Margaret Allen Collection - NJSN_AC-021 c.1982

BOX 1 (previously numbered 0026): Series 1-3; Files 10-12.

CONTENTS

BOX 1

Series 1: Ephemera 1982.

This series comprises handouts that were produced as part of the Third Women and Labour Conference in Adelaide in June 1984. It includes a registration form, a policy statement of the Third Women & Labour Conference, a feminists guide to Adelaide, a poster advertising the conference, programs for sessions (1) Women and Work: The Canadian and Australian Experience (2) Lesbian Workshops, (3) entertainment program and handouts, a press release, program alterations and a handout “Women Break Out.”

Folder 10.

Series 2: Publications 1981-1982.

This series comprises 5 Women and Labour Conference bulletins. These have been placed in the JSNWL collection:
* Women and Labour Conference Bulletin No 9 June 1981;

* Women and Labour Conference Bulletin No 10 Oct 1981;

* Women and Labour Conference Bulletin No 11 Feb 1982;

* Women and Labour Conference Bulletin No 11 Feb 1982; (The two No 11 Bulletins are different)

* Women and Labour Conference Bulletin No 12 Feb 1982.

Folder 11 [empty].

Series 3: Press Clippings c.1982.

This series includes an unsourced and undated article by Diane Brown reflecting on the Third Woman and Labour Conference held in Adelaide in June 1982. Further research is required to identify its origin.

Folder 12.

RESTRICTIONS ON PUBLICATION:
Reproduction rights owned by Jessie Street National Women's Library. Material may be saved or printed for private research, however if it is to be used for any other purpose, a Request Permission to Publish form should be completed.
RESTRICTIONS ON PHYSICAL ACCESS:
Available for research. Not for loan.

CREATION / PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Library permission and acknowledgement required.

Margaret Allen’s papers were received by the JSNWL in a type-1 archive box numbered 24. They were loose in the box and there was no discernible order. The archivist arranged the papers into three folders for ease of access. The publications were listed and added to the Jessie Street National Women’s Library collection.

ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY / BIOGRAPHY

There is no biographical information regarding Allen. More research is required to determine the relationship between Margaret Allen and the Women and Labour Conference held in Adelaide in 1982.

The Third Women and Labour Conference was held in Adelaide from 4-6 June 1982. The venue was Adelaide University and SA Institute of Technology, North Terrace, Adelaide. Approximately 1,200 women from all states of Australia, New Zealand and Canada registered. There were 57 papers given, and 54 workshop sessions. Topics include technology change and the impact on women’s employment, child care, non-traditional work for women, migrant women, women’s studies, lesbianism, women and aging, women and the media, women and art, women, work and unions, feminist literary criticism and strategies for women in the 1980s. Motions passed at various workshops were taken to a final plenary session and many of these were forwarded to relevant agencies and governments. [Press Release Third Women and Labour Conference, Adelaide 4-6 June 1982. See Ephemera folder Folder 10.]

The papers were once part of the Women’s Archive, a collection started early in 1982 by a small group of Women’s Studies students at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. The Archive was supported by ANU although it received no funding from them. The “Canberra Women’s Archive” as Women’s Archive became known, consists of the personal records of some prominent Canberra women activists, and the papers of community women’s organisations which were established in the ACT during the 1970s and 1980s. The collection documents the history of the second wave feminism movement in community women’s groups in Canberra. In 1993 it became impossible for the Women’s Archive to continue its operations due to lack of funds. Mary Hutchison and Frances Sutherland donated the material to Jessie Street National Women’s Library (JSNWL). Because it is unique, conditions of the donation to JSNWL were that the collection was to be kept together and not subsumed into a major collection. When JSNWL took custody of the Canberra Women’s Archive the collection was deposited at the Petersham Town Hall repository of the Marrickville Council for safe keeping until funding was arranged.

In 1995 an archival policy was implemented by JSNWL through a Special Research Project at the University of New South Wales coordinated by Dr. Peter Orlovich. Student archivist Martine Bright undertook to appraise the Canberra Women’s Archives. She compiled a report and submitted it in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Graduate Diploma in Information Management Archives/Records. In 1999 the Archives were brought to the library’s new home in Town Hall House, Sydney when the library received a state government grant through the Ministry for the Arts. This enabled the library to employ two part time archivists to work on the collection.

RESTRICTIONS ON REPRODUCTION
Library permission and acknowledgement is required to copy material for research purposes.

DATE OF ACQUISITION:
1.2.1993.
EXTENT:
0.03 linear metres.

INFORMATION RELATING TO COPYRIGHT STATUS:
Copyright holder is JSNWL.

English.