AustLit

'For the ten years from 1902, when Australia’s suffrage campaigners won the vote for white women, the world looked to this trailblazing young democracy for inspiration.

'Clare Wright’s epic new history tells the story of that victory—and of Australia’s role in the subsequent international struggle—through the eyes of five remarkable players: the redoubtable Vida Goldstein, the flamboyant Nellie Martel, indomitable Dora Montefiore, daring Muriel Matters, and artist Dora Meeson Coates, who painted the controversial Australian banner carried in the British suffragettes’ monster marches of 1908 and 1911.

'Clare Wright’s Stella Prize-winning The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka retold one of Australia’s foundation stories from a fresh new perspective. With You Daughters of Freedom she brings to life a time when Australian democracy was the envy of the world—and the standard bearer for progress in a shining new century.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Stella Prize chats with Clare Wright, author of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.'

'If you key the terms 'women miners - Australia - portraits' into the National Library of Australia's catalogue, only one name will appear. The same name - again, the only one - will also surface if you search for the keywords 'women capitalists and financiers - Australia - portraits'. (Introduction)

'Ma chere Clare, 
'Cici est une lettre au moi qui n;a jamais ete.  This is a letter to the me that never was. Ceti est une lettre au moi que se tenait sous un riverbere a Paris en 1987. This is a letter to the me who stood under a street lamp in Paris in 1987. ' (Introduction)

'The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka is the most talked-about work of Australian history in recent years. Now here is Clare Wright's groundbreaking, award-winning study of the women who made the rebellion, in an abridged edition for teenage readers.

'Front and centre are the vibrant, adventurous personalities who were players in the rebellion: Sarah Hanmer, Ellen Young, Clara Seekamp, Anastasia Hayes and Catherine Bentley, among others.

'But just as important were the thousands of women who lived, worked and traded on the goldfields—women who have been all but invisible until now. Discovering them changes everything.' (Publication summary)

'The Eureka Stockade. The story is one of Australia’s foundation legends, but until now it has been told as though only half the participants were there.

'What if the hot-tempered, free-wheeling gold miners we learnt about in school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? And what if there were women and children inside the Eureka Stockade, defending their rights while defending themselves against a barrage of bullets?

'As Clare Wright reveals, there were thousands of women on the goldfields and many of them were active in pivotal roles. The stories of how they arrived there, why they came and how they sustained themselves make for fascinating reading in their own right. But it is in the rebellion itself that the unbiddable women of Ballarat come into their own.

'Groundbreaking, absorbing, crucially important—The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka is the uncut story of the day the Australian people found their voice.' (Publisher's blurb)