State Socialism for Australian Mothers: Andrew Fisher’s Radical Maternalism in Its International and Local Contexts

Lake, Marilyn

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_3

Marilyn Lake³

Abstract

In 1912, Labor Prime Minister Andrew Fisher introduced one of the most radical measures of his government. The Maternity Allowance Act was radical in at least three respects: first, it was ‘socialistic’ in providing a state payment from general revenue to mothers in their capacity as citizens; second, it recognised the legitimacy of the claims of unmarried mothers on the state (unlike in the 1950s and 1960s when single mothers had their babies taken away for adoption); and third, its direct payment to women by the state undermined the traditional patriarchal power exercised by husbands in the family. Australian scholarship has tended to disparage this innovation as a ‘baby bonus’ imposed on women cast as ‘breeders for the body politic.’ Closer attention to its international and national contexts, however, suggests that this very popular measure was a response to women’s new found political power.

This chapter was previously published as Marilyn Lake (2012), ‘State Socialism for Australian Mothers: Andrew Fisher’s Radical Maternalism in its International and Local Contexts,’ Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History, (102): 55–70.

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Notes

1.
Argus, 29 August 1912, 6.
2.
Quoted by OT Ozanne, the Member for Corio in the House of Representatives, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), 25 September 1912, 3413.
3.
Joseph Cook, House of Representatives, 25 September 1912, CPD 3445. On Jethro Brown as political thinker see Michael Roe, Nine Australian Progressives: Vitalism in Bourgeois Social Thought 1890–1960 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1984), 22–56.
4.
Department of the Treasury, Annual Report, 1917, quoted in Henry J Harris, Maternity Benefit Systems in Certain Foreign Countries, Legal Series No. 3, Department of Labor (Washington: Government Printing Service, 1919), 18.
5.
Beverley Kingston notes that the popular term ‘baby bonus’ was an inaccurate description, because the parliamentary debate showed that the expectation was that the payment would enable the provision of care for the mother, rather than increase the birth rate, but attributes the initiative to male ‘guilt,’ rather than women’s political power. Beverley Kingston, My Wife, My Daughter and Poor Mary Ann (Melbourne: Nelson, 1975, 9–10).
6.
On ‘baby bonus’ and birth rate see Frank Crowley, Modern Australia: A Documentary History of Australia Modern Australia 1901–1939, vol. 4 (West Melbourne: Nelson, 1978), 190; TH Kewley, Social Security in Australia 1900–72 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1965, reprinted 1973), 103–109. Kewley notes that this was a widespread impression, but that Fisher himself made no such claim: 103–109. Richard Kennedy, Australian Welfare History: Critical Essays (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1982, 118,128); Jill Roe, ‘Women and Welfare Since 1901’ in Women, Social Welfare and the State, eds. Cora V Baldock and Bettina Cass (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1983, reprinted 1988), 7; Frank Bongiorno, The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition 1875–1914 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1996), 128.
7.
On the significance of racial exclusions, see Marilyn Lake, ‘A Revolution in the Family: The Challenge and Contradictions of Maternal Citizenship in Australia’ in Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States, eds. Seth Koven and Sonya Michel (New York: Routledge, 1993), 378–380; Joy Damousi, Women Come Rally: Communism, Socialism and Gender in Australia 1890–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 58–64; Patricia Grimshaw et al., Creating a Nation (Ringwood, VIC: McPhee Gribble, 1994), 206; and Marilyn Lake, Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999), 75–76.
8.
Susan Magarey, Passions of the First Wave Feminists (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2001), 184.
9.
Roe, ‘Women and Welfare Since 1901,’ 7. Kewley’s account in Social Security in Australia recognizes that the payment would be made whether ‘the child was born alive or was a viable child’ (my emphasis), 103.
