National Foundation for Australian Women

Australian Women’s Archives Project

The National Foundation for Australian Women established the Australian Women’s Archives Project (AWAP) in 2000 to build knowledge and recognition of the contribution made by women to Australia.

AWAP is now an important and authoritative resource for information about the roles of women in Australian history. The activities of AWAP include:

  • Working with the University of Melbourne to conduct and record on the Australian Women’s Register information about the history of Australian women
  • Developing and providing on-line biographical collections focused on different groups of Australian women in the AWAP Showcase
  • Encouraging Australian women and women’s organisations to discover and preserve their stories

AWAP’s work is not comprehensive, but is constantly developing and improving as a result of the donations and grants given to the Project. AWAP does not repeat the work undertaken by others (such as the Australian Dictionary of Biography) but provides links to other sources of information and tools where funding permits. Many individuals and organisations have generously given financial assistance and support to the Project.

Australian Women’s Register

The searchable-on-line Australian Women’s Register is a valuable and growing source of biographical data about Australian women and their organisations, with hyper-links to the archival repositories where their records are held and to other sources of information. Women and women’s organisations are listed alphabetically. You’ll also be able to search by functional classification, for example, ‘P’ covers physicists, politicians, pharmacists, pacifists and many more.

The Register is a joint project of the National Foundation for Australian Women and the School of Historical Studies of the University of Melbourne. The eScholarship Research Centre at the University provides technical assistance to the Project.

AWAP Showcase

Particular groups of Australian women are recognised through the AWAP Showcase (link here to a page introducing all the exhibitions?). The Showcase consists of informative articles and a collection of on-line biographies that recognise a particular group of women. Examples include women in sport, women who received awards under the Imperial honours system, migrant women, and women in science.

Organisations and/or individuals with a particular interest often fund these collections. For example, the NSW Parliament provided funding for Putting Skirts on the Sacred Benches , which is about the unsuccessful women candidates for the NSW Parliament – successful candidates are better remembered than the gallant failures.

Preserving our history

Records about women provide the basis of all AWAP’s work. To ensure records are available in the future, AWAP promotes the keeping and care of personal records and encourages individuals and organisations to deposit records appropriately in available archive repositories.

How to keep and care for family records

With care, the documents and photographs that you keep will be available to enrich the lives of future generations in your family or of your organisation. The first step is to get organised. Significant family events such as marriages, new babies, retirement, buying or selling a home can inspire people to start collecting and caring for their family records. Collecting documents such as birth certificates and wills is a start, but photographs provide an immediate connection between the lives of people of different generations. For organisations, documents such annual reports, minutes of meetings and correspondence, are significant records.

Once the documents are collected and organised, take the following steps to ensure proper care.

  • Date all documents
  • Caption all photographs
  • Keep papers flat and unfolded
  • Store papers in archival-quality folders and boxes
  • Ensure sunlight and powerful artificial lighting does not fall on papers and photographs
  • Carefully remove metal clips, staples and pins and rubber bands, replace with brass clips or unbleached archival tape if needed
  • Wear gloves when handling photographs
  • Store photographs separately from other materials in archival quality covers
  • Avoid scrapbooks with magnetic or adhesive pages
  • Label the boxes you store items in

Storing rare and uncommon records

If you think that your family or organisation records might have broader community and/or national interest, contact the librarian at your local library.

Acknowledgements

The Australian Women’s Archives Project has received assistance from many individuals and organisations. We would like to acknowledge in particular the following who have provided support and financial assistance to the Project:

  • Mary Owen
  • the University of Melbourne
  • Professor Patricia Grimshaw and the History Department, the University of Melbourne
  • Gavan McCarthy and the eScholarship Research Centre, the University of Melbourne
  • the Commonwealth Office for Women
  • the National Library of Australia
  • the National Archives of Australia
  • the Victorian Public Record Office
  • the Myer Foundation
  • the Australian Research Council
  • the Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs;
  • the (then) Commonwealth Department of Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs
  • the ACT Office for Women
  • the ACT Government Heritage Awards
  • the NSW Government Sesquicentenary Fund
  • Joanna Baevski
  • Chris Foley
  • the Pamela Denoon Trust
  • the Helen Macpherson Smith Schutt Trust
  • Fleur Spitzer
  • Tarlina Association
  • NSW Office for Women
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