Mary Malone's Lessons: A Narrative of Citizenship in Federation Australia

Abstract

Between 1886 and 1896 Mary Malone, a young Australian woman of Irish Catholic background, selected eighty‐two articles and fifty‐nine poems to preserve in an old school exercise book. This article argues that the clippings Mary assembled in her exercise book formed a narrative designed to secure a sense of social identity as the Australian colonies moved towards Federation in 1901. The exercise book reflects Mary's meditation on the stories of the colonial public sphere, a meditation that in turn faciliated her participation in community, work and as a citizen. Mary's exercise book reveals the mutual dependence of public and private realms of knowledge and experience, and the subjective assimilation of public discourse required to take a place in the social world.

Containing “Contamination”: Cardinal Moran andFin de SiècleAustralian National Identity, 1888-1911

“…Mary kept no record of her response to Moran's views, but it seemed that a real and dynamic exchange of ideas and values took place, confirming her faith; Mary became a nun in 1896. 65 Yet it is also the case that "[t]hroughout Moran's reign of nearly thirty years, a slow process of erosion continued to undermine religious belief." 66 Perhaps that is why in Moran's Federation Fair address, he railed against the "vain and pretentious science which declared war against religion"; he warned of "libertinism," as it manifested "under the name of Communism in France, Anarchism in Germany, or Nihilism in Russia."…”