Resumen de The City as a Site of Women Teachers' Post-Suffrage Political Activism: Adelaide, South Australia
Lynne Trethewey, Kay Whitehead
This paper focuses on the political activism of three women teachers, Lizzie Hales, Phebe Watson and Adelaide Miethke, in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, during the post-suffrage era. With the exception of Adelaide Miethke, none of these women are known to historians who are interested in post-suffrage feminism, and in the history of education the focus has been mostly on their involvement in the teachers' union. However, our research has revealed that the teachers' union was only one of several forums in which they worked for social change. This paper traces their careers and identifies their interlocking networks with colleagues and like-minded social reformers intent upon promoting women's status as citizens. It examines their distinctive mode of doing politics and achievements of the organizations to which they belonged. In particular, it concentrates on their activism in the teachers' union, the Women's Non-Party Political Association, the National Council of Women and the Women's Centenary Council of South Australia, demonstrating their use of these organizations in mutually informing ways to not only bring about reform in girls' education and women teachers' conditions of labor but also to advance the cause of women generally. The paper also signals the importance of an urban setting as an enabling factor in their activism. As the capital city, Adelaide was the cultural, administrative and political center of the state. The headquarters of the Education Department and each of the organizations to which these women belonged were located there, as were the parliament and the daily press. By virtue of their residence in Adelaide these women activists were able to access these institutions and attendant political networks in ways that were denied their colleagues in country schools
