“The Symbol of Our Nation” : The Slouch Hat, the First World War, and Australian Identity single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 “The Symbol of Our Nation” : The Slouch Hat, the First World War, and Australian Identity
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Australian scholars are now familiar with the tropes of the Anzac legend. This narrative describes the realisation of an Australian masculine identity, whose characteristics were forged on the Australian frontier and validated through the ordeal of battle. Though many writers contributed to this narrative, C.E.W. Bean, the official historian of the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War, is most closely associated with the popularisation of this myth, which fused frontier and martial masculinity into a national archetype.

'This article will examine the role of the slouch hat as a material and visual device that helped communicate the Anzac legend. While most of the scholarship that examines the construction of this narrative focuses on its articulation in prose, this narrative was also popularised through other media. Artists drew symbols of the frontier into their paintings while museum directors arranged their artefacts to support this narrative. This article will argue that the slouch hat provided an essential visual device to connect the narratives of frontier and martial masculinity through the image of the Australian soldier.'  (Publication abstract)

Notes

  • Epigraph:

    There is a symbol, we love and adore it,

    You see it daily wherever you go.

    Long years have passed since our fathers once wore it,

    What is the symbol that we should all know?

    It’s a brown slouch hat with the side turned up, and it means the world to me.

    It’s the symbol of our nation—the land of liberty.

    And as soldiers they wear it, how proudly they bear it, for all the world to see.

    -- George Stevenson Wallace, “A Brown Slouch Hat

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 42 no. 1 2018 13441138 2018 periodical issue

    'The national consciousness of settler colonial societies such as Australia often blends a complex mix of local and Indigenous identities. Historically infused with a sense of inferiority—and the imperative to stamp ownership on the continent—the stories that settlers tell, and the images and propaganda they project, seek to address this feeling. Robert Frost’s poem argued that, for the United States, “the deed of gift was many deeds of war”. For Australians, by contrast, the frontier wars neither gave nor served as a foundational narrative. In their place, mythologies emerged: of Anzac, of an impoverished Indigenous population, of an industrial “golden age”, and of a free-spirited, urbane culture. We hope that you enjoy the eight articles in this issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, each of which grapples with a question of identity and clarifies and challenges these prevailing mythologies.' (Carolyn Holbrook, Julie Kimber, Maggie Nolan & Laura Rademaker : Introduction)

         2018     pg. 3-18
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Last amended 26 Mar 2018 11:27:11
3-18 “The Symbol of Our Nation” : The Slouch Hat, the First World War, and Australian Identitysmall AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
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