This week’s History Seminar (Wednesday, 11am) features Dr Maria Quirk, who will present her paper ‘Work Wives: The Shared Workplaces and Friendship Networks of Creative Women in Melbourne, Dublin and London, 1900-1950’.

Please note that this seminar will be held in room JB2.107 at Waurn Ponds

Abstract:

In the past fives years there has been a resurgence in the popularity of all-female professional clubs and co-working spaces. The success of community and professional spaces like One Roof in Melbourne, The Wing in New York and the Allbright Club in London reflect a long history of female-centred, communal work places, which have provided women with protection, economic opportunities and friendship networks since the eighteenth century. This seminar explores the ways women in the arts used shared workplaces, communal studios and collectives to further their professional ambitions in London, Dublin and Melbourne in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that these these places fostered female creative communities, solidarity and intimacy, creating deep and lasting professional and personal partnerships between women. The significance of these homosocial relationships to the personal and artistic development of women artists, musicians and writers is the focus of my seminar.

Bio:

Maria is an historian and curator of art and women’s history. She has taught British and world history at the University of Queensland, and undertaken research fellowships and projects at the State Library of Queensland and Queensland’s Supreme Court Library. Her research interests encompass art, design and literature post 1800, women’s and gender history, material culture, professional identity and cultural history.