Guide to the Papers of Jessie Street, c. 1914-1968

 

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Collection context

Summary

Collection number:
MS 2683
Creator:
Street, Jessie
Extent:
6 metres and (31 archives boxes + 1 small folio box + 3 packets + 1 volume + 1 sound/av carrier)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Jessie Street, National Library of Australia, MS 2683, [series and file/item number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers document Street's involvement in the major feminist organisation at the time: the United Associations of Women (U.A.W). She was President of this organisation for many years, from its inception in 1929. The records relating to the struggle for Aboriginal rights are extensive and include petitions to the Holt Government calling for a referendum.

Jessie Street actively campaigned for the peaceful settlement of international and national issues causing conflict and the banning of nuclear weapons. Papers relating to these activities can be found in Series 4: Peace Movement Activities and Series 5: United Nations, which is the largest series of the collection. Street attended United Nations Conferences as a delegate on various occasions and many session papers from 1945 were collected. She worked for the introduction of National Social Insurance and stood as a Labor candidate, but was unsuccessful in gaining a seat. Street also actively encouraged friendship with the U.S.S.R.

The collection includes correspondence, speeches, broadcasts, printed material, maps, minutes of meetings, financial records, diaries, passports, photographs, sound recordings and papers relating to her writings on a diverse range of issues, including accounts of her many overseas travels.

Although Street's contemporary, Bessie Rischbieth, worked on similar feminist issues, their efforts on an issue such as "equal pay for women", were not united. The Rischbieth Papers (MS 2004) shows a gap in the correspondence in the Street Papers, despite Jessie Street's apparently meticulous habit of keeping correspondence received and carbon duplicates of business letters sent. Only one of the eleven letters sent by Bessie Rischbieth appear in Jessie Street's correspondence. This inconsistency is unusual; one explanation is given in a letter written by Jessie Street in April 1967. It refers to Muriel Tribe, (Jessie Street's assistant) "destroying eight waste paper baskets full" of her papers, so it possible that these missing letters could have been destroyed (Letter located in Series 1, File 34).

Provenance:

Jessie Street's husband, Sir Kenneth Street, donated the papers to the National Library in 1970. Her son, Sir Laurence Street, made a substantial addition in 1972. Further small additions were made to the collection between 1973 and 2001.

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Women's rights

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1507836).
Conditions Governing Use:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Jessie Street, National Library of Australia, MS 2683, [series and file/item number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: