AustLit

'I suspect that there are many questions that could be posed about the significance of the 1950s as context for Ward's conceptualisation of the 'noble bushman'. As others have noted, the idea of an 'Australian legend' percolated across the decade, and Ward was not the first to use the term. Max Crawford first coined the term 'Australian legend' in 1952, and in 1954 Vance Palmer published The Legend of the Nineties.3 Ward's great contribution was to articulate the mythology so movingly and to seek to ground it in nineteenthcentury Australian history. There are multiple aspects of the 1950s that could be explored as relevant from the post-1942 realignment of Australia's military alliance; the developing Cold War; the hegemony of political Conservatism here; the economic significance of the wool industry; and the quest to understand Australian culture in a post-war world. How did these aspects of the political context feed into Ward's thinking, beyond the perhaps obvious influence of his Marxism?'

Source: Article abstract.

'In "The Australian Legend", Russel Ward wrote that "the convict influence on Australian society was very much more important than has usually been supposed'" Here, he was evoking an understanding that the unusual and ignominious origins of Australian society had, for many years, plagued our history and our sense of ourselves, and this had been manifested in a tendency to ignore convict heritage, to excuse it, or to downplay its true and vital significance to the development of Australian identities and institutions.

'Even in 1958, as some of Australia's finest historians were producing or preparing scholarly accounts of Australia's convict past, and as popular anxieties surrounding our convict heritage were easing, Ward's foregrounding of the convict legacy was, in his own view at least, audacious and insubordinate. And yet, as with many aspects of his thesis, Ward's views on convict heritage were striking not so much because they were original or outrageous, but because they were cleverly articulated, and resonated powerfully with ideas and impressions that were long-held and deep-seated. Here, I examine how Ward interpreted Australia's convict heritage, tracing the lineage of his ideas to describe how he borrowed and differed from earlier writers. The discussion contributes to our understanding of how Australians have debated and dealt with the lingering legacies of the convict past, but also considers what Ward's treatment of this subject tells us about his own ideas and influences, and his place as an historian and radical-nationalist.'

Source: Article abstract.

'The first thing I did when I began work on the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) was to re-read "The Australian Legend". This closer reading helped me develop a research program for the AWU's early years, when it was composed exclusively of pastoral industry workers. By 1907 the AWU was Australia's largest and seemingly strongest union, yet in that year it registered with the newly formed Commonwealth Arbitration Court. I became so interested in this apparent contradiction that I abandoned my plan to write about the large general union of the mid-twentieth century. The Making of the AWU (1986) ended with the AWU's second shearing award. The Union was then 'made', both in the sense of being firmly established and in the sense of having acquired its characteristic adherence to arbitration. There are differences between the shearers of "The Australian Legend" and the shearers of "The Making of the AWU".'

Source: Article abstract.

'This article explores the conjunctions between bush mythologies and masculinity in late-nineteenth-century Australia, through a focus on sexuality. First, I examine Ward's attitudes towards the sexuality of the bushman, in particular his constructions of heterosexuality, homosexuality, homosociality and inter-race sexuality. It was Ward who more than any other scholar of his generation introduced us to the subtleties of the bushman's private world, and numerous historians of sexuality have since drawn freely on his work, including Dennis Altman, John Rickard and Clive Moore. While acknowledging Ward's legacy, this article also considers alternative ways of thinking about masculinity, the male body and sexuality in the 1890s.'

Source: Article abstract.

'For all its dated idealism, I want to suggest that the late nineteenth century as it appeared to Ward, and also to Palmer, still has its uses as a pivotal moment for the broad integrity of the Australian story. It was a time of apotheosis in more ways than Ward imagined. It was an era when collective self-understanding was refashioned at a new and more elevated level, when the particular became generalised and when partial experiences were drawn together to create an ideal. But this was very much a multifaceted process. The period has been examined from a number of angles, usually with the idea that it was one of high creativity, when foundations were laid for the construction of the Australian psyche, national identity and so forth (all of which might be seen as aspects of the 'Australian Settlement'). But also, and more profoundly, the period is vital for what it shows about the operation of intelligence and imagination on physical circumstances. Ward himself concentrated on the bush ethos and on rural workers, his so-called 'nomad tribe'. Others have written about the visual representation of the landscape. Prose and poetry have also been well examined. Technological inventions have been accounted for to some extent railways and telegraph lines, water engineering, agricultural machinery, meat refrigeration and so on, which taken altogether were certainly extraordinary. They too were inspired mainly by rural life and productivity.'

Source: Article abstract.

'A century on from Federation, the conventional frame for discussing the development of national consciousness prior to 1901 is the whole territory and people of what was to become the Australian Commonwealth. This continental mind-set owes much to Russel Ward, and the impact of his argument, first made half a century ago, about the nineteenth-century origins of Australian national identity. In this article I discuss the development of national feeling with a more restricted geographic focus, a phenomenon which in Ward's thesis, and since, has been too much overlooked.

'Ward's book, "The Australian Legend", told a powerful foundation story for the continental nation, one that was enthusiastically embraced at the time by other radical-nationalist historians and found an enduring resonance among the public at large.'

Source: Article abstract.

'Russel Ward's "The Australian Legend" showed how nineteenth century pastoral workers, and the Australian authors who wrote about them, forged an image of an ideal national character centred around the European experience of working in the outback. Egalitarianism rather than deference, practicality rather than book learning, and a somewhat contradictory emphasis on both 'mateship' and 'independence' were viewed by many writers as fundamentally Australian traits developed through adaptation to a harsh pastoral climate. I wish to explore a previously neglected aspect of the Legend, which Ward briefly mentioned but did not investigate: that is, the notion among many writers of the late nineteenth century that Queensland was the most 'Australian' colony. I examine how images of Queensland were used in early nationalist literature to accentuate aspects of both the Australian Legend and its near relation, the Pioneer Legend. I show how anti-Imperialist gestures by the Queensland Government in the 1880s were trumpeted as an example of nationalism for the other colonies to follow, and explain why Queensland's potential as a nationalist icon had declined by 1901. Finally, I briefly explore the contested relationship between Australia and Queensland, especially as seen by leading image-makers such as journalists and politicians.'

Source: Article abstract.

'For forty years "The Australian Legend" was the textual hub on which an increasingly repetitive discussion about Australian "national identity" revolved. Historians were key participants in this debate, their most prominent role being to contest or support Ward's claims about the political, economic and cultural significance of the nineteenth-century bushman's origins and ethos. These interventions advanced our understanding of both nineteenth-century history and the limitations of Ward's argument, and in doing so contributed to the book's displacement during the 1990s. Yet for a debate awash with claims about historical methodologies and sensibilities, surprisingly little attention was given to investigating the relationship between "The Australian Legend"'s argument and the historical context in which it was written.

'The core of the argument presented here is that the contemporary assimilationist context exerted a more powerful structural influence on Ward's argument than is usually acknowledged and more than he was probably aware. For the most part, evidence of this influence lies buried. However, it becomes far more visible when the book is read 'through' another classic contemporary text John O'Grady's "They're a Weird Mob" (1957), with its protagonist Nino Culotta. "The Australian Legend" and "They're a Weird Mob" shared a root-stock of beliefs about Australians, but each emphasised and extended different aspects of this common heritage. Aspects that remain underdeveloped in one text are often elaborated on in more detail in the other. As the discussion below indicates, the texts can be treated almost as companion pieces two halves of a conceptual whole that made possible the parallel universes inhabited by Russel Ward and Nino Culotta.'

Source: Article abstract.