10.
See Maternity Allowance Act, No.8 of 1912. Section 5, clauses 1–3: ‘(2) Where the child is not born alive, or dies within twelve hours after a birth, a medical certificate must be furnished certifying that the child was a viable child. (3) Where the Commissioner is satisfied that no medical practitioner was available to attend the case … he may dispense with any medical certificates required by this section.’
11.
House of Representatives, 24 September 2012, CPD, 3222; see too Senator Givens: ‘this is not a bonus for babies, but for maternity’: 3 October 1912, CPD, 3773.
12.
Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, 1917, quoted in Harris ‘Maternity Benefit Systems,’ 20.
13.
Chicago Daily Tribune 29 May 1902.
14.
‘Socialistic Experiments in Australia,’ Philadelphia Enquirer, 9 November 1906. On American interest in Australian experiments see Victor Clark, The Labor Movement in Australia: A Study in Social Democracy (New York: Henry Holt, 1906); Diane Kirkby, Alice Henry: The Power of Pen and Voice. The Life of an Australian- American Labor Reformer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 2, 69–70. These were also publicized in W Pember Reeves’ work State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand 2 vols (London: Grant Richards, 1902). There has as yet however been no research into the international response to the Maternity Allowance.
15.
Idaho Statesman, 19 May 1909.
16.
Harris, Maternity Benefit Systems, 17.
17.
The Philadelphia Enquirer, 4 August 1912.
18.
Argus, 2 September 1912, 8.
19.
Joseph Cook in House of Representatives, CPD, 21 August 1912, 2454; report of deputation from Council of Churches to Prime Minister, Argus, 5 September; report of WCTU, Argus, 3 September 1912; report of Ladies Benevolent Societies meeting Argus, 11 September 2012. Note however that the Church of England’s paper Church Commonwealth praised it as a brilliant piece of legislation that gave the allowance as ‘of right, and not as of charity.’ Cited in House of Representatives, CPD, 25 September 1912, 3411.
20.
Age, 5 September 1912, p. 11.
21.
Cook in House of Representatives CPD, 25 September 1912, 3449–3450. See also TE Bostock, ‘Vice President, Central Council, Employers’ Federation,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September, 1912, 7.
22.
CPD, 25 September 1912, 3446.
23.
CPD, 25 September 1912, 3446. See Charles Pearson, National Life and Character: A Forecast (London and New York: Macmillan, 1893). His final chapter was called ‘The Decay of Character.’
24.
‘The warfare state shaped the vision of a welfare state.’ Marilyn Lake, ‘Mission Impossible: How Men Gave Birth to the Australian Nation—Nationalism, Gender and Other Seminal Acts,’ Gender and History 4, no. 3 (1992), 305.
25.
Resolution of the WOC, Victorian branch of the Labor party, Argus, 6 September 1912.
26.
Age, 6 September 1912.
27.
Labor Call, 10 October 1912.
28.
Ibid.
29.
Ibid.
30.
‘Mr Fisher at Women’s Convention,’ Labor Call, 10 October 1912.
31.
Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993); Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Ann Taylor Allen, Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890–1970 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
32.
Keir Hardie, The Citizenship of Women: A Plea for Women’s Suffrage (1906), Schlesinger Library, Harvard University, 5.
33.
Hardie, The Citizenship of Women, 14.
34.
Quoted by American William Hard and cited by Sonya Michel, ‘The Limits of Maternalism: Policies Toward American Wage-Earning Mothers During the Progressive Era’ in Mothers of a New World, eds. Koven and Michel, 298.
35.
Michel, ‘The Limits of Maternalism.’
36.
Labor Call, 22 September 1910.
37.
Senator Givens, Senate, 4 October 1912, CPD, 3871.
38.
Socialist, letter to editor, 19 July 1908; Marilyn Lake, ‘The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man,’ Labour History 63 (1992): 7; Damousi, Women Come Rally, 83.
39.
Socialist, 17 July 1908.
40.
Frank Bongiorno, The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition 1875–1914 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1996), 124–134.
41.
Quoted in Stuart Macintyre, The Succeeding Age: Oxford History of Australia, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 92.
42.
