inspectors' Association 19 3 Health Society, Australian 40, 80, 129, 131, 133, 144_ Health Week 167 hegemony 23, 24, 212 Henderson, Janet 48 Henry, Alice 62 Herring, Dr Mary 123 home as a haven 37, 38, 175 home ownership 38, 50 home birth see childbirth Hooper, Miss Eva 165 housewife, reconstruction of 2, 8, 19, 35, 59, 68-9, 81, 82 housewifery 10, 20, 40, 47, 55, 63, 73, 82, 149 Housewives' Association 67, 125 housework 28, 54, 214, 221; see also domestic labour housing _ 4 5; reform 212; views of working class. women 49 human agency 6, 2 5 Hughes, W.M. 67

Index Hunter, Dr Charles

267 129

'Ideal Home, exhibitions 51 ideology 11, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 40, 125, 196, 219; domestic 28; femininity 220; home and family 33, 37, 38, 120-1; national efficiency 199; resistance 24; technical rationality 21 0; woman as housewife 51-1; womanhood 20, 21, 215 illness 80 individualism 12, 27 infants: clothing 146; equipment 148; feeding 140-5, 21 7, artificial 140, 141, 143, 151, 'hand feeding, 143; rational control 141-2, see also breastfeeding; furniture 150; management 147; mortality 86, 95, 129, 143, 158, 196 infant welfare 3, 9, 121, 216; centres or clinics 90, 130, 133, 149, 150, 213, medical control 13 3; role of women 215, women,s reactions 148-9, 1501; movement 52, 89, 128-40, 194, class direction 139, 149; services 213; specialists 151, 216 infectious disease 36, 44 Institute of Family Relations 123, 200 intellectuals 22 IQ testing 167 J ellett, Dr 101 Jobson, Jennie 217 juvenile courts 154 kindergarten movement 2, 9, 164, 17 2; role of women 215 Kindergarten Teachers, College 165 kindergartens 48, 130, 163, 170, 174, 213, 216 King, Dr Frederick Truby 129, 136, 142, 144-5, 147, 195, 214 kitchens 52-3, 73-4, 214 labour, 'cave-dweller,s, 10 1; see also childbirth Lady Gowrie Centres 16 5 Laidlaw, Mrs W. 193 Lasch, Christopher 16, 18, 167, 211, 219

layette 86 Lines, Dr 12 3 lying-in homes 94, 95 McCrae, Georgiana 158 MacKellar, Charles 110 McPherson, Emily 60 McPherson, Sir William 60 Main, Dr Henrietta 134 management 17, 22, 61, 214; household 66; illness 80; infant 147; sexuality 215 manual training 163-4 Marcuse 26, 27, 219 marital conflict 39 marriage 12, 200, 208, 219 Marriage Advice Centre 200 Marxist analysis 5, 17 masculinity 5, 6, 18 mass media 2, 15, 16 masturbation 180, 185-6, 191 maternal attachment 19 maternal mortality 89, 90, 95 maternal welfare 121 maternity allowance 89, 94, 134; see also baby bonus MDNS 86-8, 92, 97, 120, 123, 124, 193 measurement: of children 16 5; mental 166; see also calculation and measurement medical students 92 Medical Women,s Association 131 Medical Women,s Society 193 medicalization of reproduction 212 Melbourne Teachers, College 16 5 menstruation 111, 112 mental hygiene 168, 172 Mental Hygiene Movement 201, 214 mental retardation 166 Meyer, Dr Felix 97 midwifery 87, 93, 108; 'meddlesome, 99, 100, 10 1; see also. obstetrics midwives 88, 90-1, 93; untrained 92, 9 5; registration 91 Midwives Act ( 1915) 91, 92 milk 36, 42, 129; supply · 42-3; see also infants, feeding Ministry for Motherhood 134 modernization theory 12-13

The .disenchantment of the home

268 Moorhouse, Bishop 181, 182 Morris, Dr E.S. 89, 90 mother, theory of 18, 20, 157 mothercraft 5, 82, 128, 139, 152; nurses 150 motherhood 10, 117, 152, 161, 169; redefinition 152 Mothers' Union, Church of England 65, 181 Muhl, Anita 167, 168 Muskett, Dr Phillip 96, 101, 159, 162 narcissism 16 National Council of Women 43, 59, 183 National Health and Medical Research Council 75 National Thrift Week 6 5 naturejculture division 2~1, 29, 218 nature study 164 'neglected' children 154 neighbourhood network 87 'new education' 169 'new woman' 40, 59, 81 Notification of Births 13 5 nursery schools 16 5 nurses 9, 216; infant welfare 133-4; monthly 94 nutrition 74-5, 76 obstetrics 84, 89, 90-1, 92, 93, 95, 104; see also midwifery Osborn, A.R. 185 ovulation 111 Odysseus 219 O'Reilly, Cresswell 202 paediatrics 134 Paediatric Society, Australian Melbourne 197 parental behaviour 17 3 parent-child ·relationships 15 3, 158-9; changing assumptions reserve and formality 15 8 parenthood 169 parturition see childbirth patriarchy 4, 5, 218 Peck, Sister 141, 146 Pell, Flora 63 personal relationships 80-1

philanthropists 33, 59, 174, 175, 214; see also charity network physical education 163, 166 Piddington, Marion 67, 123, 186, 187, 188, 200 Piddington, Mr Justice A.B. 67 Pittaway, G.R. 185 play 169, 170-1, 214; see also toys playgrounds movement 170 Plunket system 13 3, 15 1 Prahran Health Centre 89, 123 pre-contraceptive consciousness 111-13 pre-schools 16 5 pregnancy 2, 8, 84-5, 217 prices 67 Primrose, Sister Maud 136, 139, 142 professional middle class 11, 18, 19, 22, 34, 211 professional-managerial class 15, 20 prostitution 181, 191, 192 psychoanalysis 18, 188 psychiatrists 16 Psychological Society 16 5 psychology 22, 122, 148, 163, 165, 167, 186, 196, 200, 201, 202 'psy' complex 17 puberty 106, 112, 187 Public Health Department 108, 134-5 public health officials 22 punishment 160; see also parent-child relationships Purcell, Sister 141, 146 pure food 36 purposive-rational action 8 Pye, Emmel~ne 185 Queen Victoria Hospital 89 Queensbetry Street· Cookery Centre

