Many Stories of Mary Booth: Federation’s Forgotten Feminist

Mary Booth’s life reads like a compendium of feminist firsts. One of the first women to graduate and practice medicine and amongst the first to run for parliament, she championed infant welfare, shaped the founding rituals of Anzac, fought to protect Sydney’s historic and natural landscape, and established the first Women’s Club in Sydney.

This paper will reveal the many stories of her life, retracing her time abroad and her travels across Australia. It will situate ‘Mary’ in time and place, gauge her contribution to the political and social life of the early Commonwealth and assess the legacy she left to both nation and empire.

About the speakers:

Rae Frances and Bruce Scates are Emeritus Professors at the Australian National University. Prize-winning authors, they have published widely across a range of genres. Their collaborative biography, Mary Booth: The Woman who Shaped the Anzac Legend, has just been published by Melbourne University Press and pioneers new forms of life writing.