UTOPIA GIRLS Character Outlines LOUISA LAWSON. If there is one woman who challenges the stereotype of the po‐faced, wowser, nay‐saying, bluestocking female social reformer, it is LOUISA LAWSON. A daughter of the bush, Louisa was born in 1848 on a sheep station in rural NSW. Her father was a station hand turned timber carter. She grew up as the second eldest of nine children in a home wracked by poverty, insecurity and danger. As a rebellious, dynamic child, Louisa believed “there were loads to be lifted … wrongs to be righted and wounds to be healed”. It was a conviction that guided her life. At the age of 40, Louisa started her great life’s work. In offices in George Street, she began the first newspaper edited, published and printed by women – The Dawn. The Dawn, published monthly from 1888 to 1905, actively and systematically campaigned for women’s rights. Its political influence and social impact were extensive: promoting legislative change on female suffrage, marriage and divorce, property ownership, women’s education, equal opportunity in the labour market and women’s conditions of work. Louisa was not only its editor and CEO; she also wrote many of its articles. A financial and political success, The Dawn had no rival then (and many say since) as an organ for change in women’s lives. Part of The Dawn’s success lay in the fact that her campaign was “not against men, but against customs that have given them the whip hand too long”. Indeed, many of the paper’s supporters were progressive men. VIDA GOLDSTEIN. If Louisa was the bush battler who blazed the trail for women’s social and political emancipation, VIDA GOLDSTEIN was the woman who most willingly trod the path of fledgling liberation. Born in Portland, Victoria in 1869, Vida was the eldest of five children. Her mother was born and bred of the Western Districts squattocracy; her father was of Polish Jewish origin with ties to the Polish independence movement. Her mother Jeannie was an early feminist who undertook good works in the slums of Collingwood. Tagging alongside her mother, Vida never forgot the scenes of misery and deprivation in the slum houses. By the early 1890s, Vida’s lifelong undertaking to improve the lives of women and children was set on course. Unlike Louisa, who married and bore children out of obligation and inevitability, Vida vowed she would never marry. To renounce marriage was a life‐altering decision, but the real turning point came for Vida in 1891 when she assisted her mother in collecting signatures for the Monster Petition for women’s suffrage. Victorian Premier James Munro announced that he would consider introducing a women’s franchise bill into parliament if the women of Victoria demonstrated their support for it. Suffragists collected 30,000 names in 6 weeks, making it the largest petition the government had ever received. As a 21 year old, when other girls of her class were busy attending balls and other ‘gay pursuits’, Vida had become a political activist. HENRIETTA DUGDALE. Henrietta Dugdale was born in London, and arrived in Melbourne in 1852. Henrietta always wore her hair short. She made her own clothes, grew vegetables, did carpentry and was an excellent chess player besides taking an active role in public affairs. From 1869 Mrs Dugdale was a pugnacious pioneer of the Woman’s Movement in Victoria. In 1884 she was president of the first Victorian Women's Suffrage Society. To conservative Melbournians, Henrietta had an extraordinary combination of beliefs. She was anti religion, anti monarchist and anti alcohol and laid responsibility for most of the troubles of the world at the feet of men. She was also pro education of the working classes and of course, suffrage for women. She had a sharp tongue and a biting wit that she deployed to great effect in the cause of votes for women. She believed that people could improve the disciplined control of human nature by reason and the co‐operation and equality of the sexes. These views were embodied in a novella, A Few Hours in a Far Off Age (Melbourne, 1883), which she dedicated to George Higinbotham 'in earnest admiration for the brave attacks made by that gentleman upon what has been, during all known ages, the greatest obstacle to human advancement, the most irrational, fiercest and most powerful of our world's monsters—the only devil—MALE IGNORANCE'. The emancipation of women was to solve the problems of her era and she exhorted women to throw off their chains, discard their apathy and learn self respect. The working classes were also to be liberated by temperance, education and the eight hour day. She stirred many women into positive action to achieve their rights and to gain access to the professions. She was a member of a Victorian group of radical, free‐thinking women who believed in temperance, birth control and 'applying the surgeon's knife to rapists'. Although to many at the times she seemed irrational and emotional, Henrietta really was a pioneer of the women’s movement in Victoria. CAROLINE DEXTER. Caroline Dexter (1819‐1884), feminist, was born in Nottingham, England. She was educated privately in England and in Paris became well versed in French culture and friendly with the female novelist, 'George Sand' (1804‐1876). In 1843 she married the painter, William Dexter. Despite success with the Royal Academy he decided to migrate to Australia and Caroline joined him a few years later. Caroline spirited writing is distinguished by its intensity towards the natives, exulting in the clear air, moonlight, colours of the wild flowers and shapes of majestic trees. Her maxims on how to manage a husband suggest a droll humour or increasing revolt against domestic fetters. Soon afterwards the Dexters separated. William returned to Sydney where he died in February 1860. Caroline moved to Melbourne still independent, dynamic and unconventional, startling society by opening an Institute of Hygiene and promulgating such novelties as divided skirts and abolition of corsets. In 1861 Caroline married William Lynch (b. Ireland 1839). Later he wrote: 'It was my wife's mind that attracted me, and from her I learned all that I know of art'. With his wealth Caroline became a patron of local writers and artists, holding her salon at Bombala, her fashionable home in Brighton. Caroline deserves to be remembered as a champion of women's rights and a friend to the Aborigines. Though little of her writing remains, she contributed richly to the cultural life of Melbourne by her wit, love of local colour and zest for arts and letters. MARY LEE. Mary Lee (1821‐1909), suffragist, was born in Ireland. In 1844 she married George Lee; they had four sons and three daughters. In 1879 Mary, widowed, sailed for Adelaide to nurse her sick son John Benjamin; after his death the next year she remained, Mary becoming devoted to 'dear Adelaide' which she could not in any case afford to leave. For the rest of her life Mary Lee, 'once the slip of an old red‐hot Tory stem', worked single‐mindedly for political and social reform. Her qualities of leadership, conviction and perseverance matched the social and political climate of late nineteenth‐century South Australia. Mary Lee played a major part in South Australian political history. She saw the suffrage as her 'crowning task' and, under (Sir) Edward Stirling's presidency, steered the campaign skillfully, combining her experience of political processes with her knowledge of women's social disabilities and of the value of publicity to awaken public interest and understanding. Unafraid of controversy, determined and sometimes abrasive, she publicised her commitment in the Register: 'If I die before it is achieved, like Mary Tudor and Calais, “Women's enfranchisement” shall be found engraved upon my heart'. The Constitution Amendment Act was finally passed on 18 December 1894, making South Australian women the first in Australia to gain the parliamentary vote, and on the same terms as men. Additionally, it gave them the right to postal votes and to stand for parliament; these were unique provisions anywhere. On her 75th birthday in 1896, at the Adelaide Town Hall Kingston handed her a purse of fifty sovereigns, publicly donated through the Mary Lee Testimonial Fund, with a 'handsomely bound and artistically engrossed' address which acknowledged that the achievement of women's suffrage 'is mainly due to your persistent advocacy and unwearied exertions'. As her financial resources dwindled, Lee asked (Sir) Josiah Symon to arrange the sale of her library. In 1902 Kirby initiated an appeal for her relief in the Express and Telegraph and the Australian Woman's Sphere, but with poor response. Kirby observed that many had benefited from her work, but her advanced views and outspokenness had not made her widely loved.