The Australian Women's Register

The thesis ‘examines through a series of case studies the work of practitioners in the arts, individual patrons or supporters of particular artists or cultural groups, and networks of supporters. It explores the dynamics of respective movements initiated or driven by women within musical, artistic, literary and theatrical circles, and in the wider community of the culturally concerned’. In nine chapters the work explores the early patronage of Miles Franklin, 1900-1906; the role of the ‘Fairfax women’,( members of the prominent Sydney family), in the arts and crafts movement, 1899-1914; the Canadian born Ethel Kelly, who acted in Sydney theatre in 1903, and took up charity work after her marriage; Mary Gilmore and women writers of the 1920s; Ethel Anderson, 1924-1940; Lilian Frost, the Pitt Street Congregational Church organist, 1895-1949; Lady Margaret Gordon and the ‘little theatre’ movement, 1929-1939; the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Beatrice Swinson, Ruth Fairfax and Lady Gordon; and Mary Alice Evatt and the Art Gallery of N.S.W.