| The first major research project being undertaken by the Centre Team is ‘The Catholic Community and Women’s Suffrage in Australia’. Being of national scope, this project offers a wide field for the exploration of a number of significant discourses, which will contribute to helping us in understanding where we are to day in the Church and the wider society concerning many vital relationships in our lives. This project is designed particularly to bring to the fore those lay women in the Catholic community who were significant in the women’s suffrage era but have been overlooked by mainstream history.
This national suffrage project presented an ideal opportunity for collaboration by women historians which is central to the aims of the Centre. In the spirit of collaboration the following team has been formed to work on the project.
- Dr Rosa MacGinley (CPT member, McAuley Campus, Brisbane) - Queensland story.
- Dr Sophie McGrath (CPT Coordinator, Mount Saint Mary Campus. Sydney) - NSW and Tasmanian stories.
- Dr Kim Power (CPT member, Saint Patrick Campus, Melbourne) – Victorian story.
- Dr Margaret Press (Catholic Institute of Sydney) – South Australian story.
- Dr Katharine Massam (United Faculties of Theology, Melbourne) – Western Australian story.
The analysis from a national perspective of the material generated by this study will be shared by the team and Dr Shurlee Swain, ACU historian with a special interest and expertise in this area. It is going to be interesting to see what explicit and implicit philosophies, ideologies, theologies and spiritualities emerge from this analysis.
Profiles of the Centre Team
For profiles of Drs MacGinley, McGrath and Power see Centre Team.
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Dr Margaret Press
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Margaret’s tertiary studies were in the fields of history and classics. She graduated from the University of New England with a M.A., first class honours and the University Medal for Classics. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Education by the Charles Sturt University for her services to the University on its Council during its development from a College of Advanced Education to the status of University.
Margaret’s published historical work has centred on South Australia and includes the history of the South Australian Catholic Community from 1836 to 1962. Although commissioned by the Diocese, this is not in the triumphalist mode but has been judged a true scholarly book by reviewers, and historians who have had occasion to use it. Emanating from this work is a study of the Catholic convert and women’s suffrage advocate, Bessie Baker, which was published in 2000 by the South Australian Wakefield Press in Three Women of Faith. This study of Baker gives Margaret a ready entry into the South Australian Catholic women’s suffrage story.
Margaret continues to teach classics at the Catholic Institute of Sydney.
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Dr Katharine Massam
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Katharine comes from Western Australia where she undertook her tertiary education majoring in history. Subsequently she taught in universities in Western and South Australia. Presently she is Professor of Church History at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne College of Divinity and Principal Fellow, Department of History, University of Melbourne.
Katharine has carried the study of the history of religion into the secular arena with such publications as: “Politics of Spirituality Down Under: Belief, Piety and Devotion in Catholic Australia”, Working Papers in Australian Studies, No. 63, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, University of London, 1991. She is most widely known for her doctoral work which was published in 1996 by the University of New South Wales Press as Sacred Threads: Catholic Spirituality in Australia 1922 – 1962. This book was nominated for the W.K. Hancock Prize in Australian History; included in the Sydney Morning Herald review of Best Books of 1996; and identified as “the outstanding piece of religious historiography of the decade”, Australian Review of Books, July, 1999.
This strong awareness of the integration of the sacred and the secular in the life of people individually and collectively, and her familiarity with the history of Western Australia provides Katharine with a strong background for research into the WA Catholic community and women suffrage story.
(Photo courtesy of United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne)
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