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Women who made the city

FROM Edith Cameron to Lauren Jackson, a new exhibition will celebrate women across the eras and their contribution to Canberra.

Ahead of Canberra’s Centenary, “The Women Who Made Canberra” will explore the changes in women’s lives over 100 years.

Social history curator at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, Rowan Henderson, has been gathering and researching material for the exhibition for the last nine months, and discovered “rich and fascinating” stories.

“It makes you realise just how much history Canberra has,” she says.

“The aim is to not just look at prominent or significant women, although we do look at those too in the exhibition, but also to give insight into the broad range of experiences and backgrounds and professions.

“We have women who have lived their entire lives here, and nurses, politicians, women who worked in science and universities. We also have public servants; people who moved here when the public service was transferred to Canberra.”

Twenty different sections will feature in the exhibition, including women’s groups and individuals, and Rowan says it highlights just how far women have come.

“When the oldest woman in this exhibition, Edith Cameron – who lived here all her life – was born in 1875 women could not vote or be elected to Parliament… when the youngest woman, Lauren Jackson, was born in 1981, she had the world at her feet in comparison to the opportunities available to Edith a hundred years earlier,” Rowan says.

Heather Henderson’s pram
“From the research I’ve done, it seems that Canberra really made a contribution through being that political centre of Australia, so people were involved in things like women’s liberation, and the women’s electoral lobby for equal opportunity.”

As well as photos, posters and clothing, the exhibition features objects belonging to significant women or representing a time of change.
One of the most memorable stories for Rowan surrounds a pram belonging to Heather Henderson, the daughter of former Prime Minister Robert Menzies.

Heather would take her baby out in the pram when Menzies was living at The Lodge, but struggled because the footpaths weren’t very good.
“She went home and complained to Robert about the lack of facilities in Canberra and that was what really brought home to him that Canberra needed to be developed into a place to live, it couldn’t just be a sort of temporary home for politicians and the public service – it needed to be a city,” she says.

Rowan says the exhibition’s subject matter is still “extremely relevant” today.

“Equal rights for women is such a modern thing, and so much a part of Canberra’s history,” she says.

“We were really fighting for those rights and denied all those things, so I think it’s important to acknowledge those achievements and the way those women actually did fight for the rights we had today.”

“The Women Who Made Canberra”, Canberra Museum and Gallery until March 17.

 

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One Response to Women who made the city

Judith Clingan says: 11 December 2012 at 2:28 pm

Hello! Can the curator of the very interesting Women Who Shaped Canberra exhibition, which I looked at yesterday, please give me her reasons as to why the exhibition makes only very small references to Canberra women in the arts?

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