Recently I came across the following image of ‘Mrs Toorak’. It matched a quote perfectly in the story about how women argued over Conscription. During the 1916/17 referendums, emotions boiled over, and gaskets blown.
Mrs Toorak published in ‘Labor Call’ 23-November-1916.Courtesy National Library of Australia
From The Blood Vote: Mosman votes YES, others NO,
The white feather brigade, terrible recruiting sergeants of the war shaming men into enlisting, were hated by rebel women (socialists). When the conscription of female labour was proposed by a pro-war women’s group, Mrs Potts Point and Mrs Mosman, or at least the stereotypes they represented, became the focus of derision:
‘Direct Action’ Magazine, 1916
The spectacle of this idle, vicious, good for nothing clique, who cannot wash their own soiled underwear without having a woman of the working class to do it for them, discussing the problem of work, is enough to raise a howl of laughter in hell. If one could be sure they could be taken out of their mansions and motor-cars, placed in the factory, and compelled to house, clothe, and keep themselves on fifteen shillings a week which statistics show to be the average wage for female labour in Australia, industrial conscription might be justifiable.
It should be remembered that these referendums were literally about life and death. The loss of loved ones and economic survival. And more than half the population felt it was their right to choose whether or not to be forced by Prime Minister Billy Hughes and his followers, to die for a few extra feet of muddy ground in France.
Follow the story of a nation divided:
The Blood Vote: Divisions at the Front, and at Home.
The Blood Vote: Mosman votes, YES
The Blood Vote: NO to Conscription, by a nose.