Cirrus@Austlit

'A woman whose story and achievements are substantially lost to history, Freda Brown (1919-2009) was a political activist in the women's, peace, and anti-apartheid movements, both in Australia and overseas. After beginning her career in Australian left-wing and women's organisations, Freda crossed the globe for twenty-five years, working as the leader of a worldwide organisation of two hundred million members. While some of her greatest achievements can be seen in her work in helping to establish and lead pioneering women's organisations, she travelled widely also in the service of political, peace and anti-racism causes. She placed a great deal of importance on her work in intersecting networks of activists across Australia and the world. Together with casting Freda Brown's story from her own words, recollections of colleagues, and archival research, this article also investigates the importance of networking for Freda. It explores questions around the biographer's task in piecing together a life story, and issues of memory and biography.'  (Publication abstract)

'Mary Montgomerie Bennett (1881-1961) has been called many things: benefactor, biographer, indigenous culture recorder, indigenous rights activist, pamphleteer and schoolteacher. While these descriptions neatly encapsulate her core contributions, there is one descriptor missing from the list that was arguably the defining characteristic of her life and life's work. Above all else Mary Bennett was a writer. She was certainly a biographer, having written her father's biography in 1927. Pamphleteer also encapsulates the nature of her writing, which was thoroughly political, in pursuit of a cause and for the purpose of broadcasting her views. She was also an epistolographer whose extensive letters were both acts of resistance and self-definition. This article explores the significance of writing to Bennett's life and work, and shows how her pen was not just a means of publicising her views and the 'wrongs of the Aborigines' but was a weapon she wielded in her war with the Australian state in defence of the same.'  (Publication abstract)

'Just Relations begins with the comment that Mary Bennett’s biography is ‘long overdue’. Australian historians are already familiar with Bennett’s Christian feminist and humanitarian activism. But the ‘delay’ has allowed Alison Holland to bring together a vast quantity of fresh research done over the last two decades on humanitarianism and Aboriginal policy in its national, imperial and international contexts. The result is a comprehensive and sophisticated study of Bennett in her ideological and political milieu and a thorough representation of the evolution of Aboriginal policy debates. It is an important contribution to Australian history that was worth the wait.'  (Introduction)