Moving Stories

I'm not a good mother - not what Dr. Spock calls a slow mother who leaves her chores to make sure junior gets the right treatment. (Dorothy Wright 1961) I must admit that I am no longer the same person who was tied to the kitchen sink at home. (Phyllis Cave 1973) This book represents a unique collaboration between a historian and four ordinary women who were extraordinary letters-writers family photographers and memoirists. As British migrants to Australia these women recorded in intimate detail aspects of everyday life and women's experience that are often lost to history: childcare and housework housing and domestic appliances friendship family and married life. Taken together their stories enrich and complicate our understanding of key themes in twentieth century women's history. This book will appeal to students and academics interested in British and Australian social history oral history women's studies and the lived experience of migration.