Woman Voter, 9 October 1912, in Marilyn Lake and Katie Holmes, eds., Freedom Bound II: Documents on Women in Modern Australia (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995), 7.
43.
Pearson, National Life and Character, 18.
44.
Pearson, National Life and Character, Chapter V, 227–258.
45.
Joseph Cook, House of Representatives, 25 September 1912, CPD, 3445.
46.
The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, 26 December 1903.
47.
Judith Smart, ‘Eva Hughes: Militant Conservative’ in Double Time: Women in Victoria—150 Years, eds. Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly (Ringwood: Penguin, 1985), 181.
48.
Maud Wood Park, ‘Around the World,’ Maud Wood Park Papers, M-133, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
49.
Maud Park Wood ‘Around the World,’ 12–13.
50.
Jessie Ackermann, Australia from a Woman’s Point of View (London: Cassell and Company, 1913, reprinted 1981), 166–168.
51.
New York Times, 16 February 1902.
52.
Josephine K Henry, ‘800,000 Women Are Enfranchised,’ Bluegrass Blade (from Commercial Tribune) 20 July 1902.
53.
Washington Times, 16 February 1902.
54.
Quoted in Alice Stone Blackwell, Equal Suffrage in New Zealand, Equal Suffrage Leaflet published by the Woman’s Journal (Boston, January 1898), 1.
55.
R.E., Macnaghtan, Canadian Magazine, June 1907, quoted in ‘Women’s Vote in Australia,’ Political Equality Series, National American Women’s Suffrage Association papers, Schlesinger Library.
56.
Washington Post, 17 January 1904.
57.
Washington Post, 11 August 1904.
58.
New York Times, 2 March 1902.
59.
Washington Times, 16 February 1902.
60.
Sun, 9 February 1903.
61.
New York Times, 17 December 1903.
62.
Quoted in ‘Equal Suffrage in Australia,’ Political Equality Series, National American Woman Suffrage Association papers, Schlesinger Library.
63.
David Day, Andrew Fisher Prime Minister of Australia (Sydney: HarperCollins, 2008), 126, 190–191.
64.
Quoted in Baltimore American, 10 August 1904.
65.
Kirkby, Alice Henry, 70.
66.
Australian Year Book, 1912, 953.
67.
Day, Andrew Fisher, 190–191.
68.
See, for example, reports in Age 12, 13 April 1910.
69.
Kathryn Kish Sklar, ‘The Historical Foundations of Women’s Power in the Historical Creation of the American Welfare State, 1830–1930’ in Mothers of a New World, eds. Koven and Michel, 46.
70.
Sydney Sampson, CPD, House of Representatives, CPD, 25 September 1912, 3418–3419.
71.
On ‘the Socialistic idea’ see Joseph Cook, CPD, House of Representatives, 25 September 1912, 3449–3450.
72.
EA Roberts, member for Adelaide, CPD, House of Representatives, 25 September 1912, 3455.
73.
Vida Goldstein, ‘Socialism of Today—an Australian View,’ The Nineteenth Century and After, September 1907.
74.
‘Mr Fisher at Women’s Convention,’ Labor Call, 24 October 1912, 2.
75.
See, for example, CPD, 24 September 1912, 3334–3336 and 25 September 1912, 3412.
76.
Age, 25 September 1912.
77.
Smart, ‘Eva Hughes,’ 181–182.
78.
Harris, Maternity Benefit Systems, 19.
79.
Labor Call, 26 June 1919.
80.
Labor Call, 21 February 1922.
81.
Cited in Muriel Heagney, ‘Labor Women’s Contribution to Human Welfare: Effective National Organisation,’ Heagney papers, State Library of Victoria, MS 9106, Box 1162/6.
82.
Dawn, 14 April 1923. See full report in Lake, Getting Equal, 79.
83.
Muriel Heagney, ‘Report of Investigation into the Position of the Unmarried Mother,’ Labor Call, 26 April 1923; Muriel Heagney, ‘Has the Maternity Allowance Failed?,’ Labor Call, 22 May 1924.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this article and to express my special appreciation to Lee Ann Monk for her research assistance and to Rosemary Francis and Judith Smart for their references and good advice.

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University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Marilyn Lake

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University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Carla Pascoe Leahy
University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Petra Bueskens

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Lake, M. (2019). State Socialism for Australian Mothers: Andrew Fisher’s Radical Maternalism in Its International and Local Contexts. In: Pascoe Leahy, C., Bueskens, P. (eds) Australian Mothering. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_3
Published: 29 January 2020
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