Making Public Histories: Australian Fathering and Family Life: Learning Lessons from History

Over the best part of a decade, we’ve been researching the history of Australian fathering and family life, from 1919 to the present day, working alongside a team that’s also included John Murphy, Johnny Bell and Mike Roper. Drawing upon hundreds of oral history interviews from several national collections, as well as memoirs, wartime letters and submissions to Royal Commissions and government inquiries, we’ve explored how family life and fathering (and mothering) have been shaped by shifting structural forces and cultural expectations, and how diverse Australian families have negotiated those expectations and forces in varying ways, influenced by personal character and family circumstances (see our co-authored book, Fathering: An Australian History, MUP, 2025). In this webinar we’ll each focus on an aspect of the research and reflect on lessons we’ve learnt from the past that might be useful for contemporary families and social policy.

Al Thomson will introduce the project’s aims, approaches and sources, and note key findings about fathering and family life.

Kate Murphy will focus on the Royal Commission on Human Relationships (1974-77) and what we learnt from individual and institutional submissions about family life and fathering in the 1970s.

Jill Barnard will discuss how an oral history collection sheds light on the family lives of Forgotten Australians.

The seminar is part of an ongoing series, Making Public Histories, that is offered jointly by the Monash University History Program, the History Council of Victoria and the Old Treasury Building. Each seminar aims to explore issues and approaches in making public histories. The seminars are open, free of charge, to anyone interested in the creation and impact of history in contemporary society.

We thank the series sponsors, Monash University Publishing, the Monash University History Program and the Old Treasury Building.