Above An Edwardian school run? A family stops for a photo while walking along an unidentified bush track c.1910–20. Courtesy State Library of Queensland
ways we have characterised “good” and “bad” mothers over time. The History of Adoption Project, available online at www.arts.monash.edu.au/ historyofadoption, is an incredibly powerful resource, complete with first-person recollections in print and audio files. For anyone affected by, or interested in the ways adoption has shaped motherhood in Australia over time, Marian Quartly’s research is a must-read.
Non-normative family formation In the penal colony of Tasmania, women were vastly outnumbered, with young, single men dominating the rates of transportation and free emigrants. Dr Rebecca Kippen’s research combines demography and history to paint a picture of “non-normative” motherhood experiences that were produced from the time. Non-convict women were in short supply and could marry above their class, while authorities often prevented convict women from marrying, usually because of British husbands at home or for previous misconduct. Kippen’s research is heavily driven by primary sources, such as the births and deaths registers. It also draws on the language of the time to identify different family situations,
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Opposite Mothers waiting their turn to have their children vaccinated at City Hall in Brisbane, 1947. Courtesy State Library of Queensland
including the “identifiers” of exnuptial births such as “illegitimate”, “bastard”, “base”, “base born” or “spurious”. One of the really remarkable trends Kippen has identified came about less than five years after the end of convict transportation. Here the incidence of illegitimate births dropped markedly and “remained relatively stable thereafter, while the proportion of brides who were pregnant at marriage gradually increased over time”. For anyone interested in the lives of Tasmanian convicts in the years following transportation, Kippen is also a researcher for the Founders & Survivors project, which studies Australian life courses in historical context between 1803 and 1920. Tracing the lives of the 73,000 men, women and children transported to Tasmania, the project combines genealogy and population research to understand life after the convict period. Founders & Survivors heavily relies of the work of genealogists, so if you have an interest in the period, visit www. foundersandsurvivors.org for further details.