Family experiments : middle-class, professional families in Australia and New Zealand c 1880-1920 / Shelley Richardson.

By:

Richardson, Shelley [author.]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: ANU.Lives series in biographyPublisher: Acton, A.C.T. : ANU Press, 2016Description: 1 online resourceContent type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

1760460591
9781760460594

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Family experiments : middle-class, professional families in Australia and New Zealand c. 1880- 1920.DDC classification:

306.85092 23

LOC classification:

HT687

Online resources:

Digital version

Contents:

Section one: departures -- The family and mid-Victorian idealism -- The family and mid-Victorian realities -- Section two: arrival and establishment -- The academic evangelists -- The lawyers -- Section three: marriage and aspiriations: colonial families -- Marriage -- Educating daughters: the Christchurch girls -- Educating daughters: the Melbourne girls -- Boys.

Summary: "Family Experiments explores the forms and undertakings of "family" that prevailed among British professionals who migrated to Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth century. Their attempts to establish and define "family" in Australasian, suburban environments reveal how the Victorian theory of "separate spheres" could take a variety of forms in the new world setting. The attitudes and assumptions that shaped these family experiments may be placed on a continuum that extends from John Ruskin's concept of evangelical motherhood to John Stuart Mill's rational secularism. Central to their thinking was a belief in the power of education to produce civilised and humane individuals who, as useful citizens, would individually and in concert nurture a better society. Such ideas pushed them to the forefront of colonial liberalism. The pursuit of higher education for their daughters merged with and, in some respects, influenced first-wave colonial feminism. They became the first generation of colonial, middle-class parents to grapple not only with the problem of shaping careers for their sons, but also and more frustratingly, what graduate daughters might do next."--Back cover.

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Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 4 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	URL	Status	Notes	Date due	Barcode
E-books	Hugenote College Main Campus		Digital version	Not for loan	Only accessible on campus.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Family Experiments explores the forms and undertakings of "family" that prevailed among British professionals who migrated to Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth century. Their attempts to establish and define "family" in Australasian, suburban environments reveal how the Victorian theory of "separate spheres" could take a variety of forms in the new world setting. The attitudes and assumptions that shaped these family experiments may be placed on a continuum that extends from John Ruskin's concept of evangelical motherhood to John Stuart Mill's rational secularism. Central to their thinking was a belief in the power of education to produce civilised and humane individuals who, as useful citizens, would individually and in concert nurture a better society. Such ideas pushed them to the forefront of colonial liberalism. The pursuit of higher education for their daughters merged with and, in some respects, influenced first-wave colonial feminism. They became the first generation of colonial, middle-class parents to grapple not only with the problem of shaping careers for their sons, but also and more frustratingly, what graduate daughters might do next."--Back cover.

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