'In his 1960 review of "The Australian Legend", Norman Harper identified one of the strengths of Russel Ward's examination of the Australian national character as its "indefatigable research into folk lore, folk songs and literature". The book's focus on speech, slang and folk expression was also welcomed by John Greenway who commended Ward's use of folksong as historical evidence of an "otherwise voiceless people", and hoped such analysis would "guide everything that will be done in this field in the future". I wish to explore the way in which speech and language is considered in "The Australian Legend" and then to broaden the discussion to examine the possible methodological uses of such social historical evidence. Greenway was clearly overly optimistic that Ward's speech focus would guide further research. In 1958, the use of speech and language as the basis for historical argument was uncharacteristic for historians, and some fifty years later it remains an under-explored aspect of historical research. In alerting us to the importance of speech and to the evolving Australian intonation, and to the sound of speech and the significance of the auditory to understanding an emerging culture, Ward's work made a significant intervention in exploring the phenomenon of the history of linguistic formation. In recent scholarship, the importance of the auditory and listening to sound, often electronically conveyed, has become pivotal to the ways in which historians have begun to discuss the culture of everyday life.'

Source: Article abstract.

'Russel Ward's "The Australian Legend" appeared in 1958 amidst a deepening Cold War in Australia and abroad. This article seeks not to analyse in depth the text itself, but rather by exploring its political and intellectual context and Ward's own personal biography to consider why Ward was inspired to write such a book at this particular juncture. His study reflected a desire to understand something of the history of Australia beyond its status as a possession of imperial Britain. Ward, however, was not alone in this period in attempting to realise this objective, and the publication of his book was part of a broader post-Second World War movement toward the research, writing and teaching of a specifically Australian history, a cultural project in which other radical-nationalist intellectuals such as Ian Turner, Geoffrey Serle, and Robin Gollan played a prominent part. This article explores the moment when, out of a combination of personal, political, cultural and intellectual impulses, a text emerged that would have a formative influence on much subsequent debate about Australian history, culture and identity. Indeed, the book's standing in the fifty years since first publication can obscure the particular life-experience and set of political and cultural circumstances that inspired it.'

Source: Article abstract.

'Despite all of this amendment, elaboration and attempted refutation, Russel Ward's book remains the supreme evocation and interpretation of its subject. Like a great whale savaged by sharks, the Legend swims on, accumulating scars, bits falling off here and there, occasionally changing its course a little, but seemingly immortal. Here, I wish to explore, in particular, two aspects of the Legend. First, its connection with Russel Ward's own personal background and life. And, secondly, its intimate, though often only assumed rather than stated, and now very unfashionable, connection with Britishness in its Anglo-Australian form.'

Source: Article abstract.

'In the late 1960s and 1970s, Russel Ward's "The Australian Legend" (1958) came under sustained critique from younger radical historians associated with the New Left. Following the most famous of these assaults by Humphrey McQueen around 1970, attacks on the Old Left in general and Ward in particular were nearly obligatory for young historians launching academic careers. Undertaken with varying degrees of vigour, they became a part of how to perform the role of radical historian in the 1970s, attesting to the powerful status Ward's Legend had achieved by this time.'

Source: Article abstract.

'Opening "The Australian Legend", Russel Ward reported that "[a]ccording to the myth the 'typical Australian' is a practical man a great improviser, ever willing 'to have a go' at anything. He tends to be a rolling stone, highly suspect if he should chance to gather much moss". Although Ward drew this version of the "nomad tribe" of improvisers from pastoral workers, he could have been writing about building and construction labourers who, moreover, shared the characteristics of drinking and gambling, mateship, independence and Irishness.

'This article unpicks four strands of improvising nomads in relation to building and construction labourers. First, their nomadism will be documented, showing how their switching between industries required relocation. Second, the labourers' movements gyrated around localities to which most attached themselves, for if many were nomadic, few were rootless. As ever, memories threaded together the flows across space and time. Third, the pursuit of jobs spurred labourers 'to have a go', an improvising which required mobility up and down the trades, giving a twist to equality and independence. Finally, the analysis moves past the folklorist and literary approaches by returning the nomadic improvisers to their place within the dynamics of wage-labour versus capital.'

Source: Article abstract.