Militant mothers: faith, power and identity in the mothers' Union in Sydney, 1896-1950

Abstract

Women's religious organisations can provide insights into the experiences of women usually hidden from historical view within marriage and motherhood. The Mothers' Union, the centrally organised association of Anglican women, was an unusual women's organisation because its chief function was not fund-raising but the "spiritual elevation" of mothers. Examination of its history in Sydney over the first half of the twentieth century reveals how "ordinary" mothers gained identity through membership - indirectly at the expense of other women - and reflects the ambivalent status of mothers in one twentieth-century Western city.