62

166;

157, 161;

Racial Hygiene Association 123~ 200 Racial Hygiene Congress 187 Racial Hygiene Movement 196 Rankin, Miss 69 rationality 3, 6, 9, 16, 25, 26, 55, 221; control of procreation 12 5; formal and substantive 2 5; instrumental 25; technical 3, 4, 6, 25, 28, 215, 218, 222 reason: instrumental 7, 26, 27; liberating 26; moral or practical 3, 26

Index reform: programmes 24; strategies 214, women's reactions 217, women's role 215-17; see also class orientation of reform strategies Registration of Births Act 149 Richardson, Henry Handel 156 'Rita' 59, 61, 63, 65, 66, 74 romantic love 12 routine, domestic 69-70, 71; and infant care 142, 151 Royal Commission on the Basic Wage 67-9, 70-1, 72, 77, 217 Royal Commission into the Decline of the Birth Rate (1903) 91, 95, 110, 113, 114, 118, 129 Royal Commission on Health 134 Royal Commission on Housing ( 191317) 46 Royal Commission on Technical Education 164 Ruether, Rosemary Radford 21, 220, 221, 234 sanitary sens1t1veness 42, 43, 44 Scantlebury, Dr Vera see Brown, Dr Vera Scantlebury school medical officers 4 2 School Medical Service 166, 168, 213 separate spheres 8, 20, 32-3, 61 separation of home and work 32, 38-9, 45 servan.ts see domestic servants sewing 57, 78-9 sex: counselling 203-5; education 9, 129, 178, 179, 182, 183, 184, 192, 193, 201 'sex-blind' social theory 4 Sex Education Society 184, 185, 187 sexual division of labour 37, 38, 39, 47, 212, 216 sexuality 2, 7, 9, 10, 17, 111, 122, 208, 212, 214; children's 180; commercialization 206; and hygiene 10, 201, 208; ignorance 111, 112, 204-5; problems 203-5; repression 13, 14, 18, 29, 194, 219; social construction 194, 208; social pressures 194; spiritual aspects 202; women's 194, 217 Simpson, Dr George 12 3

269 slum clearance 46 Small, Dr T.H. 98 Symth, Dr John 59, 185 Smyth, Mrs Brettena 115 social action 3, 4, 29 Social Darwinism 194 Social Hygiene Society 12 4 'social purity' campaign 179, 181, 190 social workers 16 socialist feminist theory 5 Society for Sex Education 18 5 Society for the Health of Women and Children of Victoria 133, 135, 136, 137 Solly, R.H. 4 7 Springthorpe, Guy 169 squattocracy 33, 34 State 1, 3, 15, 61, 80, 130, 155, 161; institutions, growth of 212 sterilization of the 'unfit' 195, 197 Story, Mrs 61 Strong, Reverend Charles 33 suburbia 35, 50-1 suffrage, women's 106 Sulman, John 4 5 surveillance, professional 8, 24; of children 154 Sutton, Harvey 108 Sweet, Georgina 185, 187 Swinburne, George 59-60 Sydney City Council 48 Talbot, Lady Margaret 43, 59, 61 Talbot Milkinstitute 43, 131 Taylorism 213 teachers 2, 2 2; women 216 technical rationality 3, 4, 6, 25, 28, 215, 218, 222; see also technocratic consciousness technical training 16 3 technocratic consciousness 26-7,. 28, 210, 2 13, 2 14, 2 15; see also technical rationality temperan-ce 2, 21, 179, 190 Terris, Dr Wykeham 207 thrift 64, 68-9 town planning 4 5, 46 Town Planning Association of New South Wales 45 Town Planning Commission ( 1922) 46

The disenchantment of the home

270 toys 170-1 Tregear, Reverend Charles 4 7 Truby -King Mothercraft Society Tweddle, Joseph 133

136

upper middle class charity network 33, 84, 105, 193; see also charity network; philanthropists · urban growth 36 Vaile, Rita see 'Rita' Varley, Henry 180-1 VD 179, 181, 184, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 198, 200; compulsory notification 193 'Vesta' 59, 65, 74, 93, 164 Victorian Baby Health· Centres Association 89, 135, 138 violence, domestic 39 Wallace, Dr Victor 116, 120, 124, 197, 202 waste disposal 36, 43 Way, Dr 95 wcru 181, 183, 184, 194 Weber, Max 3, 12, 25, 27, 218, 221

Weigall, Marian 162 wet-nurses 140 Wheeler, Mrs Eleanor 49 ·White Cross Union 181, 182 White Cross League 184 Williams, John 169 Wilson, Dr T.G. 98 womanhood: bourgeois ideal 20, 21; Victorian ideal 2; see_ also reform strategies women: career opportunities · 62; doctOrs 131-3, 216; household experience 63;_ police 154, 181; reaction to experts 217; as social agents 9, see also reform strategies; teachers 216 Women's Hospital- 89, 95, 99, 131 women's magazines 39, 173, 206~ 7 Women's Medic~! Association - 184 women's movement 27 Women's Welfare Clinic 124 Women Teachers' Association 59 · Worrall, Dr Ralph 107, 192 Younger.;.Ross, Dr Isabella YWCA 184

131

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 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. 1