The Australian Women's Register

51 minutes Kathleen Russell was born at Mount Gambier, South Australia. She came to Adelaide to live in 1936 and explains how involvement in the Housewives Association was one of the activities she turned to after she was widowed in the late 1960s. In speaking of the Association’s membership and activities, she describes ‘at homes’ held at the Adelaide headquarters where companies would demonstrate their goods in an effort to achieve endorsement. This aspect of the Association’s activities, and others such as lobbying government about prices, has declined markedly in recent years. A former Vice-President of the Housewives Association, Mrs Russell kindly offered to be interviewed because those who had most to do with running the Association over the last 20 years, such as Lorna Hausler, were either no longer alive or were too ill and unable to do so. Consequently, the interview is really an overview of the Association as Mrs Russell is aware of it.